News
Kawasaki Frontale Soccer Team Plans Anime for Mascot
posted on by Egan Loo
The Sports Nippon newspaper has reported on December 27 that the Japanese soccer team Kawasaki Frontale is planning the first anime based on a franchise in its league. The project will start before the March season opening with a 15-second promotional video featuring the J. League team's mascot, a blue dolphin named Fronta-kun. After that, the team is considering plans for a regular anime series that will also feature the players on the team. The team is planning to expand Fronta-kun's storyline by creating a family for him, similar to Sazae-san's. If the planned regular series goes forward, the team is aiming for a program of 30-minute episodes.
With 50,000 regularly attending spectators and an average of 17,338 attendees per game last year, Frontale has the biggest audience of any J. League team. Although Sports Nippon describes this project as the first anime for a J. League team, there have been manga and anime that depict J. League as part of their plots. Notably, Captain Tsubasa manga artist Yōichi Takahashi created Hungry Heart, a story about teenagers who dream about playing for a J. League or European football league team. He published the manga in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine, and it was eventually adapted into a year-long television anime series.
Image © Kawasaki Frontale Co. Ltd. 1997-2006 All Rights Reserved.
