Hybrid Berry by Ayumi Komura

Its been really rainy here in California. It's like 2017 is trying to wash away 2016 with force.



Hybrid Berry by Ayumi Komura

Art and story (c) Ayumi Komura

Genre: Sports, Shojo
Length: 2 Volumes – 12 Chapters and one unrelated one-shot


            The art is a little amateur, but it is consistent, just a few of the movements are awkward. Its one of those manga where the eyes are ginormous, and it takes a few chapters to get used to it but that's not the only stylistic thing that takes time, though. The noses are also large and the faces have a sharp decrease at the chin with low set mouths. So they look rather alien, reminding me of a certain Franken Fran chapter.

Franken Fran (c) Katsuhisa Kigitsu

 The collars made me double-take though, cuz they make no sense whatsoever, they look normal proportioned from the back but from the front…

Serious, yes, serious-ly huge collar

If you can deal with such exaggerated shojo art style, which some people can't and I don't blame them, there's really not that much to complain about. The chibi figures are really cute, too.
           Kaname takes care of the flowerbeds at school, and it is quite a feat since she has to keep

catching and diverting the stray balls from the too-close baseball field during after school practice. She is also always arguing with the second baseman who can't predict the ball's movement but the truth is she actually likes him. To get closer, she decides to take up the offer from the teacher who's the founder of the club and join up. Only, he doesn't want her to be manager but to take the playing position from her crush! How can she get closer to him when they are rivals?
           This manga is silly and it comes to an abrupt end; the last chapter is crammed in and moves along far too quickly. I guess it wasn't going to get anymore chapters so the mangaka had to wrap everything up quickly. Making the end rather muddled as to what is exactly happening. Still, its fun to read especially as far as sports shojo go, and is cute. Kaname is great as the “ace” who doesn't know exactly how things work, much like the main character from Eyeshield 21, and has a rather normal personality. She doesn't cry

all the time and she gets mad and shouts instead of turning everything into drama tropes. The love interest isn't as fleshed out, though, and their love story's conclusion is part of the quick wrap-up unfortunately. The best character is actually the teacher in charge of the baseball club, he's obviously playing on her emotions in the beginning but he comes across very likeable, it doesn't hurt that he reminds me of my favorite cop from Majin Tantei Nogami Neuro either. As far as being a sports manga, there isn't a lot of technical explanations and lingo mixed in, I suppose most people in Japan are aware of baseball as they like it just as much as Americans do so it doesn't have to slow down to explain the game to you every three seconds (unlike Eyeshield 21). There's not really much to review, its just light and funny with baseball mixed in. Much better than the last baseball manga I read, for sure. Also, the name sounds like a Pokemon item.




3.5/5 Very likable but lacks the depth needed for a higher score.

Kaname, please don't put holes in the panel edges.

Girl Got Game!! by Shizuru Seino

Uhg, ugh, shopping crowds make my blood pressure spike. I'm not a people person on the best of days, let alone when no one else is trying to be courteous. Why do I always have to be the one move aside or look before I come out of an aisle with my cart? Looking at you lady with kids crowding my personal space who thinks going to the other end of the rack and looking at stuff before me will make me move faster.



Girl Got Game!! by Shizuru Seino

Art and story (c) Shizuru Seino (Sorry for the poor quality)

Genre: Shojo, Sports, Gender Bender
Length: 10 Volumes – 36 Chapters (plus 2 extra chapters and 3 one-shots)



