Konami’s football game series just had one of the strangest manga crossovers in recent memory — and yes, it is already complete.
Kiminori Wakasugi’s That Time I Got Reincarnated in PES, a manga based on Konami’s football game franchise eFootball, formerly known globally as Pro Evolution Soccer and in Japan as Winning Eleven, has ended after launching on April 9 in Kodansha’s Magazine Pocket app.
For English readers, Kodansha’s K MANGA service has published the full manga, making the complete story available rather than leaving fans waiting chapter by chapter. That is good news if you are the kind of reader who sees a title like this and immediately goes, “Wait bro, PES got isekai now?”
Yes, this is really a PES manga
The hook is already wild enough: Wakasugi, best known as the creator of Detroit Metal City, takes on eFootball, the modern successor to Pro Evolution Soccer. The source description frames it as an unexpected manga adaptation of Konami’s football game series, which is honestly the cleanest way to describe something this oddly specific.
For Malaysian and SEA fans, the PES name still carries a lot of nostalgia. Before FIFA fully dominated casual football game nights, Winning Eleven and PES were basically mamak-console royalty for plenty of players. Whether it was PS2 sessions with friends, cybercafe matches, or arguing over which club was broken that year, PES has deep roots in this region’s football gaming culture.
So even if eFootball’s modern era has been divisive among players, seeing the brand get a manga adaptation is still a fun little reminder of how much Konami’s football series used to mean across Asia.
Why Wakasugi makes this interesting
The creator attached here is a big part of the appeal. Wakasugi ended Detroit Metal City in 2010, with Viz Media publishing the manga in North America. That series also went on to inspire both a live-action film and an original video anime.
He later created All Esper Dayo!, which launched in 2009 and ended in 2015. That manga also crossed into live-action, inspiring a TV series, a special, a film, and a web series.
In other words, Wakasugi is not exactly the safe, boring choice for a straightforward sports promo manga. His name gives this project a more chaotic flavour, which fits the ridiculousness of a title like That Time I Got Reincarnated in PES. It sounds like the kind of concept that knows it is bizarre and leans into that energy.
Small manga, fun crossover energy
There is no need to oversell this as some massive anime-industry shake-up. This looks more like a short, oddball branded manga experiment — the kind of thing that gets football game fans, manga readers, and old-school PES loyalists clicking just to see what on earth is going on.
But that is exactly why it is worth noticing. Game-based manga adaptations are not new, but a PES/eFootball manga from the creator of Detroit Metal City is specific enough to stand out in a crowded news week.
For SEA readers, especially those who still remember Winning Eleven as the football game before every weekend session became FIFA/EA Sports FC, this one has that “eh, serious ah?” curiosity factor. Sometimes that is enough.
Source: Anime News Network