Put on your cleats because Ao Ashi returns to Mangetsu for a sixth volume! For the hope Ashito, the stakes keep rising with each volume.
A Champions League
Ashito is now a member of Japan's best training club, Tokyo City Esperion. After gruelling detection tests, he was integrated into the B team. However, he still struggles to play collectively. In the first half against Seikyo High School, he did not understand Asari and Kuroda's technique and thought he could score alone. This misunderstanding and Ashito's stubbornness led to a humiliating 0-3 score at half-time. At the beginning of this sixth volume, a discussion within the team made it possible to find a unity and the Tokyo City Esperion has just scored. Even if the players have found the key to break the compact opponent's defense, they only have 15 minutes left to catch up. Ao Ashi scored the double. On the one hand, it presents a varied and rich gallery of players. We find them at the very beginning on the diagram of the team and then the individual portraits. The attacking trio no longer needs to talk to each other and anticipates each other's actions. More generally, a team is born overcoming the tensions between the club's alumni attached to their prerogative and the young arrivals thirsty for conquest and recognition. On the other hand, it highlights an endearing young hero, Ashito. One can only be touched by this genius of instinct. Thirsty for victory, he wants to defend his honor as a goalscorer but he has just learned to pass the ball if it benefits the group. In Ao Ashi, the technical elements are not always explained by adult coaches but by fans of the same age as the players. Sketches explain the importance of the trio and zooms on a hand gesture show the importance of signs. This avoids verbiage that is inaccessible to neophytes.
A decisive victory
Maybe you are not subscribed to the grandstand of a Ligue 1 club or a live results addict on your mobile? Rest assured, you are not the only one and yet Ao Ashi could totally seduce you.This series is scripted and drawn by Yûgo Kobayashi who is certainly precise on the world of football but Ao Ashi aims higher. It is a successful blend of shônen and seinen. We are moved to see this child progress by learning solidarity. Ashito is no longer the child centered on his person but an adult in construction opening up to others. Coming from a small town, Ashito taught himself. Now he understands that discussions between players are a key to understanding football. Yûgo Kobayashi transforms certain phases of the game into combat. We must act together and make discreet signs but without talking so as not to reveal anything to the other team. We are even sometimes close to the mystical revelation when the young hero manages to anticipate the movements of the opposing defense. He obtains the gift of the eagle eye as if he could transfer his mind into a bird. However, he notes the enormous efforts he still has to make to reach such a level. Kobayashi knows how to transcribe these different moments in the manga. By multiplying the strokes and deforming the bodies, he transcribes the speed of the matches. Through a cloud of energy, he shows that Ashita has acquired a new tactical sense. However, he also knows how to give tension to the match by combining the main action, the reactions of teammates and the public. With this sixth volume, Ao Ashi becomes an increasingly collective series. The reader is always moved by the evolutions of Ashito but we witness the birth of a group and a sense of collectiveness. The finale is in this sense for Ashito as humiliating as a small bridge. You can find other chronicles on Mangetsu and on the last volume of Chiruran from the same publisher
