He doesn't have the ghost of a clue how to play soccer, but he'll try his best (which isn't much).
Louca is a French BD series by Bruno Desquier (an animator who previously worked on A Monster in Paris and early Illumination Entertainment projects) published in Spirou since 2011. It is a serialized comedy comic book mainly aimed at tweens and teenagers inspired by spokon series with a supernatural twist.
It follows the titular character Louca, a less-than-average teenager who is extremely clumsy and always down his luck but makes up for it with an extreme bravado. He one day meets the ghost of Nathan, a Lovable Jock stuck in his high school and that nobody else can perceive, who will help Louca to improve himself with some athletic training and other life advices. His paranormal shenanigans will bring him some unwanted attention, many observers now taking him for a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, that will lead him to increasingly high-stake situations where he will have to either save face with his usual bravado and ghostly friend making most of the work for him, or maybe, for once, actually go the distance himself.
The series is divided into several story arcs (referred to as "seasons" in collected editions) with each volume being released on a yearly basis:
- Season 1 (vol. 1-4): After meeting with Nathan, Louca becomes the hidden ace of his high school's soccer team. Their next match with one of the best team in the competition might have more than Louca's reputation at stakes.
- Season 2 (vol. 5-9): Nathan asks Louca to recruit his former teammates who all stopped soccer and switched sport following his untimely disappearance. To convince them, he will have to beat them at their own (new) games, ranging from golf and boxing to e-sport. Meanwhile, their investigation on Nathan's death have caught the attention of powerful shadowy figures.
- Season 3 (vol. 10-ongoing): Not much is known yet outside the fact that it will be set after a significant Time Skip.
An Animated Adaptation is reportedly in the works. Not to be confused with fellow Franco-Belgian BD Lou! and its own cartoon and movie adaptations.
Louca provides examples of:
- The Ace: Several characters qualify:
- Nathan was this when he was alive, so much so that his disappearance completely broke all of his team who left after losing all hope of winning or by pure superstition.
- Adel is this to an extent, though he is held back by virtue of being one of the only competent players of the post-Nathan era team.
- Finally Hugo, who was Nathan's de facto successor but became a jaded Jerkass and deflected to the Opposing Sports Team.
- Animesque: True to its spokon inspirations, the series features numerous Manga Effects such as speed lines and exaggerated expressions.
- The Big Guy: Sankou was this in Nathan's team but he now shares this role with Gervais and Noéra in present day, though they differentiate with Sankou focusing on strength, Gervais on his size, and Noéra being both but short-tempered and somewhat of a Dumb Muscle.
- Born Unlucky: Louca can't catch a break, even after meeting with Nathan. Every plan he makes seems to derail as soon as he makes them for one reason or another.
- Brought Down to Normal: What the e-sport arc boils down to, since Nathan could not use his abilities to help Louca for most of the tournament. Even when he eventually can by offering to "screencheat" his opponents' positions, Louca refuses his help and wants to win Joe's trust honorably.
- Bullying a Dragon: Louca's overconfidence and taunts can come off as this against imposing and short-tempered opponents like Gervais and Noéra.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Though the series never really loses its comedic tone, it grows significantly darker as it goes on and Nathan's death becomes a central part of the narrative rather than just an Excuse Plot for ghost shenanigans. Volume 10, which is focused on Nathan and features very little Louca, is almost entirely drama.
- Character Catchphrase: Louca often says "foutu pour foutu", which is a French idiom that could be translated as "might as well now that I'm screwed".
- Chivalrous Pervert: One of Nathan's only flaws is his love for women. He can spend hours admiring female students (and their mothers) and isn't above using his ghostly abilities to go into the girls' locker room to cheer himself up.
- Death as Comedy: Usually Averted, but then there is this one-sided exchange:Adel: (loses at the e-sport tournament) I can't believe I'm already dead! That sucks.Nathan: (in the background) Tell me about it!
- Deep-Immersion Gaming: The gameplay sequences of volumes 8 and 9 show the players disguised as their avatars conversing and interacting in the game, although this is definitely just a narrative tool since the actual screens appear from time to time in the real world and are normal looking video games.
