Luke Herr: I'm Chris Farrell from the All Things Good and Nerdy podcast, a wacky weekend morning show, part of the Gun and Geek Network. Just like the show you're checking out right now. Shows on the network are individually owned, and the opinions expressed may not reflect others. Find other awesome, geeky shows over@Gunnageeknetwork.com.
Chris Osborne: And welcome to play comics, where once again, we are here looking at a video game based on a comic property and how it represents that source material. And today we're taking things in a little bit of a weird direction, partly because there's a game that I missed from a long, long time ago, back in the NES days, and partly because over here in America, it wasn't really based on the comic. But we're looking at it anyway because we can do that. And today, to help me with all of this craziness, I am here with Doctor Soccer himself, Luke Hare. And, Luke, how are you today?
Luke Herr: You might say that I am here for a slam dunk. That's a basketball reference. Basketball is a sport that is played internationally.
Chris Osborne: It's also a good anime.
Luke Herr: I haven't watched it. I am Luke hare. He him, sometimes they them, and I'm usually online as Coltrade Koltreg. And if you recognize this voice and you're saying, wait, is he going to summarize a long comic in a way that is going to be impressive but also maybe a bit depressing. Yeah, I saw those comments that you laughed at. It's like, oh, you hear that this guy is coming on to the podcast again. He's talking about something that you love. You're like, oh, I'm going to skip that one. Well, I'm going to try and turn it around. I got a bit of song. I got a bit of dance. I got a bit of incoherent ramble. I got a bit of COVID So, you know, I'm rocking that quad vector.
Chris Osborne: Well, in case anybody either didn't look at the show art before starting to listen to this or didn't catch the hint that I threw out there. We are looking at Captain Tsubasa, or as it is known in the north american release, the wonderfully creative name of Tecmo cup soccer game. And Luke, before we get explaining anything with what's going on here or any of the comic history, I just have to know, after all of this, are you still going to be my friend?
Luke Herr: I mean, you're not soccer, you're not the soccer ball, but yeah, you're going to be my friend. Anita, why why? Because we are. We are on the cruise. We are. Was that, was that what you were expecting? Was that what you were walking into?
Chris Osborne: No, but I'll take it.
Luke Herr: Yeah, because for those of you who aren't watching the extended play comics crossover universe, I had you on an episode of my show, Domance dawn, where we talked about Simpsons in one piece, and now you are further along watching one piece than we are in the show.
Chris Osborne: It's amazing how that happens because you were really, really far by the time I came on the show, and now I passed you because my wife really loves it. And every day I get home and she says, hey, let's watch pirates.
Luke Herr: I mean, that's great. It's also nice that there are over a thousand episodes of the show, but, like, saying that we had Jan at like 200 or so episodes, and actually, I have my reference doc right here because I'm that sort of weird freak. We had you in the past. You came in on Drum island. That wasn't even like a hundred episodes into the show.
Chris Osborne: There was still Princess Vivi, and I miss her so much.
Luke Herr: She'll get back to her girlfriend soon enough. Well, not soon enough, but we all want her to get back to her girlfriend wife. One piece. It's long.
Chris Osborne: Eventually we're gonna talk about one piece, but not today, because today, Luke, we just have to know here what is up with Captain Tsubasa.
Luke Herr: Captain Tsubasa is a manga that was created by Yoichi Takahashi, which ran at weekly Shonen jump starting in March 31, 1981. It focuses on Tsubasa Uzora, who enjoys playing association football or soccer. And see, this is where I thought you were going to go, because I am going to say soccer. And, you know, there's people who are like, oh, well, it's not really soccer, it's called football. And especially the English, those in the United Kingdom. And also there's. I'm just going to say that for now, and you can send all of your angry emails to Chris. Football and rugby were both variants of the same game that was called football. In 1863, the football association formed whose standardized rules for what would become soccer. And in 1871, the Rugby football Union did the same. And so because of a popular fad at Oxford, at Oxford and Cambridge at the time, they added er to the ends of the name. So there was rugger and assacur, like association with an ER at the end. But Assacre sounds awful, so it got shortened to soccer. And so soccer is actually the common term for football until the 1980s when there was a big wave of anti americanism that started to grow. And that's when they started to get pissy about, well, it's football now, Yanks. And meanwhile, american style football is technically called gridiron football. But the Americans never called it gridiron football. You just sometimes hear, yeah, it's time to eat on the gridiron. And that's your soccer fact. Did you learn about soccer for me now?
Chris Osborne: I actually did a little bit.
