A Pinoy Manga Asks: What If a Time-Traveling Magellan Becomes a Pinoybaiting Influencer?
Hilarious new manga 'Ferdie!' is a time-travel trip.
Published on Nov 27, 2025
Is 2025 shaping up to be the year of Magellan?
The 500th anniversary of his arrival in the Philippines was celebrated during the deep lockdowns of 2021, but the profile of the Portugal-born navigator and explorer got a big boost this year with the release of Lav Diaz’s Magellan. With a premiere in Cannes and a string of glowing reviews, the Gael Garcia Bernal-starrer is now off to try its luck in Oscar waters.
But a new manga on Magellan releasing this month couldn’t be any farther from the film’s somber vision. In fact, it’s like no other interpretation of Magellan you’ve seen before.
Ferdie! takes the absurd premise of a time-traveling Magellan… and just rolls with it.
Instead of arriving in the Philippines in 1521, a wayward storm deposits Ferdinand Magellan and Antonio Pigafetta in 2023. In a time of screencaps and social media, the explorer must reinvent himself as a content creator.
“As an anime fan, I've always loved the isekai genre,” says Julius Tabios, an esports caster who wrote the manga’s script. “Isekai usually revolves around transporting someone into another world. It’s usually a fantastical one—but history works too!”
Ferdie! was in the works for three years. At the time, says Tabios, “I had recently watched Ya Boy Kongming and Therma Romae Novae, and I thought I wanted to do something like this.”
Tabios takes Magellan on a comedy wringer throughout the pages of Ferdie!, including a stroll through the Boracay boardwalk, a trip to an Enchanted Kingdom-like theme park, and a little shopping spree in Quiapo.
What if Magellan became an influencer instead?
To bring to life Magellan’s new career track, artist and animator Jeri Llorca had to create a Magellan that was bumbling, pompous, and thoroughly in over his head.
“I wanted them to resemble the images I have found of them in history books,” she says. “But at the same time, I wanted them to look like how Julius wrote them. Developing the body language was definitely my favorite part since it adds so much to the characters.”
For inspiration, Llorca turned to Japanese artists Kii Kanna and Shirahama Kamome. The manga Horimiya also became a valuable reference. Under her brush, Magellan becomes an explosion of energy and exaggeration. “I gave Magellan big gestures because, in the story, he’s usually very overly dramatic.”
But Tabios and Llorca had to make sure not to make Magellan too lovable.
It was a unique challenge, to say the least. “Getting Magellan right was a balancing act between caricature and authenticity,” says Tabios. “He couldn’t just be a cartoonish villain, but I also didn’t want to make him a misunderstood hero. I wanted readers to feel that discomfort of liking him in one moment and being reminded of his arrogance the next.”
Despite its lighthearted story, Ferdie! also reminds us that Magellan set off a series of events that led to centuries of colonization.
“A white man comes to the Philippines for the first time, and he's suddenly somebody people listen to or watch,” adds Tabios. “Magellan’s transformation into a content creator isn’t just a punchline; it’s a mirror. His followers, hungry for recognition, echo our collective need to be seen, to be told we matter—even when the voice doing the telling is one that once colonized us.”
Ferdie! (Summit Books, P450) by Julius Tabios and Jeri Llorca is available on Lazada and Shopee.
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