In the football series Ao Ashi, Ashito struggles to understand the basics of his playground in the back and especially dreams only of returning to the front. How to prove yourself to leave? Can a former friend of the national team turned hateful rival provide him with this challenge or will he push it even further?
Recap of the last match
In volume seven of Ao Ashi, coach Fukuda upset the reader's understanding of the series. When he spotted him, he understood Ashito's limitations in attack. So he had never recruited him to be at the front. However, fearing a refusal, he brought him in and let him play wherever he wanted. Now he has explained his limitations to him and ordered him to be in defence at left-back. In secret, he also wants to give him a complete training so that he becomes a center forward, the real place that would suit him to reach the first division. Ashito had a hard time accepting it, but now he has a dual purpose. On the one hand, he wants to demonstrate his competence in defense and on the other hand, once this talent is recognized, he wants to become essential to return to an offensive position. Alas, his beginnings are calamitous because he can not slip. However, he will have to redouble his efforts as relegation is close and a rejected former friend seeks revenge.
Watch the game from the back
Indeed, Ashito understands the theory – follow the attack that arrives and come to consolidate the positions – but he struggles to implement it. He does not look at the opponent enough and does not anticipate. Yet supported by the seasoned defender Hana, he was pitiful and is partly responsible for the defeat of his team during a training. The assistant coach takes note and does not even select him as a substitute. However, Ashito does not let himself be defeated. He decides to watch intensely the matches of his idol Kuribayashi to understand the technical gesture of taking information. For the past month, he has been extending his training sessions daily with exercises to understand this rotation of the head to have an overview of the field. His concentration and constant rigor impressed the rest of the group. In volume eight of Ao Ashi edited by Mangetsu, the reader understands that the B team of Esperion is no better off than Ashito. In one month, they have just chained four defeats in one month and fall into the relegation zone. Ao Ashi becomes here a more collective volume because we discover the different reactions of the players of Esperion in the face of the defeat in particular the crisis that the center forward Soichirô Tachibana is going through. By multiplying the old squares, the cartoonist Yûgo Kobayashi shows us the stress of a player unable to score. Ashito and Eisaku also reunited with former players who had crossed paths during the selections. One of them, Kaneda, could not stand his exclusion from Esperion and wants revenge by crushing the team in the next game. If you don't know anything about football, writer and cartoonist Yûgo Kobayashi always takes the reader by the hand. It adds diagrams to understand the purpose of certain exercises. Nevertheless, Ao Ashi is not a football manga about technique but a shônen transmitting values. The sense of the collective is always at the center. On the one hand, each player does the maximum more for the group than to shine. On the other hand, team B is not only fighting for it but to support team A: if it goes down to the lower league, team A would lack replacement of good levels? Everyone must give their best so as not to be dishonoured. Soichirô Tachibana refuses to return without his neighborhood until he has become an excellent player at Esperion This eighth volume of Ao Ashi is again full of twists and turns. From a personal point of view, Ashito has understood a new part of the game and is progressing in defense. In addition, a final twist offers him a new opportunity. Looking forward to the last day of the championship in volume nine to come. You can find on these links the chronicles of the previous volumes: the six and the seven.
