As the title states.
I could see there are almost no superpowers on this one, but are the moves, plays, and strategies depicted in this manga realistic enough that professional teams perform them on a regular basis? Are some of its highlight plays based on real life highlights from the World Cup and other popular international leagues?
I just picked it up because I was told it could make a good women's sports anime adaptation that can compete with the likes of Kuroko no Basket and Haikyuu in popularity. But what really sold me into Mai Ball is the fact that it came out just a year after Japan won the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2011 and two years after they won the Under-17 edition in 2014. In addition, Japan also made back-to-back Finals appearances in both editions of the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The senior women's team lost to the US, while the U-17 team lost to North Korea.
Japanese female youth players IRL thankfully look like your average Japanese girl, with quite a few outliers who are both pretty and skilled (2-time U-17 FW Fuka Nagano won the Golden Ball award this year, and she's actually quite the cutie off the pitch, and so is her former teammate from the 2014 team if you REALLY stretch your definition of cute, GK Mamiko Matsumoto, who won the Golden Glove award that year) so I think it is quite easy to market an anime adaptation of Mai Ball to both otakus and sports fans (anime or RL) alike.
Maybe they can pitch it like, "Look, we have cute girls playing football, but we're not doing this because we want to shit on the beautiful game; I mean, you know Japanese women are the best, right? Guess what, they are also crazy good at football IN REAL LIFE, not just in manga and anime; they're even better at it than the men if you take current World Rankings into account. So only cute girls playing football, but no superpowers, just pure mad skillz!" Japan is #8 in the FIFA Women's World Rankings, but is only #45 in the FIFA Men's World Rankings. There is considerable difference in the level of competition between the two gender divisions, but still.
Yet who knows? Maybe they can use an anime adaptation of Mai Ball to advertise the Japanese national soccer teams for the 2018 FIFA Men's World Cup, the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Thanks in advance. |