 Fans had pointed out that Tsubasa's teams always tend to win or tie but never lose; Takahashi stated that to make the story longer, he had to make the protagonist's team participate in more matches and that readers want strong characters, which resulted in Tsubasa being a prodigy.Tsubasa's first team, the Nankatsu, was based on a team Takahashi took part in as child that aimed to become a first-category team despite being low-skilled at the time.In retrospect, Takahashi said Tsubasa was a less realistic character than other protagonists he had created; most notably the character Kyosuke Kano from the "" series was written to be more realistic and had to face family issues and relearn the rules of the sport.