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Ao Ashi
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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Midnight Diner

Japanese: アオアシ

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 40

Chapters: 412

Status: Finished

Published: Jan 5, 2015 to Jun 23, 2025

Genres: Award Winning, Sports

Theme: Team Sports

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: Big Comic Spirits

Authors: Kobayashi, Yuugo (Story & Art), Ueno, Naohiko (Story)

Statistics

Score: 8.68¹ (scored by 18,642 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #78²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #455

Members: 43,880

Favorites: 2,433

Available At

@aoashiofficial

Resources

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Reviews

Filtered Results: 20 / 22

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Filter Preliminary Spoiler

Jun 16, 2020

sakura_koe

Recommended

Preliminary (218/412 chp)

*this is a spoiler free review ;)*

I’ve recently come across Ao Ashi, a soccer manga, and I’ve been blown away by how good it is.
Art:the artist has his own unique style which is a breath of fresh air. U can tell that the artist is very good at sketching cuz even in a soccer match where there are at least 20 characters, the reader can still tell who’s who.

Plot: finally no more of the high school sports club troupe. The manga focuses on the Tokyo Esperion youth football club, which is associated with its own J-League team. Once u start reading it u ...

Jan 24, 2020

ORT3GA

Recommended

Preliminary (29/412 chp)

The anime-manga pool has a surprising lack of soccer related series. Being a soccer fan, I am so relieved. Prior to this, I watched Captain Tsubasa and Days. CT was aimed at a much younger demographic and it could not interest me (no insult intended; i know its an og series with immense credibility). Days is plain pathetic and wrong.
Ao Ashi is a fresh breath in the sports genre. It is not bound by the highschool sports club cliche. That is far too overused. This series is all about club soccer with direct ties to the sports scene.
A young middle schooler, Ashito, whose ...

Sep 7, 2020

mangareader123

Recommended

Preliminary (125/412 chp)

Ao ashi is a football manga about a suburban kid who goes to Tokyo to become a pro. The kid’s name is Aoi Ashito.

Story (7)
As you see, the plot sounds nothing original. But the presentation is fresh.
The kid is good but not overpowered.
Instead of shonen logic of “genius son of genius father” or “power of friendship” Ashito grows by practising football/soccer.
He is consistent, stubborn, a little slow to learn but hardworking.

Most football manga like in Inazuma XI, Captain Tsubasa and Days are pretty unrealistic. They are good, but aimed at kids.
This however is VERY realistic. We learn about football— training in Rondo, Passing>dribbling, vision ...

Apr 28, 2022

sharrez

Recommended

Preliminary (260/412 chp)

As a complete football nerd this is everything I've ever wanted. Instead of having superpowers Ao Ashi is instead heavy on tactics and all the different intricacies of the beautiful game, which truly does the biggest sport in the world justice.

I think you need to have some interest in football since it is full of analyses of players and games which many won't grasp fully and truly enjoy the masterpiece that is Ao Ashi.

Although I said you need to understand football, this manga still does very well as a sports manga. Interesting characters, great development, intense and exhilarating games and moments and very relatable ...

Sep 20, 2025

SeeEssThough

Recommended

Basic premise
The premise of Aoashi is simple. Ashito Aoi, a third year middle school student from Ehime loves football. He is very passionate about the game and we can immediately grasp onto that. He has a raw, street-level understanding of football. After one of his games he meets Fukuda Tatsuya, a J Youth League coach who invites him to Tokyo for tryouts where he’s thrust into a world where technique, discipline, and tactical thinking matter just as much as passion.

Meaning of the name "Aoashi"

The name "Ao Ashi" (アオアシ) is a combination of two Japanese words:

"Ao" (アオ / 青) – This means blue, often symbolizing youth, ...

Nov 11, 2021

Logical_

Recommended

Preliminary (273/412 chp)

*carefull spoiler content*

Ao Ashi is football manga that everyone want, that everyone want to know what kind of football when it comes to manga. it's literally tell us how youth player can become pro-player, how they journey is.