Luke Herr: See, I came in this time with interesting knowledge. That isn't just going to be me reading off a long document. I mean, I made a longer document. I made like an eight page, size nine font document summarizing everything, but reading all of that, not even summarizing it, but just saying everything, that would not be a good read. So the main idea of Captain Tsubasa is the ball is my friend, which is a very literal thing because Tsubasa, when he was a child, was saved by a soccer ball. Like, literally a soccer ball prevented him from getting hit by a truck. Which is funny because it's one of those things that they kind of adapt into the japanese opening of the game, as opposed to whatever's going on in tecmo soccer play game. Tecmo soccer play game so the main story starts with Tsubasa moving to Nankatsu, which is not a real city where he makes friends playing soccer, especially because he is good at it. Wakabayashi, who is a private school student, and his team took over the public soccer field for practice. So Tsupas challenges him for the use of there. Tsubasa is spied on by Roberto Hango, who plays for the brazilian national team. During that time, Tsubasa almost scores against Waka Bayashi, who is an impenetrable goalie. Roberto offers to train Tsubasa because he knows Tsubasa's father. He then moves in with Tsubasa's family, while Tsubasa's father, who is a ship captain, is out at sea for months on end. And Roberto helps to train the local team, who then start winning at soccer because they learn to work together. And here's what I like to call a speculation corner, because I'm pretty sure that Roberto and Tsubasa's mom were having an affair the entire time. Like, the vibes are there. And I don't even think that it's like Tsubasa's dad is unaware or would have an issue with this. I think it is more of like a consensual third person entering into the relationship. Because one of Tsubasa's dad's things is he is a captain of a shipping boat. He is away for long months. I think that he is aware that his wife has needs and is more than happy to be like, oh, yeah, you want to hook up with this hot soccer player? Yeah, I trust this guy. We met on my ship somehow. I am good with you doing this. Also, thank you for training my son in soccer.
Chris Osborne: That whole thing just seems crazy to me, mostly because I can totally see it happening.
Luke Herr: Okay, that's good. I was worried that I was just kind of crazy there for a moment, but, like, the vibes are just so weird and commonplace. And probably in, like, the 1980s when this was coming out, you could go to a manga fair and find a bunch of, like, doujinshi where it is Tsupasa's mom and Roberto just hooking up.
Chris Osborne: I mean, you gotta think that Tsubasa's dad was taking the other side of that. And, yeah, I'm gonna hook up with some people while I'm gone, so if you want to hook up with somebody while I'm gone, cool. How about it?
Luke Herr: Whoa, whoa. You don't think that. See, I feel like Tsubasa's mom has a lot more sexual needs than his dad had. Like, I don't see his dad as a person who really wants to have sex unless it is too procreate. Like, we literally get a scene later on where he's like, well, hey, what do you think about having another kid? Since our son is going off somewhere? She's like, yeah, sure. I think that his father may just not really be horny. He is a non horny sea captain. And I know in today's PC culture, that's not expected and that's not appropriate, but I think we need to have non horny sea captain representation.
Chris Osborne: I just think that Tsubasa's dad completely seriously sees himself as married to Tsubasa's mom, but also married to the sea. And if he's allowed to have a second wife, then his wife is allowed to hook up with people while he's gone. And also, is Tsubasa even really his kid? Because how else is Tsubasa that good at soccer?
Luke Herr: Oh, he hatched from a soccer egg. That is my. That is another theory that I have. But I guess if your life, your love, and your lady is the sea, does that just mean that you, like, jack off into the ocean to, like, hook up with the sea? Or is it more of, like, a emotional thing? I like that we've kind of gone off the rails already. Like you said you were going to be ready for whatever I brought.
Chris Osborne: And anyways, for a topic like this, why else do you think I would bring you on?
Luke Herr: Because I'm willing to read 114 chapters of Captain Tsupasa. And some of those chapters are like 60 to 80 pages. Like you know me. You say, hey, Luke, have you ever read this? And I'll be like, no, I haven't, but I'll read it. And then I am not intimidated by numbers. I will do the work. If you run a website that's willing to pay me to read through something and summarize it for you, I will cut out the sexual fan theory. The sexual fan theories. But I can produce that for you. I did all of Captain Tsubasa in about three weeks while also getting over Covid.
Chris Osborne: The world truly does not deserve you.
Luke Herr: Yeah, but the world is already a broken and ruined place. We are simply picking through the ashes before we recognize the destruction that surrounds all of us. So Tsubasa's team eventually plays Wakabayashi's team, and the game ends in a draw. Along the way, they meet Misaki, who is another soccer prodigy who moves around a lot with his dad, who is a painter. And Masaki ends up subbing in for the team in overtime since he is now enrolled at Tsubasa school. Together, they form a golden kambi. They tie again, and Wakabayashi respects Tsubasa now. Also, both of us read this in a fan, in a fan translation, and there were some points where it's like, yeah, I don't know if this is what the official term would be, because apparently, despite being an incredibly popular Shonen jump series, I couldn't find any sign of a shonen jump currently selling it. They have the anime, but that's not the manga. So shonen jump. If you need a person who's going to translate all of this for you and really just try and do more localization. I'm not a good person because I would probably break out into every meeting being like, hey, so can we call up the author and put in a whole bunch of stuff about this mom hooking up? Like, I know that eventually it moves out of weekly show and jump into the more teen oriented one, and I feel like we could probably get away with that there. But, uh, yeah, that's not conducive. So the schools then join a divisional league tournament, and Roberto decides that if Nankatsu wins the divisional league tournament and then becomes national champions of Japan, he will take Tsubasa to learn soccer in Brazil, where. Which both of his parents are fine with. And Roberto frequently raises concerns with this. It's like, so you want me to take your kid across the globe to play soccer. Neither of you are going to move with him. I am essentially a stranger, or, like, I have lived with you, but that is a lot of emotional development, and, like, your child's development, he is a young team that you are putting on me for some reason. Like what? It's just a very strange thing.
