FC Barcelona has an official manga, and it’s weird

Photo by Don Arnold/WireImage

Players such as Lionel Messi and Gerard Piqué fly through a time portal while riding a dragon and match wits with a demon

As part of FC Barcelona’s pre-season tour through Japan, the club, along with the Catalan Board of Tourism and the Government of Catalonia, decided to produce a manga featuring some players - Marc-André ter Stegen, Luis Suárez, Lionel Messi, Gerard Piqué, and Sergi Roberto.

You might have thought that the manga would have just explained the history of the club and some of the player’s careers.

But maybe you thought differently. Maybe you thought it was about a time-traveling dragon. If you did, you’re a very strange person. But you’re also right.

The official Barcelona manga starts out with Piqué just showing up to training riding a dragon. pic.twitter.com/K1gpsX6Etc

— Luis Mazariegos (@luism8989) July 30, 2019

There’s very little explanation for this, but Gerard Piqué just shows up to training one day riding a dragon that looks straight out of Game of Thrones. This is just page 2. He simply tells his teammates he found it in Montblanc, a town in Catalonia. Like that explains it.

He also says this is St. George’s dragon. Now, St. George is the patron saint of Barcelona and the cross of St. George is featured in the FC Barcelona crest. So that’s kind of cool, but could someone point out to Piqué that St. George slayed the Dragon? Is this a zombie dragon?

So on page 2 a dragon shows up and on page 3 they ride the dragon through a time travel and end up in the Meiji era of Japan.

Makes sense. #BarçaManga pic.twitter.com/qAVeOJrmv4

— Luis Mazariegos (@luism8989) July 30, 2019

The players just agree to ride on a bus with the dragon and they randomly go through a time portal. Suddenly they find themselves in the Meiji era of Japan.

There, they meet a couple of Japanese kids who offer to help the players get enough food to feed the dragon to give him enough strength to open up another portal to return to the present day. But when they get to their village, they are faced with the demon Katsu-maka. Now you may think that being a demon, he must be doing something incredibly evil. But he actually says his plan is just to “annoy” the town.

That’s when the players realize what’s making this particular demon so grumpy is that he’s bored, so they decide to entertain him with their football skills.

The players engage in “The Death Rondo” which makes the demon absolutely dizzy at their high-speed precision. (Let’s just assume Suárez’s touch was perfect this time.)

The Barcelona players use their advanced passing skills to make a demon dizzy#BarçaManga pic.twitter.com/KABXXAO7Wv

— Luis Mazariegos (@luism8989) July 30, 2019

It ends with something called “The Ultimate Pass” (which involves the dragon channeling his fire through Ter Stegen, I think) and “The Invisible Dribble.” The demon is so impressed he leaves them alone. The players and the dragon eat food, and have some nice cultural exchange moments with the Japanese kids. Then they ask the dragon - who speaks English by the way - to open up another time travel portal, and they return home.

Once home, they show the Japanese kids (who also came through the portal) around Catalonia. Afterwards, the kids say their goodbyes and go back to the Meiji era. Finally, the dragon offers to take the players to visit his cave. For some reason the comic ends with the dragon and the players playing a VR game. This is one final, random twist in this madcap tale.

The story ends with the players in the dragon's cave playing a VR game. This really comes out of nowhere since the story so far had nothing to do with VR or video games, but oh well. #BarçaManga pic.twitter.com/k7uNTZH7F6

— Luis Mazariegos (@luism8989) July 30, 2019

If this manga intrigues you, the good news is that it’s free. You just have to give your name and e-mail and agree to get communications from the club. I mean, you could also give completely fake information, and I doubt that it will stop you. But that’s up to you. Click here.

Source: barcablaugranes.com