AOASHI Volume 1 review

Has it really been since PingPong that we reviewed a sports manga? Luckily, we've got one hell of a leg in the door (and the game) with Titan Manga's release of Ao Ashi. Big shout-out to them for providing us with a digital (and physical!) review copy of this beloved soccer series. Let's grab our uniforms and step out onto the field.

The Author

Yugo Kobayashi.

Kobayashi hails from Ehime Prefecture, Japan. I don't have his exact year of birth or much on his youth, unfortunately; however, from what my research has found, he aspired to become a manga artist at around 24 years old. This might surprise readers, but despite being known for the subject of this review, and rightfully so since it's his longest and best-selling series to date, Kobayashi has several different series of multiple genres under his belt, and his career as a pro started with Kodansha (specifically Monthly Shonen Magazine), with his joining the Big Comic lineup with Shogakukan afterward. 

His first series, Mizu no Mori (Water Forest), ran for three volumes from February to September 2010.

Mizu no Mori Volume 1

Almost diametrically opposed to Aoashi, this series is about a goddess who has grown weary of humanity and a man whose love for her becomes the saving grace she needs. Even this early on, Kobayashi's artwork has many of the recognizable traits that carry over into Aoashi—wide eyes, sketchy watercolors, and a sense of balance and warmth. It is an older series, but since it's Kodansha, I hope that maybe someday they'll bring this over in a digital omnibus release.  

Kobayashi's next work (in the same magazine) was Tenman à la carte, which ran for four volumes from 2012 to 2013.

Tenman is about cooking, which is the centerpiece of another series he serialized (once again in Kodansha's Monthly Magazine, which I'll touch upon in a moment). I'm nowhere near an expert, but from my experiences, I tend to see sports as either a genre mangaka starts with first and moves on from afterward or as the ultimate goal that they strive to. So, for Kobayashi to have serialized other unrelated genres at the beginning of his career is interesting. That being said, the shonen spirit is great in this one, as the story follows a young man who is a class-skipping troublemaker who exasperates his childhood friend (and love interest), striving to meet his master again. It's a well-traveled path in the shonen demographic, except the twist here is that the core revolves around unusual dishes rather than sports or fighting. The classic tropes are so strong that it puts a smile on my face, and I'll likely read this after I'm done writing the review. For now, onward.

From a supernatural love story, to a cooking delinquent, to...movies? Next is Kobayashi's Short Peace about a guy whose straightforward love for movie-making ends up being a source of healing for those around him. My research says the series began in 2014 (and is his first Shogakukan series) within the pages of  Gekkan! Spirits, so Short Peace is also his first seinen manga (and ironically shares the name with a short anime compilation film). What's odd about this one is that it's apparently ongoing. It was based on a one-shot that seemingly became a series, but there hasn't been a new chapter in nearly ten years. That being said, Kobayashi is perhaps the hardest-working mangaka this blog has seen as while Aoashi was serialized, he was working on it, Short Peace, and Fermat no Ryouri all at the same time. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Aoashi is a weekly serialization. Mind you, the other two series have irregular serialization schedules (and it helps that Fermat no Ryouri also runs in Monthly Magazine), but it's still impressive and further evidences the zeal Kobayashi has for the medium of manga. I imagine it's a thing where he can switch gears to another series when he's feeling stuck on one or if inspiration hits suddenly. That being said, I hope he returns to Short Peace soon, as it sounds like a lot of fun.

Fermat no Ryouri (or Cuisson dans le Fermat) started in 2018 and is ongoing, with 7 volumes out as of January 2026. It is the only other series besides Aoashi to have been adapted into other media, with both a live-action series produced in 2023 and an anime by Domerica in 2025, which were ten and twelve episodes, respectively. This series combines the likely (or unlikely?) topics of math and cooking together. The main character is a high school student who is forced to give up on his dream of being a mathematician, but a chance encounter with a genius chef changes his life trajectory, and he takes up cooking using his math skills to create and recreate dishes despite having no culinary background. Even the name of the series is inspired by Fermat's Last Theorem! I watched the anime as it aired (thanks to being familiar with Aoashi), and going in I didn't know how the elements would gel together, but they do surprisingly well. Kobayashi's writing for his later series (as we'll see with Aoashi) is significantly based in theorems and strategy, but never forgets the beating heart that makes manga—specifically shonen manga (even in a seinen like Aoashi) so memorable and appealing. A fun fact I only learned after doing this research is that characters from Tenman A la carte appear in Fermat, so it's like they're getting a second chance at life.