Chris Osborne: It's almost like they never saw what happened when the Simpsons went to Brazil.
Luke Herr: Yeah, because Simpsons didn't exist at this point.
Chris Osborne: Oh, that's a good point.
Luke Herr: Yeah. So we then get a series of matches where each team has a lead player with some sort of special move, and they ultimately lose to Tsubasa's team, except for the first match, which includes Hyuga, who is the Vegeta, or the Seto kaiba of the series, who also plays on his team with his short friend Sawada. Hyuga's team wins the first match of the tournament against Nankatsu because Hyuga is motivated to try and win a soccer scholarship because his family is poor. And Hygge's team essentially wins almost explicitly because Wakabayashi wasn't playing as goalie for Tsubas team in that first match. It's one of those things where it's like, well, we kind of need a reason where they can come back because Hyuga is also probably going to be working really hard the entire time. And so after that match, it's like, okay, we've got to get back together. They win a few matches that we don't even see, and then we do get our first, like, weird match of the weeks, even though they last for like, six chapters or so. There's the Tachibana twins, who do weird moves that I'm pretty sure are illegal. Like, they just jump off of each other. There is misogy, who would be Japan's best soccer player, except he has a heart condition, so sometimes he just has to not play. Hyuga, meanwhile, trained to get better, and his team got a new goalie, Wakashimazu, who uses martial arts to defend the goal. And in the final match against Hyuga's team, Wakabayashi joins Tsubasa's team as the goalkeeper, and Tsubasa and the team win the tournament. But then in a complete heel turn, Roberto decides that he is going to leave because the main reason he came to Japan in the first place was he is going blind, and he wanted to see if he could get surgery to get that fix, but not going to fix anything. He just has to not play soccer and hit his head frequently. And he's kind of worried that he's not going to be good enough to teach Tsubasa. So he vanishes, abandoning this small child, leaving him a book of advice. And it's just like, Roberto, you have these concerns. You are a full grown ass adult man who has been sleeping with his mother, and, like, you gotta use your words, dude. I understand soccer is your sport, but you could probably, like, kick the ball to Tsubasa in a way that he would understand how you're feeling. Roberto's an asshole.
Chris Osborne: In Roberto's defense, though, if he has to worry about getting hit in the head again and going completely blind, that means he has probably had many, many concussions, which means there's probably brain damage up in there.
Luke Herr: So you're saying that that kind of justifies his actions?
Chris Osborne: I'm saying it explains why he is really bad at humaning.
Luke Herr: Maybe I'm not ready to buy that, but we have more to get over. So Hyuga, Tsubasa and some of the other players are invited to go to Toho Academy, which has a soccer scholarship program. But Tsubasa refuses to leave his friends. Two years pass, and Tsubasa's team at Nankatsu has won the tournament two more times in a row, bringing them to three times. And it is now his last year in middle school. The japanese education system is kind of confusing. I'm slowly picking it up. I know that there's like the elementary school, middle school, and then you have to apply to get into a high school program.
Chris Osborne: That's about where my understanding is too.
Luke Herr: And sometimes it turns out that your younger sister, your mom, your dad, and your cat enroll to go to high school with you at the same time. And that is the premise of the delightful manga high school family.
Chris Osborne: If that doesn't get an anime adaptation really soon, then I'm going to be sad.
Luke Herr: I don't think it will. It did last like 100 chapters, but it did also get canceled.
Chris Osborne: I don't care. I want it.
Luke Herr: We all want to see Gomez, but I don't think we can see him officially animated. Gomez is the cat. So we then lead into the tournament again, where some things have changed, but it's mostly a redo of the first tournament arc, except that now people are getting more injuried. Like, the arcs are longer. There's egregious injuries. It's like a new Japan pro wrestling match. Thank you, person who laughed at that joke. I'm glad that it's a good reference. So early on, Hyuga decides to go and train with his own coach to develop a new kick technique because he feels like he's getting soft and he's losing the fire. But he didn't get permission from his new coach at Toho Academy, so he gets benched for the rest of the season. Meanwhile, Tsupas team goes up against new people like Soda, who is a very aggressive player for reasons that are never really explained. The Tachibanda twins are back and they do the same thing, except now they get more injured. There's Matsuyama, who worked really hard to train with his team in the snow. And Toho Academy plays misogy's team and because of his heart condition, he can now only play 30 minutes in a game at a time. So the final match ends up being Toho Academy versus Nankatsu. Toho's coach refused to go against his convictions, but ultimately lets Hyuga play because he thinks that is the only way that they can win the tournament. And he's just like, okay, well, I'm going against my convictions. I am also retiring as coach at this school, which is like, I respect it.
