Giant Killing
Giant Killing is a Japanese manga series written by Masaya Tsunamoto and illustrated by Tsujitomo. It has been serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Morning since January 2007. A 26-episode anime television series adaptation was broadcast on NHK General TV from April to September 2010.
In 2010, Giant Killing won the 34th Kodansha Manga Award in the general category.
Plot
East Tokyo United, ETU, has been struggling in Japan's top football league for a few years. It has taken everything they have just to avoid relegation. To make matters even worse, the fans are starting to abandon the team. In an effort to improve their performance, ETU has hired a new coach, the slightly eccentric Tatsumi Takeshi. Tatsumi, who was considered a great football player when he was younger, abandoned the team years before but has proven himself as the manager of one of England's lower division amateur teams. The task won't be easy, the teams East Tokyo United is pitted against have bigger budgets and better players. However, Tatsumi is an expert at Giant Killing. ETU home stadium in this manga was modeled on Hitachi Kashiwa Soccer Stadium, while the team appears to have been inspired by Tokyo Verdy, which has faced a similar riches-to-rags trajectory in the J. League.Characters
;Takeshi Tatsumi;Shigeyuki Murakoshi
;Daisuke Tsubaki
;Luigi Yoshida
;Kazuki Kuroda
;Yusaku Sugie
;Hiroshi Midorikawa
;Yuri Nagata
Media
Manga
Giant Killin, written by Masaya Tsunamoto and illustrated by Tsujitomo, has been serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine Morning since January 11, 2007. The series went on hiatus is September 2016, and resumed publication in January 2017. Kodansha has collected its chapters into individual volumes. The first volume was published on April 23, 2007. As of November 21, 2025, sixty-eight volumes have been released.Kodansha USA are publishing the manga in English in a digital format.