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The majority of popular manga and anime are filled to the brim with characters that have ridiculous special moves. But while fans with a reasonable grasp on reality know they can’t possibly recreate Goku’s Kamehameha beam or Attack on Titan’s gravity-defying leaps, part of the appeal of action sports manga and anime is in trying to recreate the awesome-looking (though usually wildly rule-breaking) special moves featured within. Think every North American kid that tried to recreate The Mighty Ducks’ infamous “Knuckle Puck,” but far more ludicrous.

But we’re a little concerned that we might soon be seeing a nationwide epidemic of Japanese kids turning up to hospital with all kinds of mangled limbs in the near future, because already pretty ridiculous soccer manga Captain Tsubasa just introduced this wildly dangerous and maybe physically impossible new special move:

Here we see one of the Captain Tsubasa characters literally riding a soccer ball around the field so nonchalantly you’d think this is how he commutes to work every day. We’d have to put our money on this one being physically impossible, but who knows? Maybe if your head was as super tiny as this guy’s you’d be able to pull off the right balancing act to do it.

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Captain Tsubasa has been around seemingly forever. A number of professional soccer players all over the world credit the series at least partially for sparking their interest in the sport, and the many over-the-top special moves are surely emulated on soccer fields the world over.

In fact, Japan’s national soccer team recently had a televised go at some of the more extreme moves depicted in the manga, like a Japanese sports cartoon version of Myth Busters – except, of course, they always succeed, because this is Japanese TV we’re talking about.

With this newest move, though, it looks like series creator Yōichi Takahashi is personally challenging the team to pull it off.

Source: Himajin Sokuhou
Photo: Yōichi Takahashi via Himajin Sokuhou