Can you name one manga that is as equally popular as One Piece, the highest selling manga of all time? Not easy. But what if I tell you that One Piece is being outsold by Blue Lock, a new uprising manga with over five million copies? It’s time for an American audience to start giving Blue Lock a shot.
Manga is a form of comic in Japan that has a variety of genres, spanning from romance, action, sci-fi, and more. Each genre has their own recognition, but sport mangas don’t get that much attention, until recently when Blue Lock became serialized. Eight years and 35 volumes in, Blue Lock surpassed One Piece and Jujutsu Kaisen, holding the title of best selling manga in 2023 and having over 8 million copies sold at that time. Blue Lock even took over many social media apps like TikTok and Instagram with edits of the plays and characters, and even made popular jokes, for instance, “Ref do something,” and “close enough, welcome back __.” Even now the manga is still growing and increasingly appearing in many soccer stadiums like LAFC and Anfield Stadium.
But that begs the question, how does Blue Lock gather new soccer fans and engage fans of the manga? Does the unrealism of soccer in the manga matter? Does the manga fuel interest in soccer?
For one, Blue Lock makes references to real life pro soccer players like Cristiano Ronaldo as Chris Prince, Mbappe as Loki, Harry Kane as Adam, etc, and soccer techniques like the hat trick that are used in practices and matches. Blue Lock also uses yellow and red cards, the benches and rotation, the 90 minute games, and sports leagues. Even though the manga doesn’t accurately execute them right like actually adding in the foul cards when there is one.
Coach Amalfitano, the coach of the girls varsity soccer team, agreed that soccer isn’t going to be that accurate at times “but there are times where soccer plays are fun and shows are going to add those fun and adrenaline parts into the show.” Blue Lock has a lot of adrenaline scenes, for example, chapter 125/season two shows a lot of adrenaline when Sae, a character in Blue Lock has to play against his brother on the other team in the U-20. Both of them are very skilled in soccer and they personally dueled against each other to release their overwhelming and dwelled emotions of each other on the soccer field.
Furthermore, the unrealism of soccer in Blue Lock also helps attract new fans from the fast paced and adrenaline parts of soccer in the manga. Senior Ariana Mohamed, a fan of the manga, said that she personally loves the unrealism because “the unrealism of the anime is enjoyable to fans and can motivate them to play soccer.” Throughout Blue Lock, there are many scenes where the unrealism is apparent. To illustrate, the training in Blue Lock is immensely unrealistic because of how the characters are put to play against each other to eventually make them release their full potential when they are in a dire situation. But just like the characters, these kinds of scenes are exciting and fast paced enough to get fans pumped up, and to motivate them to also unlock their full potential as the characters did. Additionally, another fan of the manga, agreed and added that “you can feel the excitement and see emotions and possibilities you don’t really see in real life.”
The unrealism in Blue Lock really helps fans understand the appeal real soccer fans get when they see their favorite soccer player or team score a point. But not only does Blue Lock make fans understand the appeal, but it also motivates them into soccer. Coach Amalfitano believes that “for new people it would motivate them because they’ll see the soccer plays and then want to try and get more interested.”
Junior Danna Moran explained how Blue Lock got her so attached to soccer again. When she was little she “used to watch a lot of soccer with her family.” After reading Blue Lock she “got more interested in both the manga and soccer, and started watching soccer matches to look at the techniques that the characters used and see how it would look in real life.”
Blue Lock also got me back into soccer. I used to be a goalkeeper when I played soccer for recess in elementary school before drifting away to other sports. I had watched another soccer anime, but it wasn’t entirely about soccer, and I wasn’t really that interested in getting back into soccer since I had started playing basketball with my brother more. It would be like that until last year, where I kept getting edits of Blue Lock and thought it was a really cool sports anime. I decided to give the manga a try and after reading Blue Lock, I started getting back into soccer and remembering how I used to play, even though I’m not even athletic.
Blue Lock needs to be read by more American audiences – it’s even a TV series streaming on Crunchyroll (and Netflix in some countries) to make it more accessible. Although the manga doesn’t accurately show soccer for what it is, it does give a good understanding of the rules and how it’s played while showing the excitement. The unrealisticness of soccer attracts people with the adrenaline as it gets the reader riled up from feeling the characters’ emotions. And that’s something worth diving into.