During a certain period, animated series based on real-life characters filled the mornings of children in the United States. Episodes featuring the Harlem Globetrotters, The Monkees, Mike Tyson, Mister T, The Three Stooges, Roseanne Barr, Jackie Chan, or Gary Coleman provided hours and hours of television of varying quality that gradually faded away, leaving celebrities as mere cameos in ‘Scooby-Doo’. But Lionel Messi, a seven-time winner of the UEFA Best Player in the World award, is determined to revive it.
What are you looking at, silly?
The most curious thing is that the Argentine footballer will not be alone in his show, titled ‘Messi and the Giants,’ a story that has little to do with his life: at the age of 12, returning from training, a young Lionel gets trapped in a video game and has to escape through different challenges with the help of a Ballon d’Or. The slogan, “In every child, there is a hero.” It couldn’t be more generic.
It’s like ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ but with one of the most famous footballers in history as the protagonist trapped in the digital world. An isekai, if you think about it. Behind the animation and the story is Sony, and watch out, Atlantis Animation, a company located in the Canary Islands, will ensure that everything goes well. Homegrown flavor.
It is said that ‘Messi and the Giants’ will open up to the multiverse and will highlight the moral values of its protagonist (yes, the same one who made the phrase “What are you looking at, silly?” go viral) above all else. Honestly, these things usually don’t turn out very well, but the soccer player is a children’s idol, so who knows? For now, its teaser doesn’t give us any hints. Not even the release date.
Meanwhile, those of us who don’t enjoy soccer are watching ‘Messi and the Giants’ with a blank expression, waiting to see if there are at least superpowers involved beyond the power of friendship and perseverance. We already know about those.
