Can Japan beat Brazil? Anime predicts they can

In 2001, a Japanese anime predicted that Japan would face Brazil at a World Cup. The writers thought they were being creative. 25 years later, Japan vs Brazil is happening in Houston on Monday. In a real World Cup. In the round of 32.

Somewhere in Japan, the people who made that show are having the best week of their lives.

The anime, Captain Tsubasa followed a Japanese boy whose entire personality was football and whose one dream was to beat Brazil. The show was made in 2001, when Japan had never even qualified for a World Cup. They just decided to write about it anyway.

That's either visionary or delusional. Turns out it was visionary.

The internet is having its fair share of fun with this. Fan edits everywhere. Side by side screenshots of anime scenes and real match photos.

Someone dubbed real World Cup commentary over the fictional Japan vs Brazil final and it now has millions of views. Grown adults are genuinely emotional about an anime from 2001.

In Bangladesh, this show circulated through the early 2000s. An entire generation watched Tsubasa dream about beating Brazil on a fuzzy television screen. Those same people are now watching it happen in real life at 3 AM on a much better screen this time.

Captain Tsubasa is not alone in this prediction business though. The Simpsons predicted Donald Trump becoming president in 2000. They predicted Disney buying Fox in 1998, twenty years before it happened. In 2014 they showed a FIFA executive getting arrested for corruption. The following year, the FBI arrested actual FIFA executives.

If the prediction of Captain Tsubasa is right, it might mean a major upset for the Samba loving nation. In the anime, Japan won 3-2 after extra time. Tsubasa scored all three himself because he was that kind of guy. Now, Japan need to beat the five-time world champions to go through.

The anime also had a goalkeeper who could punch the ball hard enough to destroy the net, so the scoreline prediction should probably be taken lightly. The fixture though? The fixture came true, much to the delight of the Japanese fans and anime fans all around the world.