Summary
2023 is the 21st anniversary of theAmerican footballmangaEyesheild 21, and the illustrator Yuusuke Murata is doing a few things to celebrate. A few months ago, he announced that he would be making a new anime short animated by Village Studio. Now, that short has finally been released, along with an exciting announcement about Murata’s future works.
The originalEyeshield 21manga ran from 2002 to 2009,totaling 37 volumes in all. It also had an anime adaptation of the same name which aired from 2005 to 2008, totaling 145 episodes in all. The story follows an introverted boy named Sena Kobayakawa who joins the American football team as their secretary, and ends up as their running back. The name of the series is a reference to the eye shield Sena wears to conceal his identity, and the number 21 is from his jersey.
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Murata posted the newly released video on hisTwitteraccount on August 16th, making it available for anyone to watch freely. The video is only 43 seconds long, but it is directed by Murata himself. A soundless version of the clip had been originally posted back on June 5th, teasing the upcoming release of this final version. The story of the clip was written by Riichirou Inagaki, the writer forEyeshield 21.
The clip follows Sena through an intense run down the football field, and has a few cameo appearances by other characters from theEyeshield 21story as well. There is no spoken dialogue in the short as only Inagaki and Murata worked on it, but there is written dialogue in Japanese. Hopefully there will be an official English transcript in the future, but as the clip is action-based, it is worth watching even if you cannot read Japanese. The best part about it is seeing anupdated, fresh animationstyle for theEyeshield 21characters!
The video also served as a big announcement for Yuusuke Murata’s new project, which will be a one-shot manga by him. Theupcoming mangais called BRAIN x BRAVE, and is set to release on Shonen Jump+. No other details have been released yet, but for fans of Murata’s work - not justEyeshield 21, but alsoOne Punch Man- this is an exciting announcement! Murata is also currently working on the animeZaiyuki, and has stated he is creating his own original animation project as well, so he is certainly a busy man these days.