The story start with Aoi Ashito play football in middle school tournament. after that tournament he meet fukuda, Fukuda ask him what Aoi thinking in the last goal that he created what a scenario he build and he explain that sittuation the entire field condition. fukuda really impresive with that because Aoi build up the scenario around him and read the entire field, after that Fukuda introduce him ...

Sep 27, 2024

wajaj00

Recommended

Preliminary (284/412 chp)

(This review is as of chapter ~280, because I wanted to get some thoughts down about Espereon vs Seiran and I don't really see my opinions changing much once I've caught up.)

Ao Ashi is probably the ballsiest sports manga/anime out there. The twist (you know what I'm talking about) is iconic and the main turning point of the manga, but I've never seen anything like it. Such a monumental fuck-you as soon as the show begins to hit its stride is pretty much out of the question for most stories, but somehow Ao Ashi makes it so integral that it seems like it wouldn't exist ... without it.

I'd like to preface that I am a sucker for sports shows. Ace of the Diamond is one of my all time favourite animes and Ao Ashi is now pretty close behind it, and the two definitely have their similarities. Alot of sports-based manga are incredibly timid. The reason why I've dropped titles like Days and Haikyuu is because of the author's defiance to have their team lose at important moments. Losses are (in my eyes) some of the most important character building moments available, and to turn your back on that can only make it more difficult to create investment and growth for the team that the audience watches.

Although Daiya and Ao Ashi definitely have some elements of plot armour (which at some points can be unavoidable), I never felt like the team was invincible or that there was some sort of safety in losing situations just because they were main characters. This, as well as the characters' personal losses and ups and downs, creates that element of thrill and excitement which is so hard to find outside of these shonen sports or battle shows.

I also feel that Ao Ashi excels at creating characters. The most obvious evidence of well-written character growth is Akutsu, who literally goes from the least to the most likeable character in the span of one arc - but other characters like Tachibana or even non-players like Hana have levels of depth and struggle which makes them feel real and relatable, which makes this cutthroat world of football seem that little bit more realistic. Another highlight was Taira - although his actual presence in the manga is fairly negligible, I felt that his ending alone was enough to remind us of the other side of the coin in the club, those who simply aren't lucky, and living on through Aoi just shows me how close the main character was to that and just how imminent the danger really is.

My most recent boners have come mainly from this Espereon vs Seiran match, which definitely has its place among some of my favourite arcs ever. Akutsu's backstory drop, Aoi and Ren's rivalry, the manager mind-battle, Aoi's 'grasp' and even the mangaka's football knowledge (N-box??) just made for an absolute rollercoaster with an unbelievable amount of highlights (u better believe I screenshotted those) and the manga honestly could have ended after this with no real complaints from me. My only worry from now is that it never lives up to this same energy, but I also think I need a breather after that anyway.

I guess we'll see after I inevitably binge the rest of this tomorrow

Jun 20, 2022

JJnie

Recommended

Preliminary (295/412 chp)

This is my first venture into sports genre, and Ao Ashi just sucked me into it like a blackhole. I've never watched a single football game, and never showed interest in the sport. I honestly thought I wouldn't like this series because I'm not a fan of sports in general but since it's getting an anime and is pretty popular too, I decided, why not give it a try? Just for experience. And now I can honestly say, Ao Ashi is now one of my favorite manga of all time.

Story (10/10) is pretty straightforward: we follow Ashito's journey as a youth football player in Esperion, ... a youth team, as he grows and develop his skills in order to become a professional player. But the story provides us more than just following Ashito's journey: we basically learned an overall idea about the sport football, how football is in Japan and how great this sport is. Football details and tactics is overflowing, professional football players are getting mentioned and described, insane plot twists and good dialogues. I'm hooked. They managed to make this series very fun, exciting and educational at the same time. The story definitely takes it's time to progress which is a very big plus to me, making it more realistic and relatable, and definitely paid of the wait.

Characters (10/10) The strongest elements of this manga is the major plot twists and awesome character developments. Ashito who started very poorly as a player, became a good player in a very satisfying and overwhelming way. He's now one of the most important player in their team, and now continuing to improve with the help of his captain and coaches, preparing himself more for the world stage together with his team Esperion. I fell in love with Ashito, I fell in love with all the characters. Well-written, lovable and memorable.