Chris Osborne: I mean, you want to go out on top and who cares if this kid is going to die from playing because you're not going to have to worry about how to clean up the aftermath because you're retiring.
Luke Herr: Yeah. Tsubasa, meanwhile, gets so injured that he is on massive amounts of painkillers and he is struggling to stay conscious. And the game ends in a overtime tie with Namkatsu and Toho Academy sharing first place. And Tsubasa and Hyuga are now friends. Like, that whole second arc just gets really dark and violent in a way that it's like, I'm tired of this. Tsubasa should just stop. He's like, on too many painkillers. Adults just keep saying, oh, well, you keep wanting to do this. I guess we'll let. We'll ignore every health thing. Like, the vibes are just weird and it drags on the way too long. That, I think was the point where I started messaging you and it's like, I hate this. I hate soccer. I hate tsubasa. I hope his ass dies.
Chris Osborne: Also, I used to play soccer when I was younger and could actually run places and I was never in any kind of tournament that would let a game end in a tie.
Luke Herr: So they do kind of say, well, explicitly in this tournament. This is how we're going to end things. And there's no tiebreaker. Like, they do the double overtime.
Chris Osborne: That's what shootouts are for.
Luke Herr: Yeah, but they don't have shootouts in the tournament, and that's the only way that they can kind of say, okay, Nankatsu gets its fourth victory, and also Touhou Academy gets its first victory. And all of the Touhou levels of school won a soccer tournament. Like, it's very much wrestling booking. You can't have your heroes win every match. They need to take some losses, but those losses need to be ways that you can justify, or like, if you have a big bad, you need a way for them to lose the match while still being threatening. So maybe they get disqualified for dismembering someone.
Chris Osborne: I would have loved to have seen some dismembering during these matches, though. Let's be real. That would have been fun.
Luke Herr: I mean, we get close, we get close. I feel like Hyuga's tiger shot probably cut off a limb. So this leads into the international tournament. Tsubasa can't train initially because he is so injured from the last tournament. So the rest of the team heads off to Europe, representing the best of Japan. Wakabayashi, meanwhile, had been playing for a west german team led by Schneider. And then the Japan team and the west german team play an exhibition match where Wakabayashi is just a dick to his own teammates. And it's like, yeah, you can't match up to all of this european style soccer. You should just give up. And mostly because Tsubasa isn't there. Japan loses, but it is not yet an official tournament match.
Chris Osborne: Wait, I thought there was only one Germany. What's up with a West Germany? Is that like West Virginia?
Luke Herr: No. So after World War two, Germany was split into West Germany and East Germany, West Germany being the more free one, and East Germany essentially being controlled by the USSR and they were divided by the Berlin Wall.
Chris Osborne: Did East Germany get to play in the tournament?
Luke Herr: No.
Chris Osborne: Man, that seems horrible for them.
Luke Herr: I feel like they only really got to go out at, like, the Olympics or when they were doing a show of force. And it's not really a show of force to be like, yeah, our middle schoolers are better than your middle schoolers. At soccer, at football, at association football. So there's then two exhibition matches where Matsuyama is working as the captain. He was the guy who trained hard in the snow, and Wakabayashi joins him on the bench and continues to be a dick while Waka Shimizu is acting as their goalie, and Tsubasa arrives, but he is also benched, and the opposing team from Bremen just beats the hell out of them. The next team, Italy, who they're supposed to play, is like, yeah, no, you aren't even worth our time or energy. We've got actual tournament stuff tomorrow we're not going to play you. Tsubaza runs out and challenges them. They're like, oh, hey, look, this guy's actually good. And Matsuyama is just being a dick. And he's like, yeah, you don't practice with us, you don't get to play. Which Hyuga initially agrees with, but eventually the rest of the team's like, no, we need Tsubasa to actually do the damn thing. And Matsuyama's like, sure. Also, I'm not going to be coach anymore because none of you kind of respect what I'm doing here. And so Tsubasa becomes captain. They win the next three exhibition matches, and then Misaki returns to the team, reuniting the golden combi. Misugi, meanwhile, who had been acting as coach, also finds out that in this actual tournament, he is going to be registered as a player so he can play player coaches.
Chris Osborne: That. That's still just weird to me.
Luke Herr: Yeah, it's a bit jazz. So we then get the new tournament arc where we have Italy and their captain, Hernandez, who's also the goalie, and they eventually win when Hyuga breaks Hernandez's hand with his neo tiger shot. There's Argentina and Juan Diaz, who is essentially Latino Tsubasa. He tells Tsubasa that Roberto was out there watching him, which gets in Tsubasa's head. But I. Japan ultimately wins. There is France and their captain, Pierre, and their superstar Napoleon, just like the most french names possible because they are in Paris. Initially it seems like the referee is against them, but they keep playing and end up in a double overtime shootout where Waka Shimizu breaks his hand trying to prevent a goal, but they ultimately win. Like, Waka Shimizu is a weird dude. I am very much abbreviating a lot of the arcs in here. Like, I'm not even mentioning some of the players who were in this series, but it's like, in the big scope of things, it's all about Tsubasa, baby. As they get ready to play West Germany in the final, Roberto, who has been secretly watching the entire time, decides that if Japan wins this, he will bring Tsubasa to train with him in Brazil. Otherwise he will go to Argentina. Argentina is for losers. And Wakabayashi steps in as goalie against West Germany, their captain, Schneider, and also Mueller, who is their massive goalie, who I guess got tortured enough until he was, like, the best possible goalie. And Tsubasa's team is like, oh, we can't get past this guy. I guess we're going to have to reawaken mental traumas and physically beat him down until we can score. And then they do that and they win the tournament, and everyone's like, yay.
