San Antonio Spurs star player Victor Wembanyama dressed up as No Face (Kaonashi) from the iconic anime movie Spirited Away for Halloween ahead of the team’s game against the Utah Jazz, which they went on to win 106-88. The two-year player even got into character moving like No Face as well:
This is now back-to-back years of Wembanyama getting into the holiday spirit, going as the iconic Slender Man in 2023. After the game against the Jazz, Wembanyama talked about how he came to choose No Face from Spirited Away as his costume this year:
Wembanyama has recently shown his love for anime. In an interview with HugoDécrypte, he admitted that his favorite series is Attack on Titan and recommends it to anyone looking to get into anime. The talented two-year player also revealed that he’s a huge Star Wars fan, admitting that the first thing he did with his first NBA paycheck was buy a $850 Millennium Falcon LEGO set. Wembanyama even caught a picture with Star Wars actors Ewan McGregor, Hayden Christensen, and Rosario Dawson.
Spirited Away
Spirited Away (2001) is an anime movie written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film became the highest-grossing anime film of all time, earning $395.58 million at the worldwide box office. It wasn’t until over a decade later that Your Name (2016) and Demon Slayer: Mugen Train (2020) surpassed it.
The film also received a whopping 31 awards and even became the very first Japanese animated work to win The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2003. Miyazaki went on to state: “Until now, I made “I wish there was such a person” leading characters. This time, however, I created a heroine who is an ordinary girl, someone with whom the audience can sympathize, someone about whom they can say, “Yes, it’s like that.” It’s very important to make it plain and unexaggerated. Starting with that, it’s not a story in which the characters grow up, but a story in which they draw on something already inside them, brought out by the particular circumstances… I wanted to tell such a story in this movie. I want my young friends to live like that, and I think they, too, have such a wish.”
The iconic film is currently available to watch on many platforms, including Amazon Prime, Hulu, MAX, YouTube TV, AppleTV, and Netflix (region availability may vary).
Anime and the NBA
The 7-foot-3 center for the Spurs is one of many in the NBA embracing anime. Just recently, the basketball anime Kuroko’s Basketball announced a collaboration with the NBA. In 2022, Nike revealed a Naruto Shippuden line for Zion Williamson’s “Zion 1” collection. And in the same year, the Denver Nuggets remade the iconic ending from Jujutsu Kaisen as part of their schedule release.
Steph Noh, senior writer for Sporting News, recently stated in an interview with Ryan Kaminski, that many players around the league are big into anime such as Naruto and Dragon Ball, pointing out that Utah Jazz star player Lauri Markkanen would even travel during the season with Dragon Ball manga.
We can only hope to see more athletes embracing anime as the years go by! It will be a treat to see what he will dress up as next year after this year’s Spirited Away tribute from Wembanyama.
Source: NBA, San Antonio Spurs
© 2001 Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli, NDDTM
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