There are a lot of anime video games. This year alone, we’re seeing new games from Dragon Ball Z, One Punch Man, Sword Art Online, and a few other lower-profile releases. There are a ton of people who watch anime, and the numbers are growing in the West. Usually, crossing over an anime or manga series into the video game world is a pretty good move. Surprisingly, a new Bandai Namco game announced features an anime that rose to popularity in the 1980s: Captain Tsubasa.

Who is Captain Tsubasa?

In 1981, Yōichi Takahashi introduced Japan to the story of Captain Tsubasa. From ’81 until ’88 the series ran in the highly popular Weekly Shōnen Jump. The story revolves around the sport of soccer, and a young boy named Tsubasa Oozora. With dreams of one day playing in the World Cup for Japan, Tsubasa ends up playing in the U-17 team. Later, he moves to teams in Brazil and a number of other teams during the manga’s run.

Is This the First Captain Tsubasa Game?

We’ve actually seen Captain Tsubasa in video game form in the past, but it’s been a while. The last console game, Captain Tsubasa V, released on the SNES and other than a few freemium mobile games, the series hasn’t gotten a good game adaptation in decades. From the trailer, you can tell the game is still highly influenced by 80s anime, with its distinct animation style.

Plus, the trailer shows some pretty cool power-ups and moves you’ll be able to use to get ahead of the competition. Overall, for all the fighting games, it’s fun to see a sports anime get a high profile gaming release in 2020. Fingers crossed for a Haikyuu!! game, but I’ll take this for now. CAPTAIN TSUBASA: Rise of New Champions is set to release some time in 2020 for PS4, Switch, and PC.

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