Chris Osborne: As one does. Yeah. Like the psychology of sports and everything. That makes perfect sense.
Luke Herr: Yeah, there's no crying in baseball, but there's crying in football. Go. And then after this, we get a lot of resolution to other plot lines, but the other characters never really got all that well developed. Tsubasa focuses on school while preparing to go to Brazil. And without his leadership, Nankatsu is bad at soccer again and lose in the next tournament. Sanai, who I haven't mentioned, who also never really got a lot of development beyond, oh, I'm interested in tsubasa. Oh, where's Tsubasa? Oh, I'm cheering for tsubasa. I hope Tsubasa loves me. I hope this other girl doesn't steal tsubasa away. She and Tsubasa confess their love for each other, even though Tsubasa never really said much to her before. And then he goes to join the All Japan adult team at the age of 15, and then prepares to leave for his career in Brazil. And we get shots of all the other players and what they do, and it's like, oh, I got into high school. Oh, I didn't get into high school. Oh, I'm on the waiting list to get into high school. It's like, cool. And that is the first run of Captain Tsubasa. That is also everything that the game covers. There's like five other main captain Tsubasa series, and each of them are like, under chapters, and it's like, yeah, no, this is all we need to do to cover the game. So captain Tsubasa. Captain Tsubasa, he'll kick balls there, his friend.
Chris Osborne: I don't know why, but when you said he'll kick balls, let's just say I winced a little bit. And on that note, we're going to drop some promos for a few other things while I try to make myself feel better. And then we'll come back and talk about the game. Adventures in a D and D podcast with new players to learn alongside adventures.
Luke Herr: In a D and D podcast where everyone has a good time. Adventures in a D and D podcast.
Chris Osborne: That is casual and inclusive. Adventures in a D and D podcast with lots of lore and creativity.
Luke Herr: Adventures in a podcast where five friends.
Chris Osborne: Sit around the table and record themselves playing dungeons and dragons.
Luke Herr: Find us@adventuresinarylia.com that's E R Y L I A. Hey, welcome to the last comic Shop podcast, a comic book podcast that actually talks about comics.
Chris Osborne: Yep, each week we open the shop up and read and discuss a comic.
Luke Herr: Sometimes we pair that up with comic book movies or tv shows or not.
Chris Osborne: Lots of times it's just comic books and sound effects.
Luke Herr: Oh yes, definitely lots of sound effects. So tune in on all the major podcasting platforms to the last comic Shop podcast. Or check out our library of Evergreen shows at www.lastcomicshotpodcast.com.
Chris Osborne: Those were some great things to check out, but first, let's finish up here. So Luke, we need to get the housekeeping out of the way here. Tecmo cup soccer game, which I'm calling it now because saying Captain Tsubasa is just giving me painful flashbacks, was a game very, very, not surprisingly, published and developed and everything else by Tecmo. I'm sure nobody saw that coming. It was released in America, at least in September of 1992, but came out in Japan end of April 1988 for the regular nintendo or Famicom, depending on which region you were in.
Luke Herr: Yes, that is correct. So it is a soccer game, but unlike a lot of other soccer games, it is set up a bit more as a rpg. So in the main cap and Tsubasa game, you pretty much follow the two tournament arcs. You also have to fight to get misogyny to join your team. And it's a bunch of soccer games where you get to invest rpg experience points into the players and those will help them do things like picking or head butting and that sort of stuff to improve your players. And you go team by team into the two tournament systems, battling against these different teams that also have all of the special players that I mentioned that you go up against. So there's Hyuga, there's the twins, and it's an interesting strategy approach where you're also just trying to conserve your players energy. That way they don't get too tired and get knocked out before the game. And also the soundtrack is banging.
Chris Osborne: Now, when you say it's an rpg and has all those rpg elements, I want to make sure everybody is picturing the right thing here. This isn't like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest kind of rpg this is like a DOS text adventure that happens to have some graphics to go along with it. Like very literally, you're going to pick from a menu kind of rpg and.
Luke Herr: Then you get a little animation. It's not really what I expected to see from a soccer game. Like, I expected more of like, as you're like moving your guy across the field and you kick. But because of the sort of cinematic style of Captain Tsubasa, it is. It is much more of like an rpg. It's figuring out, oh, you have come to the field. What will you do? Move left, move south, kick ball?
Chris Osborne: And I'm not knocking the game for being what it is like. If you're trying to go out here and tell a story, then, I mean, it'd be really hard to tell a story in what we think of now as a sports game.
