Captain Tsubasa’s new goal: Saving hometown

TOKYO - Agence France-Presse

The Captain Tsubasa strip, was launched in a Japanese magazine in 1981.

Japanese comic strip football superhero Captain Tsubasa, who has inspired stars such as Lionel Messi and Fernando Torres, has returned from a storybook stint in Spain to save his “birthplace.”

His bronze statue was unveiled over the weekend in a newly built park in the eastern Tokyo town of Yotsugi, the hometown of Captain Tsubasa creator Yoichi Takahashi, as a tourist attraction to help boost the community’s flagging fortunes.

“Yotsugi is where I was born and brought up but it appears to have run down since when I was a child,” Takahashi, 52, told the unveiling ceremony attended by about 700 dignitaries, townspeople and fans including children.

“I wish every kind of people will come from across the nation and from around the world to see, touch and photograph this statue.”