Captain Tsubasa is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yoichi Takahashi.

The Captain Tsubasa manga series started serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shounen Jump comic book magazine between 1981 and 1988, with the chapters collected into 37 volumes.

Captain Tsubasa and its sequels have over 80 million copies in circulation, worldwide. This manga has become very popular in Japan, due to its association with football.

The story begins with a 1 year old, Oozora Tsubasa, playing with a football, while his parents are talking about his father leaving on a one year voyage.

Suddenly, they notice that Tsubasa is missing and in panic, look for him. Their heart stops, as they see Tsubasa playing in the middle of the road, with a car speeding towards him. It is too late to run after him.

Ten years later, an 11 year old Tsubasa, along with his family, are shifting into a new town. As Tsubasa leaves the house with his football, his mother reminisces about that accident, miraculously, the ball acted as a cushion for him and he was unharmed.

As he runs along, he notices two school teams, Nankatsu and Shuutetsu, fighting for the football field. The Shuutetsu representative, Wakabayashi, challenges the other representative to a penalty match, with the rule being that if he can manage to stop all the balls thrown at the Goal post, Nankatsu will leave the field forever.

They begin, and Wakabayashi easily defeats the opposing team by blocking all three attempts at the goal. The Nankatsu team leaves, angrily.

Tsubasa sees all this and decides to have a match with Wakabayashi. He asks a kid to show him his house. The kid takes him to a hill and points at Wakabayashi’s house, a big mansion. Tsubasa places the ball near the cliff, takes a few steps back, runs toward the ball, kicking it in Wakabayashi’s direction.

The ball lands directly in Wakabayashi’s hands. He is shocked when he realizes that the ball came from the hill. He sees a text written on the ball “ Location: football court of the town- Tsubasa”.

Wakabayashi meets him at the location. To confirm that he’s the boy who kicked the ball from the hill, Wakabayashi shoots a ball towards him, which Tsubasa easily blocks and kicks it right back.

What adventures await our football prodigy?