But okay, we've dribbled the ball enough—let's kick off.

The Series

Aoashi

Aoashi ran in Shogakukan's Weekly Big Comic Spirits for a decade from 2015 to 2025. It has a spinoff entitled Aoashi: Brotherfoot that started in 2021 and is still irregularly serialized. An anime produced by Production IG aired from April 2022 until September, with a second series now produced by TMS set to start in October 2026. 

The Premise

Earlier, I mentioned that many sports series authors either begin with sports manga or have it in mind to eventually work towards it. Turns out that Kobayashi was neither! A Big Comics editor realized that the magazine had no series that dealt with youth soccer and wanted to address this issue. Kobayashi's Short Peace had recently run to rave reviews, so the editor approached him about doing a youth soccer (specifically about the J-League) manga, and Kobayashi at first refused because he wasn't interested in sports manga, but after a bit, he was convinced to give it a try, and the rest is history. I don't bring this up to be just a fun anecdote, but rather to frame the approach Kobayashi took when drawing the series. 

Aoashi is both strategic and personal in its storytelling approach. That's due to Kobayashi's lack of interest in sports when the idea to do this series was first pitched. His earlier works had a sense of exuberance and personality, so that's no surprise, but I imagine he used strategy as an "in" for this work. In this case, our protagonist Ashito Aoi is a forward on his local soccer team who plays the game as if he's the only one on the field; however, a run in with former soccer player Tatsuya Fukuda reveals his ability to not only see the field as a wholistic entity but also to have a memory for where every single player is and how best to get the ball to the goal. It's an ability that borders on fantastical, but it's grounded in the earnestness and confidence only a shonen sports manga has (despite this being a seinen!) Though, like its shonen contemporaries, the above qualities, when distilled together, make for an addictive entry into the field of sports manga. Readers who find Ashito too smug for his own good at first, but as this volume progresses, they'll be pleasantly surprised by Ashito's earnest love of the sport and his family. The pacing is brisk as well, taking us from his locals in Ehime to Tokyo, where even as a small fish in a big pond, he's still completely in love with the sport—even as he learns he's got a long way to go as an individual. 

The artwork is as impressive as the storytelling, with page layouts that put readers in the front seats and character expressions that easily weave between being endearing and funny in comedic moments and intense when it's time to lock in. As Kobayashi has been in the manga game for a while, that isn't too shocking, but to think this is his first sports manga entry! I personally feel like sports manga need to have higher fidelity art-wise, as they have to not only depict characters, but bodies in movement via page compositions and layouts that have to be both effortlessly clear in what they depict as well as eye-catching. All of which Kobayashi nails as seen in the image above. 

The English adaptation keeps up with the game on the field as well. Though there are times when the lettering can be jarring. Not unreadable by any means, but it may take veteran manga readers out of their sense of immersion, especially since there are several instances of multiple sound effects on a page that don't overlap well with the Japanese originals. I'd also like to see future volumes match the font size and color of these sound effects, just to keep the immersion going, as with any manga, proper sound effect lettering can make or break a manga's flow, and Aoashi is no exception. Hopefully future releases can improve upon this, as the lettering is good now, but it can be better and be the extra oomph to push this release from okay to awesome. 

At the time of writing, we haven't received a physical version of the book. We'll update this section here once we do with our impressions on the release as well. 

The Verdict

Spend five minutes in the sports manga community, and it's immediately obvious how much people want to see Aoashi make a winning kick from overseas into international manga readers' libraries. Aside from reading some volumes for my work on our social media, my experience has been chiefly streaming the anime on Crunchyroll as it aired. So to have an opportunity to read and review this hotly anticipated title (courtesy of Titan) feels like a paradigm shift. I don't know what kicks and goals Titan had to score to get this license, but it's here, and this opening act is firing on all cylinders to create what is the next best sports manga experience. Those worried about tackling (or kicking off, whoops, don't want to mix metaphors) a decade-long sports phenomenon shouldn't be, because Aoashi really is just that good. That Titan is releasing it in 3-in-1s is just another bonus. With season two due to premiere this fall, it's the perfect time to pick up this series.