Luke Herr: Like, there are sports narratives that we get in games, but it's usually a outside of the game itself. Telling the sort of narrative of the game is a fascinating thing. I don't think I would enjoy the playing it, but also I am not a fan of soccer, but it is a very cool approach to the game, especially for 1988. When it came out.
Chris Osborne: When it came out over here in North America, they reskinned pretty much everything. Your main character, for example, instead of captain Tsubasa is a guy named Robin Field. Your teams are like the tops and the razors and stuff.
Luke Herr: And they also change the countries that you play in. So it's like Arabia and Cameroon instead of Argentina and Uruguay, which is a weird one for me.
Chris Osborne: Yeah, like, I don't know why you would change where you're playing because these are actual countries. It's not like they were playing in a bunch of local to Japan places. So you're just going to different countries that people have heard of and I don't get it. But also, it's not like it really takes anything away because once you reskin this as not a captain Tsubasa game anymore, you know, just go have them play somewhere. It doesn't matter.
Luke Herr: Well, they also did another reskin of the game for Spain where they changed the names of the players and just made some other smaller adjustments. And that's called Tacmo cup football game, which I initially learned because I watched someone play through and they're like, oh yeah, no, they didn't call them Robin field in our game. They called him something else.
Chris Osborne: That's just so weird that this thing would get double reskinned, localized like that.
Luke Herr: Especially for a market that you think would kind of be smaller, like Spain.
Chris Osborne: I mean, Spain would maybe naturally leak into Portugal some maybe. Please, nobody yell at me for that. I'm just an ignorant American.
Luke Herr: Because you don't remember that the primary language of Portugal is Portuguese.
Chris Osborne: I know that they're very close Americans.
Luke Herr: Yeah. I don't have a league to stand that I did a year of Spanish and I did not to bueno at it.
Chris Osborne: I can get myself in trouble in Spanish and I can at least follow the pattern of Portuguese. Probably not anymore because I'm not working around people who speak it as much as I used to.
Luke Herr: Yeah. Hey, look at me. I summarize a hundred issue comic in under an hour.
Chris Osborne: I'm very proud of you for that.
Luke Herr: Thank you. I'm going to tell my manager and I'll be told. I don't really care. I guess that's good for you. I listen to the episode and then I say, oh, God, no, you should not listen to this episode. Please, please do not listen to this episode.
Chris Osborne: I will cut out the part that your manager needs to hear.
Luke Herr: Okay. Because, I mean, mainly, I don't want my manager to hear about my fan theories about Roberto. I mean, I guess you can make an all Roberto cup. And if you could, like, frame a narrative around that explains why I'm so invested in this. I'd be interested to hear it.
Chris Osborne: Oh, I was planning on just the part where I said, I'm proud of you.
Luke Herr: Oh, yeah. Not enough people say that they're proud of me for the work that I do.
Chris Osborne: Looking at this game, it's kind of a hard one, I think, to sit here and say, what did it get right? What did it get wrong? Really compare everything. Because you do have all of the elements there. Like, you're following the arcs rather closely. As close as you're going to be able to get. Taking 100 and some odd chapters into a game like this where I know for a fact, and nobody needs to ask why, that you can fit a regular Nintendo emulator and multiple games on a three and a half inch floppy. So you've only got so much room, you've only got so much time. You can tell the story. You're following the arcs as well as you could, but also you're watching the completely wrong cast, doing it in the wrong setting. And it's just. It's weird.
Luke Herr: I mean, that's only if you're looking at the Tecmo cup soccer game as opposed to the captain Tsubasa game. Because I think that distinction is important because, like, the captain Tsubasa game is very, like, straight to the story, but this weird alternate universe where it's Robin and his brother Cecil instead of Tarot Masaki. Like, that's, it's weird choices, but I understand why they made those choices. I also think that it's like, oh, well, this could have been a good chance to expose people to Captain Tsubasa.
Chris Osborne: And a lot of things. I understand why they localize it away from the manga source material, you know, I mean, let's just be real. Some manga just gets weird and the anime that ends up getting made based on it gets weird. So I can understand why you would think, yeah, Americans might not be into all this, but Captain Sebasta seems like a pretty straightforward, you know, if you like soccer, then you're going to probably be into a cartoon about soccer like this. And it's almost superhero y in a way when you get into to these superkicks and everything that they do and the storylines that they have going and everything.
Luke Herr: Well, and there are also multiple real world soccer players who are like, oh, yeah, why did I get into Soccer captain Tsubasa? Because it is one of those series that is, like, bigger in other countries and just never really got a major chance in the United States because instead we wanted a game that's just three white guys playing soccer, three blonde white guys playing soccer on the COVID And.
Chris Osborne: In all reality, did we even really want that? I don't know.
Luke Herr: No. I mean, we also lost out on the better japanese soundtrack.
Chris Osborne: Oh, God. I know. The japanese soundtrack's so good.