Art (10/10) I find Ao Ashi's art refreshing and clean. It's not overwhelmingly beautiful and edgy but there's something in the art that's making it so addicting. The atmosphere? The hint of a darkness in it? I don't know I can't explain. But one thing I'm sure is it's good and it is getting prettier as the story progress.

Also, one thing I noticed about the art too is how the author portrays the looks of the characters based on their progress, for example, Ashito started very skinny then at the later parts of the story, we can see how he gained muscles by constant training and with the help of his captain who trains him. Same with the other characters. The art is improving together with the story. I like it.

Enjoyment(10/10) I enjoyed it a lot I'm surprised too myself. This is my first time reading a sports manga and I'm glad Ao Ashi exceeded my expectations. Far exceeded to be honest. I even googled some football informations that said in the manga because I'm so interested.

Overall 10/10: Ao ashi is very good. It's excellent in my opinion. The more I read it, I can always expect a good dose of humour and thrill. I highly recommend this series and start reading it immediately. It's worth it, trust me.

May 10, 2022

RXZen

Recommended

Preliminary (289/412 chp)

[Contains a bit of spoilers]

When I first read this, I thought they over presented football. What I mean is the ability of Ashito (and Ren) to see and remember everyone in the field and use that ability to their advantage. But you know what amazed me the most? That the author EXPLAINED, yes. explained, that although they are just few, there are people in real life that can actually do that. And he also said, that not all viewers can see it during matches specially those on TV but IT is there. It is truly happening in real life. And I was like, WOW... I ...

Mar 14, 2023

ghejcdwsjdchjwjh

Recommended

Preliminary (3/412 chp)

Aoashi is a fantastic manga that is sure to captivate and thrill any reader who picks it up. With its stunning artwork, compelling characters, and exciting storylines, this manga truly deserves a 10/10 rating.

One of the standout features of Aoashi is the quality of its artwork. The illustrations are detailed and intricate, with each panel expertly crafted to convey the emotions and actions of the characters. The use of color is also exceptional, with vibrant and eye-catching hues that enhance the overall reading experience.

In terms of its characters, Aoashi does not disappoint. The main protagonists are relatable and multifaceted, with complex personalities that make them ...

Sep 1, 2020

Est

Recommended

Preliminary (115/412 chp)

Personally, I've always felt like football has been a bit over-represented in the manga/anime scene. Its prevalence is only really one step down from the three B's (basketball, baseball and boxing) that seem to take up around half of all manga/anime sports series on their own. And, considering how common it is, I've been surprised at how many areas of the game have been left kinda untapped by the industry. Fortunately, Ao Ashi is here to shake things up with an incredibly refreshing take on the sport.

Our main protagonist, Aoi, is obsessed with scoring, not unlike the average child when they first get into a ... sport. In itself, that isn't particularly unique, but I think the degree to which the series is critical of that obsession does stand out. It takes him to areas of the sport that don't typically get a lot of focus in sports manga, due to being less flashy and conventionally "cool", and I appreciate that it gives those areas the attention I feel they deserve.

I also have a great appreciation for how messy things are at times. In a team of young teenagers, it can take a long time for people to sync up and figure each other out, especially if they don't get along particularly well. Ao Ashi depicts that in a way that feels very true-to-life, with people misunderstanding each other, fighting, and generally just not being very nice, both on and off the pitch. It's also a long-running problem that is gradually being worked through, rather than a moment of drama that everyone spontaneously gets over together, which is how I most commonly see it depicted in manga.

And even when people are understanding each other and communicating effectively, they're still generally having to be pretty direct about it. Like... shouting instructions to each other. Too often in manga do I see all the players coordinating perfectly all the time without ever really needing to say anything to each other, and that's one of the hardest things to suspend my disbelief around. I think that degree of unity only really works in a story if it's been properly built up to and we've seen enough of the hurdles along the way, and Ao Ashi encapsulates that perfectly. All the difficulties make those few moments of perfect communication so much more meaningful.

Ao Ashi is a very refreshing series that enjoys challenging its characters to take them to greater heights, and I love it for that. For now, I have it sitting at an 8/10, but I would not be surprised if it were to impress me even more, further down the line. I highly recommend this series to anyone who feels that sports manga have gotten a little stale.

