Captain Tsubasa. I reconnected with this series, thanks to youtube. It's a Japanese Anime series from the 1980s, which appeared both in Manga comics and as TV shows from the 1980s through today. As a kid in France I discovered the show by chance, and through it improved my French, where it was called Oliver et Tom.

The opening lines of the first episode caught my attention as I re-watched it for the first time recently. Tsubasa is in the process of moving to a new town in order to develop his football skills an become a professional. He is looking at a picture of the Italian national team celebrating their victory in the 1982 World Cup in Spain. Over the radio we here a voice announcing the Italian victory, and then speculating when Japan will be there, the best football nation in the world. The radio voice concludes that it should happen soon.

This scene is clearly setting Tsubasa up to be the hope for Japan, but more interestingly, it is also instilling a sense of National honor in viewers of the show (mostly young boys, I assume). This suggests that Football was one way for Japan to (re)claim national standing (which had been a touchy subject since WWII), and even that there was an imperative to do so. As such, football can be one way to promote national glory, to inspire the young to be proud of Japan, and maintain a healthy youth population.

There are also other indicators of cultural ideology present in the show, such as the housewife mother of Tsubasa, who only seems to exist in order to provide a home in which Tsubasa can become the hope of Japanese football. She spends her days cleaning, worrying, and providing, but never working.

Spam alot... and Victory

Who ever the wanker is who spamed my posts: piss off, as Michael Caine once said...

Watched Victory (1981) last night. Great film, with some excellent soccer shots, and a nice context for the thesis. The prisoners go up against the German National team during WWII, subversively trying beat the hegemon at its own game. They travel to the Stade Colombes in Paris (the venue for the 1938 World Cup final.

The prisoners include real players like Booby Moore and Pele. The plan is for the Resistance to spring them out the dressing room at half time. Everything is going according to plan, and the Germans are winning 3:1 at the half. But the players are so convinced they can win that they go back out and play the second half. As Pele said to Stallone in the escape tunnel: "this game means everything to us. You know that." In the end .... well that would give it away. You should watch it.

Anyway, I thought this quote would be relevant to the thesis. It is from an exchange between John Colby (Michael Caine) and Karl von Steiner (Max von Sydow):

VS: If nations could settle there differences on the football pitch. Wouldn't that be a challenge! How would you like to play a game against a team from the Wermacht? A team from the Army Base near by?

C: What for? Settle the War?

VS: Unfortunatly not. Lets say, for morale?

C: Yours or ours?

VS: For both. Life in this place must be very boring.