Luke Herr: Yeah. I'd say techno cup soccer game isn't the adaptation that Captain Tsubasa is, but both of them are intriguing games that help to carve out a portion of what sports games would evolve into ultimately.
Chris Osborne: Is this even the soccer game for the regular Nintendo that you think best represents captain Tsubasa for us over here in North America?
Luke Herr: No, because it wasn't released as what it was. I'm looking to see what other games got a release in the US and.
Chris Osborne: Nothing for a while. I can tell you that part.
Luke Herr: Yeah.
Chris Osborne: There's a completely unrelated game where the only connections are that you're playing soccer and it's on the regular Nintendo that I think doesn't necessarily better represent captain Tsubasa but differently in a lot of aspects represents captain Tsubasa and that is Nintendo World cup because that one, that's the one with the River City ransom style characters and the superkicks that just if you pick the right team that I want to say is Mexico if I remember right, like, the shot is just completely unblockable. And if you could take the soccer game aspect of that combined with the storyline aspect of everything brought out in the captain Tsubasa game, then, I mean, I think that's your perfect captain Tsubasa game right there. I don't know if the regular Nintendo could have pulled that off, though.
Luke Herr: Interesting.
Chris Osborne: Also, in Nintendo World cup, you could play as Cameroon, and I just thought that was weird that they would localize it to the captain Tsubasa game to include Cameroon, because that's not a country I think about a lot as a stupid, self centered american.
Luke Herr: Whoa, whoa, whoa Cameroon my heart is in the Cameroon singing. Whoa, whoa. You. You didn't have to learn multicultural songs for Christmas pageants. You didn't learn about a love for Cameroon there.
Chris Osborne: No, no, unfortunately, I did not.
Luke Herr: Well, now, this is also Christmas episode, so merry Christmas, Captain Tsubasa.
Chris Osborne: Just a peek into the future. There are other Captain Tsubasa games that we will be looking at. It's gonna be a while, but we will get to revisit this world. And I'm actually really excited about it, partly because they pick up from other different manga runs, so we'll have completely new things to look at, but also this, this world. It's just, it's so interesting to me. Everything you have going on and the characters, when we actually get to be introduced to them properly, are just so much fun to follow and stuff and seem like actual, real people in ways that a lot of older things don't seem like real people to me. And eventually, I know coming back to this, you're going to have still a lot of that. Let's pick from a menu, and I'm really excited to see how that gets handled on more modern consoles.
Luke Herr: Yeah, I can see that.
Chris Osborne: But this is one where I don't even want to ask you about what it gets right and what it gets wrong because there's so much localization, there's so much change in it, but all that change is mostly just aesthetic.
Luke Herr: Yeah, I would agree with that. Like, they have special moves. They have the idea of how you're working together and how you're growing and how you're running out of energy. That's, that's what Tsubasa is.
Chris Osborne: Doctor Soccer Luke hare. You have somehow gotten to be the coach for Tsubasa's team, and you have a secret weapon buried deep on your bench. That secret weapon is a muppet, and that muppet is not animal. Who are you bringing in to score the two goals that you need to come back and win this game.
Luke Herr: Are we talking about captain Tsubasa and, like, the age range they are in this manga that we've read so far because, like, later volumes do focus on him as an adult.
Chris Osborne: Yeah, let's stick with this age range that we looked at connected to this game.
Luke Herr: So then, am I also tied by what muppets would fall under that age range or just any muppethen?
Chris Osborne: Yeah, let's. Let's see if you can find a good one tied to that age range. Fuck.
Luke Herr: Because I was just going to say sweet em. It's like, I don't know if there's team muppets. Like, I am looking. No, I don't want muppets. Uh, smell like team spirit. Yeah, I don't know if there's a good resource for what I'm looking for because most of the Muppets don't have a defined age. If I do need to pick someone who is a youth, I feel like, okay, here's a weird website that has tried to figure out how old some of the Muppets are. And yeah, I was going to say big Bird, but big Bird is like, canonically less than four or about four years old. And I feel like he there no, six years old. And you can't put a six year old on a team with teenagers. But I feel like you need someone who's going to be really big to get that energy in, to get that kick, to intimidate people, to brush people aside. Like kids go flying Captain Tsubasa. But, uh, yeah, if we're saying he's too young, then probably one of the fraggles, because you want someone who's going to be able to slip past people, control the ball. And I feel like the fraggle do a pretty good job of that.
Chris Osborne: Not only do I think that you've given a surprising and yet perfectly sense making answer, because the fraggles are really good at sneaking past everybody and stuff. You also recognize that fraggles are muppets.
Luke Herr: Yeah. Like, they're. They had been HBO world Muppets, but they are part of the Muppet canon. They are in Muppet family Christmas, which is the best Muppet Christmas special. Unless you're talking about the abhorrent VHS release where they just have to cut out these songs that they no longer have rights to and the Muppets that they don't have rights to. And it just does not work.
Chris Osborne: I mean, the face I was giving you was for Muppet Christmas Carol because Muppet Christmas carol is amazing.
Luke Herr: Okay, but have you seen, like, the full version of Muppet family Christmas?