Jun 23, 2023

GangstaSquirrel

Recommended

Preliminary (332/412 chp)

If you don't know much about soccer, probably you will like it more. It's just more than soccer.

So, here's the thing about spokons that I don't like: They only focus on their respective sport. Only that. Just that. The sport is the only thing that exists in the world. Those who practice a sport know that isn't true, there is more about than that.

Ao Ashi is about a kid who plays soccer and he's kinda bad but also kinda good, and then he's improving throughout the time he's playing. Nothing new about that, right?

However, Ao Ashi goes beyond the sport. Everybody knows how racist Japan ...

Mar 26, 2026

sushiisawesome

Recommended

Ao Ashi is a story about understanding a person's limitations vis-a-vis the world around them, about how people's experiences to their home countries overlap with their experiences with their immediate social circles. It tells a story about players struggling to contrast belonging to a rising footballing power - albeit by no means a leading one globally - with their own sense of ambition, and negotiating between wanting to rise and prioritize ambition - even if it means risking the alienation that puts a sense of distance between you and others - and alternatively staying back home and reforming what you can, even if it ... means you can't rise as highly as you'd otherwise want.

Ashito is the embodiment of this central conflict the series puts forward, being a rash, impulsive man that puts himself ahead of his team. He's crude, violent and acts first, thinks second which both pushes him forward as a striker yet limits both his potential personal growth as well as his growth as a player, to say nothing of stunting his teammates' growth. This single-minded obsession with getting better without relying on others foreshadows his main flaw - which ties directly to the series' themes. The danger of forgetting what ground he stood on, that even brought him to the spot he's at, is highlighted over and over again in specific arcs, with several characters highlighted as foils to flesh this theme fully; this includes arguably the deuteragonist of the story in Fukuda as a negative example whose arc has concluded, Kuribayashi as an interesting positive example for appearing obsessed purely with ambition but taking others around him seriously and Akutsu for presenting an example of someone that saw football as a chance to reset the horrible ground he stood on, yet continues to live by the shadow of that regardless.

Arguably equally important to Ao Ashi as a story is the core appeal of football as not just a sport but as a means of causing, escaping and empathizing with the pain of others. Central to this particular theme's focus is Ashito and Akutsu's dynamic, who share the commonality of coming from impoverished backgrounds that saw in football a means of living lives they otherwise couldn't have, Tripone's arc seeing in football as a means of escaping racial prejudice, and perhaps most importantly Hana's arc, which is about as much as recovering from the trauma of watching the person she admired most cataclysmically fail and making sure Ashito doesn't make the same mistakes as well as enjoying football as a sport in spite of the sport causing and likely continuing to cause into the future personal pain in her own life. Her romantic dynamic with Ashito is simultaneously messy but also charming specifically because both characters to an extent see through each other later on in the story, which in spite of slapstick humor being used as a fairly predictable trope early on also grounds a certain nuance in that dynamic; interactions where the two speak heart to heart, and others where they don't speak much feel natural, almost comforting at times.

Plenty of side characters are also really damn well developed; a few examples were already previously highlighted, but Yuuma, Togashi, Anri, Nozomi and Shiba come to mind. Characters receive focus and exit the narrative frequently certainly (which is narratively justified considering the nature of the sport and how youth football works), but it's honestly somewhat astounding by the end to look back and realize just how many characters there were and how many were meaningfully developed past standard tropes. The series handles dialogue between the cast very well; characters feel relevant to the scenes they're in and the series abandons attempting to flesh out Esperion as a club member by member in favor of a personal journey developing characters as they struggle through Esperion's journey as a club and what it even means to play the sport. Some characters choose the comfort of what they know, others opt for a reformist approach to improve the system they're in, yet others aspire to go abroad to one day return and improve the system they're in and others yet finally want to self-improve because being talented at the sport is all they know. The series handles all these differing perspectives and how different characters feel about them in a way I'd say is nuanced, never saying one approach or the other is more or less correct...so long as characters never forget to appreciate on the ground they once stood on. Despite the story being largely centered on youth football with only a minority of the story focused on professional football, I think the series highlights just how massive the world of football is to everyone in it; there's always someone better, nobody's perfect, and you have to simultaneously live with that without slipping into negative nihilism and decline, a struggle that eternally prods at the cast as they grow as players.