- Depth Deception: During the one-on-one against Hugo, Louca mistakenly thinks that Adel and Julie are spectating while holding hands which triggers his Berserk Button. In reality, they were just standing one behind the other.
- Determinator: Louca in a nutshell. Many characters note that his unbridled motivation coupled with his Made of Iron body could actually make him an accomplished athlete if he actually tried.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Noéra used to be called "the Shrimp" when he was a frail Tiny Schoolboy and even then he hated that name. Now that he got bigger, he makes sure that nobody dares to call him like that again. Amusingly, Nathan immediately comes up with a new nickname upon seeing him again, "the Monster", though Noéra is obviously unaware.
- Everyone Can See It:
- Louca's biggest motivation is to impress the love of his life Julie, who of course already loves him (though clearly not to the same degree of obsession as him towards her).
- Nathan and Tifaine were also blatantly in love with each other and all of their friends knew it, but Nathan was just too scared to commit and Tifaine than had to be a Patient Childhood Love Interest.
- Evil Principal: Ripaton starts off as a regular grouchy Dean Bitterman threatening to close the soccer club for budgetary reasons, but as the series progresses each revelation escalates the true horror of his character. He actually wants to close the club because he struck an under-the-table deal with a megacorp to build a mall. That's why he hired the two goons himself to incapacitate the star player Nathan. Then he ran over Nathan himself (though Iceman forced his hand here). And then he asked Iceman to "deal with" the two goons to tie up loose ends. He does express some remorse, though not enough to refuse the money.
- Fictional Video Game: The e-sport tournament arc features many, though most are thinly veiled copies of real games:
- Super Kart Go, a Mario Kart 8 clone down to featuring "seeking missiles" and a Gratuitous Princess.
- Galactic Soccer 3 which is the only game not strictly mimicking an existing one and is somewhat a mix of Mario Strikers and Rollerball.
- Supreme Fighter IV, an obvious copy of Street Fighter IV.note Many of the fighters are stand-in for real SF characters like Chun-Li, Ryu, or Guile, but Jorge's character looks like Kyo Kusanagi from The King of Fighters and Louca's character is a cyborg more reminiscent of Jax and Kano from Mortal Kombat.
- B.B.R. The Big Battle Royale which is reminiscent of PUBG and Fortnite with its parachute drop and shrinking wall of death.
- Flashback Within a Flashback: Volume 10 plays with this trope quite effectively. It starts with a sequence in monochromatic red set after Nathan's accident, then when it comes back to the regular colors it screws with the audience by revealing that it is now set before the incident (by showing Nathan bumping into a middle schooler Louca). The story alternates between the two sets of flashbacks, then by the end the reader realizes that the flashbacks crossed each other, and that the "red" ones are now set before the normal ones, showing Nathan being poisoned by Brane in his sleep.
- Forgotten First Meeting: In vol. 10 , a middle schooler Louca accidentally bumped into Nathan a few days before his accident. Even then, Nathan noted that he was "quite a character".
- Girlfriend in Canada: Instead of taking the opportunity given by his friend Joe saying that he and Tifaine "should just get married already", Nathan immediately tells that he is now dating a girl called "Manon". Joe quickly notes that there's nobody named like this in their high school.
- Hidden Depths:
- Louca turns out to be pretty decent at tennis (though far from great) due to playing it a lot with his father.
- Julie, in an aversion of the tomboyish Gamer Chick trope, is actually a closeted gamer and becomes part of Louca's team for the e-sport competition.Louca: She really is the perfect woman!
- I Got Bigger: Noéra, one of Nathan's teammates previously known as "the Shrimp", got a massive growth spurt since Nathan's passing combined with him becoming very muscular since he started boxing.
- I Know Mortal Kombat: One of Nathan and Louca's Special Attack is a combined kick. Nathan said that he got the idea from "a cartoon he watched as a kid". He also notes that he unsuccessfully tried it when he was alive, but that it could only work in this specific scenario with one phantom foot.
- Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Louca pulls it twice to symbolize his newfound popularity status, failing to impress anyone. The first time he dresses up as a pretty boy from the early 2010's which is practically a Whole Costume Reference to Justin Bieber, and the second he wears Glam Rap fashion complete white falling baggy pants and a gold chain that make him fall down stairs. When called out on the latter, he tries to make it pass as being a victim of It's a Costume Party, I Swear!
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: Jordan's biggest flaw according to Nathan. He comes off as nice but extremely cocky, but then he's so distraught by the fact he is beaten by an amateur that he considers quitting sport altogether, so they have to hold back on their cheating. Putting Antonin as his caddie to belittle him certainly didn't help.
- Karma Houdini: Zig-zagged in the case of Louca. On one hand, the entire story is about him lying and cheating his way to success without worse repercussion than Amusing Injuries (which he still had prior the story for being The Klutz). In fact, the worst that happens to him (being chased by a hitman) is unrelated to this and a repercussion from him trying to solve Nathan's death. Then on the other hand, his actions ultimately bring more good to the table for everyone around him, even if it was unintentional. The whole premise of the story is based on the Throw the Dog a Bone trope, then builds its Myth Arc around Louca slowly but surely learning to fend for himself and to not do it for selfish reasons.
- Ladykiller in Love: Nathan dates a lot of girls one after the other but is actually in love with his Childhood Friend Tifaine. He can't bring himself to confess his feelings to her even though Everyone Can See It, to the point that he will make up imaginary girlfriends to her face to not ruin their friendship.
- Limited Wardrobe: Justified with Nathan always wearing his soccer outfit since this is what he died in, his cleats having played a non-negligible part in his death. It's actually weird to see him in regular clothes in flashbacks.
- Love Dodecahedron: Things started off pretty light with Louca being in (unknowingly reciprocated) love with Julie, then Louca started to get jealous of Adel after imagining things and misinterpreting others. Meanwhile, Chloé was hitting on Adel, who was into it and realized that Louca was just imagining things but continued to make Louca jealous on purpose as a Berserk Button during matches. Then things started to get messy when Chloé realized that she had feelings for Louca all along, to which even Louca's One True Love for Julie has a hard time resisting, culminating in an Accidental Kiss between the two in front of both Julie and Adel.
- Love Epiphany: While scrolling through unflattering pictures of Louca that she took during the match to make fun of him, Chloé starts to notice how he becomes more and more confident and athletic throughout the game and immediately bears a Luminescent Blush.
- Meaningful Rename: Following the destruction of the school's soccer locals in a criminal fire, Coach Cornelius creates a new independent team from the ground up called the Phoenixes. Literally everyone loves it.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Uttered several times by Ripaton upon seeing that he is in way over his head, namely when he realizes that the thugs are unhinged and threaten to kill Nathan when he only asked them to incapacitate him, and when he runs over Nathan himself after being held at gun point by Brane to do so.
- The Napoleon: Both Coach Cornelius and Coach Alberto are rather diminutive and smaller than all of their teenage players. Louca even wonders if all coaches in the world are required to be this short.
- No Name Given: Several characters remain unnamed to this point, mostly Unnamed Parents but more noticeably the two recurring goons at the epicenter of Nathan's accident.
- No-Neck Chump: Kilian the rugbyman and team's Big Guy, to the point that he is nicknamed "Sankou" (which could be translated as "Nonek").
- Novelization: So far, the first 5 volumes have been adapted into Middle Grade Literature. The series was first penned by Sophie Nanteuil, with Marie Euverte stepping in to replace her mid-fourth book.
- One Degree of Separation: As the story progresses, most of the main characters are revealed to be linked in one way or another. There are some mild examples like Hugo being both Julie's sister and Nathan's protege or Matt and Mathis being brothers, but then there are huge reveals like the two thugs being actually hired by Ripaton, Brane being directly responsible for Nathan's condition, and Iceman being Louca's father.
