Known for his lovingly drawn renditions of physics-defying goals on the pages of soccer manga ¡°Captain Tsubasa,¡± series creator Yoichi Takahashi was unexpectedly forced to play defense last month ¡ª in an intellectual property battle with a Singapore-based startup of murky origin.
On June 17, Takahashi took to Twitter in order to denounce plans by Football Metaverse Pte and its partner Mangaverse Foundation to sell a series of non-fungible tokens ¡ª which serve as certificates for digital items such as art and music ¡ª themed around ¡°Captain Tsubasa,¡± describing the project as ¡°illegal¡± and urging fans not to participate.
¡°All Captain Tsubasa related NFTs issued by FOOTBALL METAVERSE and MANGAVERSE are illegal,¡± Tsubasa Co., the company established by Takahashi to manage the series, tweeted in both English and Japanese. ¡°Captain Tsubasa fans, we sincerely hope no one gets caught up in this scam.¡±
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