I have been playing soccer my whole life and i can say from experience that this manga is not unrealistic, actually it is more realistic than most soccer manga out there. I love the fact that Teppei is already a skilled player that needs to learn the team dynamics of football and the tactics of the game which reflects the current state of most young players in the game today with the potential of playing professionally. Most underdog manga have an impossibility to them that is not overcome easily in real life, if ever. And although i love manga like whistle i feel that this particular manga surpasses the rest in the skills displayed, and mentality of football carried out in the manga. Teppei reminds me of a Cristiano Ronaldo or Zidane by the way he excites the crowd. Reading this manga makes me as excited as watching a real game and thats all you can wish for from a great piece of art.

ive read to vl4 and I like how the author portray the skills and techniques of soccer. its not like captain tsubasa where the character during the games r clay men looking and the length of the game doesnt drag for 10 chapters like other sports manga. Its hilarious reading Teppei as he plays and learn the game. hope the group scanlating this doesnt drop it.

Fantasista is great sports manga with a high-paced, intense storyline and lots of humour to keep the reader hooked. It starts out a bit slow, but picks up very quickly after the first few chapters. In general, the manga focuses not only on Teppei's growth in soccer, but also the relationships he forges with the people he meets and his desire to prove to the world that his sister is the best coach. These aspects, in my opinion, make the manga much more three dimensional and enjoyable. The characters--though not outstanding--are fine in terms of the roles they play in the manga.
While Fantasista appears to be just another typical soccer manga, it goes deep enough in its explanations of various techniques to make it realistic, but not overwhelmingly so that it gets boring.
Anyways, to sum it up, I highly HIGHLY recommend this.

... Last updated on November 28th, 2011, 1:35pm

I actually like this type of manga compared to whistle, underdog mangas are good and all but they are a dime a dozen. Taking an already good player and mix in good storytelling progression is much more interesing and can be harder to do than your underdog manga.

Pretty much every other soccer manga I've read the MC is your typical hard working forward like Whistle, Knight of the Area, Shoot etc..
I am left frustrated by how these manga take a hugely unrealistic shounen approach. Plot elements like slow progression where MC spends 100s of chapters mostly as a bit part squad player, where MC is always given a handicap (due to psychological reasons or a silly weakness in his game) or where MC has limited ability but overcomes with hard work are hugely unrealistic and garbage to me.

In this manga the MC is a prodigy, He jumps straight into a school youth team and excels. to those saying this is unrealistic, there are many young players who have ridiculous youth records when compared to their peers, e.g. Bojan from Barcelona who had a ridiculous record of 3.5 goals a game at youth level. Teppei is a youth prodigy so his performances are not unrealistic.
He does struggle with team tactics and strategy initially but it does not take him volumes of manga to overcome them.
He also initially struggles in Italy when he moves abroad, He also takes more of a back seat in the team, This to be expected when a player goes overseas as a teenager,
To the person who criticized Teppei for not going to Italy when 1st asked, moving overseas as a youth player is very difficult and has a minute success rate. Local youth players are generally given preference to make the youth team (Youth teams play much less games than club teams so regular game time is crucial) so unless you put it 10/10 performances from the get go it is going to be difficult. Also moving to a country with a higher level of soccer makes it even more difficult to adapt and perform consistently.

Teppei is both talented and hard working. He starts of as a person who excels in his environment and also improves as he moves on to new environments like the Japanese youth team and Milan youth team.

The manga has a good pace and avoids the stupid under powered cliches we see in most soccer manga

... Last updated on March 13th, 2015, 11:53am

Story was good at the beginning, but it seems like the author lost any creativity past vol 14 or 15, and just keep repeating the same thing over and over.

For example, MC continuously to "ping-pong" his "power level". He would be bad and useless all the sudden, and just to gain them back in that volume without any logical explanation. Instead of actually talking about soccer and its strategy/strength, it became a work to stir up forced emotional feelings by using the "character power-up" pattern over and over.

It was a couple volumes before the ending anyway, everything else was good prior to that. Seems like the author simply tried to drag on the story for as long as possible for the sake of having more volumes, and thats a big minus for me. (And it has a very unsatisfying ending to boot)

... Last updated on November 19th, 2010, 7:19pm

well, please dont get me wrong . . this manga's really great, it will surely get you hooked up even if you dont know soccer that much. . the plays were realistic, it has no"powerful" attacks like in KnB that's waaay too unrealistic.

But i droped it off when i reached c.104 . . why? this is where it got unrealistic. . unrealistic in terms of the main's way of thinking. it'll just hit you, "oh what a dumb" . . why again? (can't spoil XP)

the art was 4/10 for me at first, but will get decent after a few chapters, so no worries.

but
overall, it's still a good read . . quite around 8/10 . .


maybe i'll think of continuing it sooN after how many years (+﹏+)~. .

Both comments below say, unrealistic and realistic, this seams impossible but it's just as it is. As many sports mangas out there this has some ridiculous things, like taking statistics to win by penalties, it sounds great but how do you get statistics of a team you never saw throw a penalty? or thinking that a good forward is better at defense that a good defender or even a better keeper than the keeper, or how a back-spin pass looks like a magic ball more than a football one, or doing a back-flip with the ball!!!!! that one topped the rest it's like Captain Tsubasa.... those kind of things are a bit annoying and kinda ruins it. It doesn't help either that the mangaka doesn't seam to understand the rules of football completely, spouting a ridiculous line like "he avoided the offside line with pinpoint accuracy" while accuracy has no baring on the offside rule..., or having the defender sweep with the cleats of the shoe pointing the other player or not knowing that even if the main referee doesn't see a foul the sideline referees can call him in and charge a foul or thinking that winning a position while using your body aggressively is the same as charging your opponent. It's still slightly better than other similar mangas but it makes it less interesting nonetheless.
Then there is the art-style which I don't dislike but the flow of the drawing is not so great, it's hard to follow the games and the characters often appear in odd positions, like making the char diagonally while kicking, you don't know if he's upside-down or jumping to the side or just making a normal kick.
Lastly, the story gets lost too quickly and it starts off with Teppei fighting to get a foothold on a new team and as soon as this is going somewhere the Youth camp starts and lasts over 7 volumes!!! for a little training and 2 games... soooo long-winded!!! So what's the idea of the anime? school football? Teppei going international? taking Japan to the great heights? Granting his sis dream? It lost me... furthermore, after going for so long with an international tournament with the best of each country the author goes back to school games?? I really don't get it.

Maybe there will be an anime of it some day that may be more interesting, I find that for sports animes are more enjoyable than mangas in most cases.

@Sukets if you read till v4 you should know the answer to your question and it's a very valid one


... Last updated on September 13th, 2016, 2:07am

Well, it seems to be just another soccer manga, and probably it's, but there are some particular things about it. First, the main character is talented and has the skills but he acquired those skills through practicing alone and following his sister's training plan. While we can see that Teppei is certainly the main character, his sister does hold some wheight in the manga as a character. So it can be viewed as player/trainer focused, at least from my point of view. Of course it's a manga and isn't as technically detailed as some other soccer manga, but it's somehow refreshing to read since it's focused in the creative aspect of the game.

The story starts off with the main character already skilled and talented. Out of nowhere, he joins a game and scores a goal for the team. It's all too sudden, poorly developed, and lacks suspense. The manga itself doesn't have a lot of technical details explaining certain moves or skills so readers only have a very superficial impression of how good the players are. It's unrealistic and kinda dumb. I don't know. I guess this is just not my cup of tea. I prefer it when the main guy's the underdog, and has to work his way up with hardwork and training that we can see. If you like soccer manga, I recommend reading "Whistle!" instead.