Perhaps Ao Ashi's strongest strength is not just its humanization of its cast, but also its humanization of football as a sport; the series is chalk full of references and emphasizes the global appeal of the sport in a way that's easily understandable, from players being referenced to sports journalism being a pretty interesting subplot to how youth football works as an institution and how it differs from country to country. It does a damn good job showing off football as a uniting force, viciously criticizes ethnic and racial essentialism and showing off how social circles around the sport work. The series is certainly persistent in what it wants to say about the sport bringing people together and yet it works because its earnest and straightforward about it wants to say.

Yuugo Kobayashi is an honestly fantastic artist and I adore how this series aesthetically looks; there's some really clever uses of ink as a means of emphasizing narrative moments, and a pleasant grittiness to the way the series carries itself, from a lot of characters' messy hair to the tenderness of romantic moments between Hana and Ashito to the strong use of visual metaphor, with a specific use partway through the story standing out. I don't have much to complain about the writing either, which improves gradually as the series progresses. His writing works well for the emotionally charged journey Ao Ashi is and the paneling is often incredibly impactful, especially when used to convey physicality; I look forward to whatever his next work is and hope he takes pride in his work here.

Ao Ashi is the best football manga manga's produced that I have read to date, and one of the best sports series in general. It struck a chord with me both as a football fan and as someone that adores this medium, so much so that I've reread it since its completion, and my mind still occasionally drifts back to what it's trying to say as a story. It's one of my favorite manga ever, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Thank you to anyone and everyone that read this review, any and all feedback would be appreciated.

Mar 9, 2021

nic016

Recommended

Preliminary (247/412 chp)

Story: To be honest, I'm not a huge soccer/football fan. Like I played a bit as a kid, was never really good but I enjoy watching it. I get the rules. And to be honest, you don't have to know much about the game. As long as you played a sport before, you'll get all the sports stuff (maybe not ALL, but 95%). I was very impressed with the pacing and development of the manga. I mean, this is a real show on how great pacing can be for a manga. It's perfect in that sense. You feel you get somewhere by the end of ...

Dec 21, 2024

ShounenBD

Recommended

Preliminary (391/412 chp)

I'll start of with the preface that there is no official translation to this manga yet and some of the scans early on are a little rough.
With that done all i can do about this manga is to gush at how amazing I have found this, as a big football fan I had been reading many football mangas hoping for something to grab a hold of me. Having started reading this when it was a lot more obscure I was immediately amazed at the raw emotion that this manga could display. The development of the protagonist and the cast around him is amazing, the connections ...

Dec 24, 2020

Cicada7

Recommended

Preliminary (110/412 chp)

Ao Ashi is the only Football manga that i really like. It has a very standard plot but it is executed so well that it easily overcomes its limitations. The characters are well thought but nothing spectacular, the story is fairly predictable and there is little originality to the manga. However, Ao Ashi is a manga that is very much greater than the sum of its parts.

Pros: The football knowledge in this manga is great, but is easily explained and enjoyable to understand. This is one of the standout aspects of this manga, actually making me appreciate football more. It is much more of ... a realistic take on football, without any superpowers or special moves. I especially like the focus on the fundamental skills of football instead of each character being only good at one thing. As a person who does not like watching any sports, this got me invested in the matches.

The characters designs are especially enjoyable to look at. All of them have fairly diverse designs: varying in height, eyes, hairstyles and general looks. They are not lazy designs that simply change the character hairstyles so you can tell which character is which. Each character is well thought out in design.

Cons: As i mentioned, in terms of originality and story there is little that stands out from other manga.

My Biggest con has to be the fact that everyone, apart from the players, seems to know exactly what to problems is and how to fix it. It's as if everyone knows better than the actual footballers. This is mainly a problem for one of the characters: the daughter of an important sponsor of the football club. Even though she is not a football player, we get to listen to her explain what the problem facing the players are and how to fix them. Every time a player is doing something wrong or has a problem, we cut to her and she starts explaining things. She is also pretty much a blank character who has no personality other than liking football; in other words she is a stand in for the author, explaining things and setting up story points. She is also almost always right and knows best. I really do not like this character.

