Japan’s first manga about Vietnamese football launched

Aoyagi Masayuki, Publishing Director of Kadokawa JSC, gives an interview to Vietnam News Agency. (Photo: VNA)

Tokyo (VNA) – “Son, Goal!“, the first manga series about Vietnamese football produced by a Japanese publisher, made debut in Vietnam on July 28.

The series is produced and published by Kadokawa JSC of Japan in coordination with the Kim Dong Publishing House of Vietnam.

Nguyen Vo Huyen Duong, a representative of the Vietnam Football Federation in Japan and also the one connecting Kadokawa with Kim Dong, said the Vietnamese version of this manga will be released on July 29 while the Japanese version is expected to be available in early 2023.

“Son, Goal!”, illustrated by Baba Tamio, is about the journey of a boy named Son whose father is a Brazilian and mother, a Vietnamese. His family moved to Vietnam when his father took up a job in the country. Here, Son met and made friends with a group of teenagers, and helped their football team become stronger.  

The cover of the first volume of "Son, Goal!" (Photo: VNA)

Aoyagi Masayuki, Publishing Director of Kadokawa, told Vietnam News Agency that his company took part in a festival of Japanese manga publishers in Asia in 2018. Coming to Vietnam, they realised that Japanese manga is popular among local children. At that time, though Vietnam did not win an Asian youth football tournament (the AFC U23 Asian Cup), people still streamed down the streets to congratulate the team.

Seeing that happiness and enthusiasm, the company came to the idea of creating this manga series with the hope of inspiring the football love among the Vietnamese youth, he noted, expressing his hope that the manga will be welcomed by not only children but also adults as its content suits readers of all ages.

Kadokawa plans to produce more manga series for the Vietnamese market in the future and also wants to try the novel and animation areas, he added./.

VNA