Chris Osborne: It's been a while. I also love that one, though.
Luke Herr: Like, that is one where it is about what family means. It is a original story. It ends with Jim Henson washing the dishes and saying, I hope that they have fun out there. It is the ur Muppet tale. It is the web that unites them all.
Chris Osborne: Well, Luke, if people want to unite their world with your world, where else can they find you? Around the Internet?
Luke Herr: Oh, Twitter has fallen into the shadow realm, so I deleted my accounts. There you can find me on blueskyoltrag. That's koltreg or@lukehair.com l u k e h e r r.com. i also have an itcheo or itch IO that is under the coltrag name. That, again, is kol, t r e g. Itchy. And then I am only currently doing one podcast, which is Domance Dawn, a Simpsons and one piece podcast where we look at them as comparative forms of media. And you can find that at domants Dawn Dash, m a n C E. Dawn dash n.com. and we update that every other week. And currently we're recording this late July, we're in thriller bark, so you can catch up and find out about when Simpsons got very bad and then kind of got good again. And, Chris, where can people find you?
Chris Osborne: If you want to find me, the best place to do that is over on playcomics.com, where I don't know what social media platform is going to be viable in the next ten minutes, much less in the coming weeks by the time this one actually gets released. So go to playcomics.com, where there's links to all the social media things.
Luke Herr: Are you excited about Chris Kim, the hot new social media platform?
Chris Osborne: I don't even know about that one.
Luke Herr: Jamble, you're not down with Chris. Crim. You're not down with Jamble. How about thwack?
Chris Osborne: I've heard rumors. We'll see how that one takes off.
Luke Herr: Scraaaaaaaaaj. I feel like scraaaaaaaaj has a lot of dark money attached to it, so I feel like it's not a safe place to put things.
Chris Osborne: Please tell me you are making all of those up.
Luke Herr: What about Hyuga's NFT platform? It's called Hyuga coin, and every time that he does a neo tiger shot, it mints a new coin. It's tied to kicks.
Chris Osborne: I don't have money for NFTs. I already get all the peach Momoco, everything from my local comic shop.
Luke Herr: Okay, well, and I guess technically it's not an NFP. It's a cryptocurrency kit. A cryptocurrency. I think that's how we should base all of that completely made up. I'm rambling here like, you should take us out of the show. You should free us from this hell and into the hell if we live in, outside of recording. Any other questions before I go and vanish into the aether? Um.
Chris Osborne: No. I think we pretty extensively looked at what we could look at here with Captain Tsubasa, and I know that everybody will be looking forward to your next appearance on the show, which is yet to be determined.
Luke Herr: Yeah, we have to figure out what series I can cover that no one else will want to cover, which I am honestly also excited for. I enjoy doing these. I enjoy coming on and promoting whatever thing that I do, and I also enjoy devoting myself and my time to this sort of project. So thank you again for having me on.
Chris Osborne: Thank you again for coming on. As always, it has been a pleasure.
Luke Herr: Yes, it has. And remember, winners don't do drugs unless they need those drugs to kill the pain because they are actively tearing their bodies apart in a middle school soccer tournament, the more you know.
Chris Osborne: All right, so we already did the part where, you know, to go to playcomics.com to check out all the social media things. Social media places changing, change. Bad for consistency, because that's how that works. If you want to be on the show yourself, you can head on over to playcomics.com. there's also a link down in the show notes. You can get to the same place and find the list of games that I am looking to get guests booked for the soonest. That is your focus. If you want to be on the show but don't necessarily have something that are like, I have to be on the show for this, you know, those are always good, too. I'm not telling you not to do that, but if your main thing is, hey, I want to be on a podcast, and I want to make somebody else edit it, that list is the place to go to. If you want to help support the show, though, you could head on over. If you want to help support the show, though, you can be like, oh, no, look, class and Dan McMahon and give the show money, because podcasts do take a little bit of money to make. Or you can just share the show with friends or enemies or random people on the street. You know, just like, don't be a jerk about it. I guess unless they're enemies, then you can probably be a jerk about it, because they probably deserve it. Don't forget that play comics is a part of the Guineek.com network, home to such wonderful shows as Legends of S H I E l D, where right now we are talking about Agatha all along. Papa sp is back, and I have a theory that everybody thinks I'm wrong about, including my wife. She said I'm an idiot, but I think I'm right. Go check out that show to hear what my theory is. If you like the music that I'm rudely talking on top of right now, head on over to backingtrack GG to check out backing track's music and all the great things they're making over there. But most of all, just grab a game, grab a stack of comics and go find yourself a new favorite character. Because for whatever for whatever reason, when you said who kickballs, I just imagine him going around kicking everybody.
Luke Herr: And that's why you want to get a vasectomy in, like, the winter, because if you're getting it in the spring or the summer, that heat is going to cause a lot of uncomfortable swelling, and the cold temperatures outside are not going to lead to that swelling. And we're back now, right?
Chris Osborne: We can be, yeah.
Luke Herr: I put that in as a fun transition for you.
Chris Osborne: It'll be in the episode somewhere.