To the world stage! Glory and ambition lie ahead of young Ashito Aoi as he takes the first steps to becoming a pro soccer player. But after being catapulted into a new harsh environment, can he hold onto his spider's thread and climb his way to the top?

A fateful encounter on Futami Beach in Ehime, Japan, leads to the meeting between Fukuda Tatsuya, once a rising star and a player on the cusp of greatness whose career ended all too soon, and Aoi Ashito, a brash and hot-headed striker who loves soccer despite his selfish tendencies.

After being selected to try out for the Tokyo City Esperion Youth Club, Ashito Aoi stakes his future on the chance to create a better life for his single mother and older brother, all while realizing his own shortcomings and dealing with the highly competitive world of J-Youth Soccer.

Aoashi has story and art by Kobayashi Yuugo. English translation is done by Motoko Tamamura and Jonathan Clemants, and lettering by Cale Ward. Published by Titan (May 12, 2026).

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Maybe it's because I never played team sports (cross country doesn't quite count), but I am always baffled by the cruelty of adult coaches in sports manga. Almost all of them seem like psychopaths who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near children, and Aoashi's first omnibus has at least two, plus an older player who may actually be dangerously deranged. On one level, I can understand the need to write characters like this to give the leads someone to fight against, encouraging them to grow. But on the other hand, I can't turn off my mandated reporter brain and spent a large part of this book wanting to jump into the book to get those kids out.

In a way, that says something about how well the “adults/older players as heels” trope works. Protagonist Ashito Aoi needs that sort of wall to run up against, because talented as he may be, he's spent his soccer career playing as the whale in a puddle. He's built himself and his team up based on very little knowledge, and he's at a distinct disadvantage when compared with the other players his age. And he doesn't even know how much he doesn't know, so forging an uphill battle for him that he can't just yell his way out of is important. If Ashito is going to grow as a character and a player, he needs adversity, and these three collected volumes provide that in spades.

Kobayashi's art is messy and dynamic, which works for a story and characters who are equally so. It can get overwhelming in both plot and art, and there are a ton of named characters, not all of whom are important, although you can usually tell based on the character introductions that are part of volumes two and three, if you don't mind skipping ahead. Ashito is, for my money, the best part of the story – he's brash and loud, but he's also got a good head on his shoulders when he remembers to use it, and his friendliness with other players makes him stand out in the genre. He's competitive, yes, but despite his playstyle, he knows he's part of a team and needs to act like it. And he's only fifteen; he's got time to figure it out. My biggest nitpick is that Hana is primarily used for fan service when she's clearly much more than that. It starts to even out as the book goes on, splash pages notwithstanding, but she deserves better, regardless of intended audience.

Erica Friedman
Rating:

When you open a book like Aoashi, you know exactly what to expect. A relatable underdog, with passion and an annoying personality, opponents that don't hesitate to cheat and undermine him, a coach who makes him stronger by forcing him to do impossible things, and the blood, sweat, and tears of competition and teamwork. This is exactly what you get in this story about poor, plucky, arrogant-but-likable Aoi Ashito, who sets off on his journey to become a professional soccer player. You could win bets on the predictability of the story beats here, but it's an entertaining manga anyway. The manga also helpfully provides a single female character as a passive love interest, exactly as one might expect.

The most fun thing in sports manga like these is when the creator has to come up with clever thinking within the game, and to his credit, Kobayashi is very generous with those moments. Aoi works hard at being able to verbalize what he is thinking about, so there's little magic thinking going on here, just good teamwork and solid play. If you like sports manga, you'll definitely enjoy this one.

Kevin Cormack
Rating:

As a kid, I think I was probably something of a disappointment to my father, at least in terms of his sporting ambitions for me. His main interests had always been golf and football (soccer, not the ridiculous hand-egg game Americans insist on misnaming as “football”), and I was dragged around the golf course from toddler age onwards (with my own wooden-shaft golf clubs handmade by my carpenter grandad) and forced to endure endless sessions of football training in the cold rain and howling winds of the Scottish highlands. As soon as I was old enough to know my own mind, I told my dad, “I hate this. I'd rather sit inside and read a book.”

My enmity towards team sports, and in fact most sports in general, endures to this day. I can't think of much worse than sitting down to watch 22 full-grown sweaty men running around a field chasing after an inflated bladder for ninety minutes. I realize that I'm an aberration amongst my countrymen in that this year's World Cup was such an irrelevance to my life, I kept forgetting it was happening.

So I'm absolutely not the target demographic for Aoashi, a manga about a boy who actually lovesfootball, and dreams of playing it to a professional, international level. Yet that often doesn't matter with anime and manga. I loved the first animated series of Bartender, despite being teetotal (I know, I'm Scottish, I'm sorry), and I really enjoy Smoking Behind the Supermarket with You, despite a totally rational hatred of cigarettes. If a manga is well-written enough, with engaging enough characters, then it doesn't matter what the central focus is, and that's certainly the case with Aoashi, which fully held my rapt attention throughout its entire first three-volumes-in-one omnibus edition, over 600 pages about football.

Protagonist Ashito Ao starts as a deeply annoying kid. He's cocky and self-assured, and although he's an asset to his junior high's football team, his style of play is overwhelmingly selfish. His hot-headed personality leads him to make poor decisions that reflect poorly on both him and his team. Yet former international football star Fukuda Tatsuya spots something brilliant sparkling within Ashito's soul and invites him to try out for the Tokyo City Esperion Youth Club, a prestigious team that could grant him access to the professional leagues.

Tatsuya doesn't intend to give Ashito an easy ride, though, as his calculating mind sets up both opportunities and obstacles for Ashito to overcome. Those obstacles include the other hopefuls competing for extremely limited slots. Yet Ashito doesn't let rivalry fuel negativity and disdain for his fellow players, unlike certain others he meets. His strength of spirit and drive to succeed, without dragging others down, is inspiring. Despite not caring one jot about watching live football matches, I still find the matches drawn here extremely compelling, and the tactics and techniques employed by the players and managers have the ring of truth. This isn't a sports manga so exaggerated that it seems like fantasy. Surprising even myself, I'm considering keeping up with this series as Titan releases further omnibus volumes in the future.