- Pac-Man Fever: Averted for most of the e-sport tournament with accurate mechanics and contemporary games like a Battle Royale Game, but played straight during the Supreme Fighter IV segment in which Louca accidentally performs a "mythical One-Hit Kill secret attack" that no one had ever discovered by Button Mashing and gives his team "one million points".
- Painting the Medium:
- Brane the hitman speaks in rectangular speech bubbles compared to the other characters' round ones, evoking its cold and calculated attitude.
- On a more subtle note, Iceman noticeably speaks in italic, even after his identity is revealed.
- Pun: Louca tries to aggravate Gervais by telling him that he will "eat him for breakfast"note , referencing the French brand of yogurts of the same name.
- Putting the Band Back Together: The plot of season 2 in which Louca tries to recruit Nathan's old teammates into the newly formed Phoenixes. In a twist to the usual trope, he doesn't need to convince all of them, just enough to have a team without any reserve players, and ends up actually failing to recruit some by either not beating them or making them realise that they love their new sport too much. The final roster is comprised of:
- Louca (Unlikely Hero)
- Adel (The Lancer)
- Sidney and Remy (Those Two Guys)
- Gervais, basketball (The Big Guy)
- Jordan, golf (The Smart Guy)
- Mathis, athletics (Skilled, but Naive)
- Noéra, boxe (The Brute)
- Pierre, swimming (The Benchwarmer)
- Matt, goalkeeper (Nice Guy)
- Kilian, rugby (Stout Strength)
- Joe, e-sport (Supporting Leader)
- Relationship Reset Button: By the end of season 1, Louca is held as the school's hero and has made signifiant progress with Julie. Then at the start of season 2, everybody is pissed at him and barely wants to even talk to him. The reason? At the party celebrating their victory, Louca spent the night making an ass of himself in a series of Alcohol-Induced Idiocy and ended up accidentally kissing Chloé in front of both Adel and Julie. He has to spend half of season 2 earning their trust back.
- Shout-Out:
- Louca's school is named André Quanfrin, an obvious hommage to Spirou's famed author André Franquin.
- Nathan and Louca's combined kick is most likely a reference to Captain Tsubasa (or "Olive & Tom" as it was known in France back when Nathan was a kid.)
- During the Training Montage at the beginning of season 2, one of the exercices is "watching sport movies to hype themselves up". Cue them crying in front of Rocky.
- The e-sport competition features several video games that are obvious stand-in for real ones down to the cover art, including Mario Kart 8, Street Fighter IV, and Player Unknowns Battlegrounds.
- Supporting Leader: Adel becomes this once Louca joins the soccer team. Then this role is passed on to Joe, who was Nathan's Lancer and replacement as captain when he passed away.
- Token Good Teammate: Matt is this for the Condors in stark contrast with Hugo, being one of the only players from their team to actually consider that Louca might have potential. He even decides to join the Phoenixes in season 2 because he is fed up with their Jerkass attitude.
- Tragic Intangibility: Downplayed, but Nathan hasn't been able to interact with anything since his death and his overjoyed to realize that he is now able to do it as long as the item belongs to Louca.
- Tsundere: Chloé, who spends most of season 1 making fun of foolish and incompetent Louca only to have a crushing Love Epiphany during the big match, despite having spent the season trying to seduce Adel.
- Variable Player Goals: Louca won several times thanks to that:
- In a one-on-one against Hugo in which he was losing, Hugo offers him in a burst of contempt that scoring one single goal against him would be an Instant-Win Condition. Guess what happens next.
- In the boxing match against Noéra, Louca only had to make his opponent put a knee to the ground to win, though this time the rule was decided by the referee before the match began because Louca was an actual beginner.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: Louca wakes up in bed with no recollection of what he did at the party celebrating their victory, then comes back to school to discover that everybody seems to hate him now. Nathan eventually explains to him just how horrible is Alcohol-Induced Idiocy was.
- Whole Episode Flashback: Volume 10, "The Story of Nathan", reuses all of the flashback sequences of the previous volumes in chronological order and recontextualizes them with brand new ones, most notably with events that happened after Nathan's accident from the point of view of his friends and family. It ends with the meeting of Nathan with Louca in the first volume.