As well as this there is another character who is always right and always knows best. His actions and manipulations seem to be praised rather than being seen as exploitive. These types of character are unlikable and simply a hindrance to the story.

My final con is mostly personal preference, but i like to see characters in sports manga take more losses than what happens here. At the moment, the matches often seem very one side with a couple of missteps. Once the players break through a confrontation they almost always score. The matches are fairly clean and without any random factors, which makes for a much more predictable match. The randomness and constant changing situations needs to be felt more to make it more entertaining.

Aug 15, 2021

Lub

Recommended

Preliminary (265/412 chp)

TL;DR: While not perfect I think Ao Ashi provides enough individuality mixed with good execution of your standard sports manga tropes to be a must read for anyone who is a fan of the genre while also serves as a great, easy-to-follow introduction for anyone looking to get into it.

As a fan of the genre, two of my biggest issues with sports manga is generally how formulaic they are as well as how hard to follow the action tends to be.
This manga does an exceptional job at handling both of these issues.

Drawing motion is seemingly one of the ... harder things to do, but something everyone drawing action has to do. Where sports manga tend to deviate though is in the numbers. You won't find detailed eleven on eleven fighting in Dragonball or One Piece, however for every manga about a team sport this is a common occurrence. Naturally drawing a "fight" between 20 people as opposed to two people is a lot harder, so one of my main gripes tends to be that the whole scale picture gets sort of fuzzy when things are moving fast.
Ao Ashi uses almost exclusively an eagle eye's perspective for all of the large motion scenes, along with some of the cast usually explaining the tactics and maneuvers during the scene makes for an extremely accessible and easy to follow disposition. You won't get lost in the build up of blurry scenes, so when the climax finally hits you won't feel lost in how you got there.

Similarly Ao Ashi takes, what-you-would-not-expect-to-be-very-unique-decision-but-sadly-is, a different approach to the setting namely NOT having the setting be in high school.
This does such an immense difference for the suspense and pacing of the story. No more, are the times of set tournament brackets where it's win or go home and your Spin The Wheel options are: Win by demolition, Win as the underdog, Lose in heart breaking fashion or Lose due to injury.
While it is an incredibly sad fact that so many great premises are ruined by the chains of the high school genre, that does not take away from how fresh Ao Ashi felt in regards to the setting.
While the matches themselves are still obviously formulaic, thankfully the over arcing plot is not (at least not compared to most recent sports manga). Needless to say, the outcome of the games is still set to a fifty/fifty of win/loss but where the difference appears is in the consequences of said fifty/fifty. Because the result of a specific game won't affect whether the story continues or not (i.e. getting knocked out of nationals of whatever sport your high school story is set in) the suspense rises since it's not as obvious which games our main cast will win.

Characters are generally just solid, most of them follow your standard tropes for sports manga with a few exceptions. Mainly a few of the side characters show ideas we tend to not find in these types of stories. Notably, characters who find out that hard work isn't always enough and just-because-he's-a-dick-doesn't-mean-he-will-lose. I realize I come off rather negative here, but overall I considered characters to be a strong point. The trope-y ones are done well enough that they're enjoyable despite their one dimension-ness and the more unique characters actually have some solid depth to them, with relatable flaws or otherwise realistic shades.

My main gripes with Ao Ashi have come towards the latter chapters (as of writing this, chapters 230~260) where the pacing has fallen off a cliff with dragged out matches where characters take turn pulling out new superpowers to trump one another for plot conveniences sake. Something that sadly has become a staple of the genre, but I'm hopeful the author will bring us back to his earlier style of pacing where this wasn't as prevalent.

Nonetheless, I've thoroughly enjoyed reading Ao Ashi on a weekly basis and despite it's current slump I intent to keep reading it with hopes that it will return to it's style of the first brilliant 200 chapters.

