England's "Three Lions" will host Japan in another friendly match at Wembley Stadium. Tottenham Hotspur striker Solanke said he started watching Japanese anime during the COVID-19 pandemic and was greatly inspired and encouraged by its uplifting and inspiring storylines.

In their last friendly match, Tuchel's England took the lead with a goal from Ben White, but were held to a 1-1 draw by Uruguay after Valverde scored a penalty in the final moments.

England star Göran Solanke, 28, said, "Anime has played a very important role in my life, and it means a lot to me. I think many people are now more willing to show their interests and hobbies. I probably started to really get into anime during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of my friends were watching it and kept urging me to give it a serious try, but I always said I wasn't very interested at the time."

"But then I started watching, and the first anime I watched from beginning to end was Naruto. I loved it so much, I was completely addicted, and I watched it over and over again. After that, I started following one series after another. A lot of the content has been helpful to my daily life, and I've learned a lot of lessons from it. We see many characters, some starting from a young age, some starting from a very weak point, and they all have to go through various challenges. Although it's not real, it's just anime, but the life principles it contains are the same, and we can learn from them."

Speaking of Japan, Solanke said, "I went to Japan about two or three years ago, and it was definitely one of the best places I've ever been to. I loved it there, not just for the anime, but also for the culture and scenery. I visited temples and learned about the culture. Like I said, the culture there is very different. I feel like in Europe, many places are pretty much the same, but it was completely different there."

“I also visited an animation studio, and they showed me the production process, which I found very interesting because I didn’t know that it would take so long to produce an episode of animation. Just a 20-minute episode can take months to make, so seeing the effort behind it made me appreciate the work even more.”

In addition, Solank shared, "Later that summer when I was in South Korea, I went to a studio and they made a short animation for me, turning me into an anime character. That experience was really cool. I even did the voice acting myself. To be honest, I was a little nervous and it felt crazy. But being able to see myself in an anime was really great."

Image source: Internet