Football Nation
Japanese manga series
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Football Nation (Japanese: フットボールネーション, Hepburn: Futtobōru Nēshon) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yuki Otake. It began serialization in Shogakukan's Big Comic Superior magazine in December 2009.
| Football Nation | |
First tankōbon volume cover | |
| フットボールネーション (Futtobōru Nēshon) | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Sports |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Yuki Otake |
| Published by | Shogakukan |
| Magazine | Big Comic Superior |
| Original run | December 11, 2009 – present |
| Volumes | 20 |
Synopsis
Yukari Ogata, a female photographer, goes to cover Tokyo Crusade, which has a strange recruitment ad that reads, "Looking for players with beautiful legs!!" There she meets a boy named Chihiro Oki, who has an incredible talent for soccer. Tokyo Crusade's coach Mikiyasu Takahashi, declares that he is serious about winning the Emperor's Cup, and Oki, who has a complicated past, find common ground, and the two begin their journey towards the Emperor's Cup finals.
Publication
Written and illustrated by Yuki Otake, Football Nation began serialization in Shogakukan's Big Comic Superior magazine on December 11, 2009.[1] The series went on hiatus on August 28, 2020, due to Otake's recovery from breast cancer surgery.[2] It resumed serialization on July 9, 2021.[3] Its chapters have been compiled into twenty tankōbon volumes as of December 2025.[4]
In July 2016, the series had an illustration collaboration with fellow soccer manga series Aoashi and Be Blues! which are also published by Shogakukan in the magazines Big Comic Spirits and Weekly Shōnen Sunday respectively.[5]
Volumes
| No. | Release date | ISBN |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | May 28, 2010[6] | 978-4-09-183167-5 |
| 2 | August 30, 2011[7] | 978-4-09-184040-0 |
| 3 | February 29, 2012[8] | 978-4-09-184279-4 |
| 4 | October 30, 2012[9] | 978-4-09-184749-2 |
| 5 | September 30, 2013[10] | 978-4-09-185419-3 |
| 6 | May 30, 2014[11] | 978-4-09-186210-5 |
| 7 | February 27, 2015[12] | 978-4-09-186793-3 |
| 8 | October 30, 2015[13] | 978-4-09-187316-3 |
| 9 | July 29, 2016[14] | 978-4-09-187720-8 |
| 10 | February 28, 2017[15] | 978-4-09-189381-9 |
| 11 | October 30, 2017[16] | 978-4-09-189728-2 |
| 12 | June 12, 2018[17] | 978-4-09-189894-4 |
| 13 | February 28, 2019[18] | 978-4-09-860231-5 |
| 14 | October 30, 2019[19] | 978-4-09-860450-0 |
| 15 | June 30, 2020[20] | 978-4-09-860644-3 |
| 16 | November 30, 2021[21] | 978-4-09-861193-5 |
| 17 | November 30, 2022[22] | 978-4-09-861475-2 |
| 18 | November 30, 2023[23] | 978-4-09-862602-1 |
| 19 | December 26, 2024[24] | 978-4-09-863088-2 |
| 20 | December 26, 2025[4] | 978-4-09-863663-1 |
Reception
The series had over 2 million copies in circulation by December 2024.[24]
The series has been recommended by Japanese footballers like Hideto Takahashi,[13] Kengo Nakamura,[25] Yasuyuki Konno,[16] Wataru Endō,[18] Daisuke Matsui,[19] Kento Hashimoto,[20] Shinji Okazaki,[22] and Shūichi Gonda.[23]