Jan 19, 2021

Shahriar_Mahir

Recommended

Preliminary (241/412 chp)

This review doesn't contain any spoiler.
Ao Ashi is about a countryside boy named Ashito who is called to take on an exam in a youth club of tokyo named Esperion.Ao Ashi is one of the rare football manga which is realistic enough.And also we know there is a lack of good football manga compared to Basketball or Baseball etc.Ao Ashi has made me cry,made me happy,made me thrilled.The main character Ashito is constantly developing character.His character development has amazed me to a great extent.Other characters also get some good development but of course not to a extent that Ashito got.Ao Ashito shows every kind of ...

Jul 10, 2022

paxerel

Recommended

Preliminary (292/412 chp)

Before I really begin wanted to mention that there are many discussions around the topic of Blue Lock vs. Ao Ashi, which one is better and so on. I don't think we should compare them. They are both football/sports manga, yes, but they tackle the theme of wanting to become the best in a completely different way, and both are completely fine. Both are great manga, I personally just like Ao Ashi's approach more.

Well then, let's start with the real review.

Story 9/10:
Ao Ashi is about Aoi Ashito, a football fanatic, that wants to make it to the big stage, so he can support his rather ... poor family and especially so he can pay back his mother for everything she has done for him. That's why Aoi decides to move from the small city of Ehime to Tokyo, where he joins the Tokyo City Esperion's youth team. There he learns all the basics of football from a new and overcomes his struggles by finding realistic solutions by training extremely hard and utilizing his personal abilities and innate talent. That's also what makes this manga so good in my opinion. Aoi doesn't just try harder and then suddenly get's better, because he had a morale boost. No, getting better is a long, hard and jarring process that recquires much devotion. The solutions in what ways Aoi has to improve and how he trains make so much sense and the tactics involved are easily understandable.
The one thing I didn't enjoy about the story and found a bit annoying (and why I didn't give the story a 10/10) is the romance part, which gladly doesn't play that big of a role, but felt kind of unnecessary to me.

Art 8/10:
The art is nothing to special, especially not in the beginning (It get's better though). However I think the dynamic panelling and the depiction of movement is first class. Sometimes I have a hard time imagining very dynamic scenes in manga and understanding what's really happening, but that was not the case with Ao Ashi. While the art itself isn't outstanding, it is very much enjoyable.

Characters 9/10:
If you look at my profile, you can see that Akutsu Nagisa is in my top 10 favorite characters. I think that shows how great I think at least he is.
Not all of the characters in Ao Ashi are exceptionally well written and deep, conflicting characters (some I think are OK are Takeshima, Asari, Kuroda, Yuuma, Ootomo and Tachibana), but then there are some that really make you feel with them and think about their actions and why they do what they do. The best characters, in my opinion, are Aoi, Akutsu, Kuribayashi, Fukuda and Togashi. Especially those all have motivations that lead them and act very much understandably. You learn more about them as the story goes on and grow really attached, as the character drama really unvolves.
Also Akutsu, Fukuda and Togashi are just the biggest badasses and it's epic to watch them.

Enjoyment 10/10:
This rating might be very subjective, because I myself have played football for a long time and always wanted a great football manga I could relate to. That's why Ao Ashi's realism hits just the right spot for me. The games are extremely fun to read through, the character drama is interesting, the goals do make sense (as opposed to every goal in Blue Lock haha) and overall every chapter is just fun to read through.

Overall 9/10:
I don't think Ao Ashi is a 10/10 yet, but it's also not finished, so that might change. I think it is the best sports manga I have read (Haikyuu coming in as a close 2nd) and deserves so much more attention. If you like football and enjoy sports manga, definitely give this one a read, it doesn't get much better.

Aug 14, 2025

TitusPullo

Not Recommended

Since it's rated 8.7 on MAL, and it focuses on U-18 professional clubs rather than high school, I thought it would be similar to "Catenaccio" another such manga.

But Aoi Ashito feels like he's written to make you like him, and feels too artificial and forced. And the writing itself is childish so I suspect that it will only find purchase among children.

After 18 chapters, I do not care one iota about Ashito. He showed nothing of worth from Chapter 1, and if it weren't rated 8.7 on MAL, I would have dropped it after the first chapter.

I usually end with a silver lining or mention ...