Issue 19 of Big Comic Original went on sale in Japan on 18 September 2026. Its line-up carries a line announcing that a spin-off series of the hit title Aoashi is starting, and the colour lead is the first half of 'Aoashi Shonan True Rise'. Yugo Kobayashi, who drew the main series, draws the spin-off himself. The main series ended in Weekly Big Comic Spirits; the spin-off began in a different Shogakukan magazine.
That main series started in Weekly Big Comic Spirits in January 2015 and closed at 40 volumes. The final volume went on sale on 29 August 2025, and Shogakukan's product page calls it a proud finish for a hit football manga and a last volume full of feeling. Volume 40 opens as the match against the Barรงa youth side moves into added time. Esperion, once trailing 1-3, have pulled level around Ashito, and just as they push to win it something happens to him.
Ashito Aoi was the ace of a weak school football club in Ehime. On the day he lost his last middle-school tournament he ran along the shore to work off his frustration, and there he met a man who had watched the match: Tatsuya Fukuda, who coaches the high-school-age youth team at the J.League club Tokyo City Esperion FC. Kobayashi won the 65th Shogakukan Manga Award in the general category for this series. He is from Ehime Prefecture, his debut work is 'House of Blue Light', and his other well-known titles include 'Short Peace' and 'Fermat's Cuisine'.
The second television season, 'Aoashi Season2', starts on NHK Educational TV at 5pm on Sunday 4 October. The first cour is the opening 12 of 24 episodes. The official site says season 2 is set in the Premier League, the top high-school-age tier in Japan, and follows Ashito after his promotion from the B team to the A team. On that A team are Kuribayashi, called the finest work the youth side has produced, and the physically overwhelming Akutsu, and from his first day of training Ashito is outmatched on speed, technique, invention and sheer toughness.
The opening theme is 10-FEET's 'Fortress Defense' and the ending is Higuchi Ai's 'Triangle', both written for the series. Part of each track was released for the first time with the first-cour main PV on 2 September. In his comment, 10-FEET's Takuma wrote that he fell for the manga first and has followed the anime ever since. Higuchi Ai wrote about a world where there is always another rung above, and where finishing first only drops you back to the bottom of the next level. Streaming starts at 11pm on Sunday 4 October on Hulu, Netflix, U-NEXT and Anime Times, with ABEMA, d Anime Store and others following from 7:30pm on Thursday 8 October. The official site says a rerun of season 1 began on the same channel on 5 April 2026.
In Korea, Daewon C.I. publishes the series in Oh Kyung-hwa's translation. Volumes 1 and 2 arrived together on 5 February 2026 and the pairs have kept coming since, with volumes 18 and 19 out on 15 September. That is 19 volumes in seven months, with 21 left to the end. The digital edition is on RIDI. Only the first half of the spin-off ran this issue.