           The art only has a few hiccups at the beginning but the large majority of it is professional and consistent. The eyes are large and clear and display a lot of emotion,

the faces change shape a little after the first volume but it seems like a natural progression. The hair is varied, mostly drawn with thick lines and angles, but the background people tend to all look the same. The clothes are a bit baggy, but since they are mostly school uniforms and tracksuits that really doesn't make a difference. The hands are a bit oversized, and most of the characters look really tall, as they are basketball players, but there's not really a lot I can complain about. It's a little generic of its time (early 2000's) but there's plenty of personality in it, too.
           Kyo Aizawa is thrilled to be going to a school renowned for it's cute girl's uniform, but unbeknownst to her, her father had much different reasons to be happy she is going to the school. He's a basketball fanatic, and high school was supposed to be Kyo's final release from the sport, but her dad has a lot of explaining to do when her clothes arrive and they are a boy's uniform. Foisting his b-ball dreams on her, and forging her school paperwork, Kyo's father sends her to school as a boy to join the renowned men's basketball team. Can Kyo keep her secret, even though she'll be living in a dorm full of boys?
           Girl Got Game, which is the English release name as apposed to the original title of Power!!, is one of the first manga I read all the way through. I borrowed it from a friend

and laughed my ass off through out the whole thing. Inexplicable name changes aside, it's an excellent manga to start on but its good to read at any point in a manga obsession cycle and even though its been over ten years since my first reading (showing my age much?) I still laugh when I read it, too. There's not a lot of stories that make me laugh out loud, but this mangaka has that ability. Also, interestingly, several of her other manga are related, as well, for extra interest. Two of the related ones I plan to review after this one, unfortunately the one directly related to this manga isn't available in scans and the English release was dropped so it's only half published, but the others are good, also, and all share the same humor. Now, comedy manga aren't always known for their strong plot lines, so I'm not going to try and bluff it just because I like this manga so much. Although, considering all the weird and wacky stuff that happens, the plot is actually pretty good. The progression of the main character and the love interest continues as you go and even though things get real dramatic real fast around volume seven, it hardly loses his humor and once the dramatics are solved it makes up for the drop in zany with extra zany hi-jinks. The ending is so over the top, it almost seems like a different manga all of a sudden, though the extra chapter at the end helps with the sudden separation. Kyo is an interesting character, its easy to see, through the art and the story, how she gets away with pretending she's a boy and annoys the hell out of her roommate. Her love interest is so grouchy and you can't help feeling sorry for the boy for falling for Kyo, but you can also see how well they get along, too. There aren't any points that drag, either, once you get through the very beginning. I'm probably all over the place in this review simply because I'm so familiar with this particular manga, but I can't help myself its a complete package.


5/5 Its got its problems but it deserves top marks because its so amusing read after re-read. 

Idol A by Mitsuru Adachi

 Barely made the deadline this week. I went camping and didn't think enough to read a manga ahead of time. I've probably mentioned this about a thousand times, but I'm pretty lazy, after all. I love camping, though.


Idol A by Mitsuru Adachi 

Art and story (c) Mitsuru Adachi

Genre: Shonen, Sports
Length: One Volume – 6 Chapters



           This art style is one of the more simplistic types of art (and probably most famously

represented by Ranma ½) with characters with rounded faces and oval eyes. Its not that there isn't variation, there is plenty, I'm just generalizing here due. The hair is solid black, and either flat edged or with messy spikes. The clothing tends to be a little baggy. There's nothing offensive about it, either, it can be boring if you don't like it, though. This particular mangaka's work I found lackluster in many ways so I find it hard to praise the art.
           Two childhood friends with the same huge secret. One is a gravure idol of increasing popularity. One is a rising star of baseball with dreams of being a professional. The problem is, the idol and the baseball player are one in the same, and, only because he looks the same as her, the other is made to switch places whenever the girl needs to be in two places at once. Will they be found out now that high school is over and she's been drafted onto a professional baseball team?
           Uhg, this manga lost me right at the beginning by skipping over the setup in the most confusing way possible. The story itself seems interesting, so why skip over the part where you get to know the two main characters before they are knee deep in a cross dressing act? I honestly can't get past that point, the long winded explanation in the place of actually showing this integral plot point is hard to digest first thing. In fact, I found the

entire manga too be very wordy to the point that I just moved as fast as I could through it. I've read another manga by this mangaka, a manga I physically owned, but found it hard to read through for the exact same reason. Be warned, much more nitpicking follows, as well. There's really no getting to know the characters at all after the beginning, either. You see them switch places and share a few words but they are only ever doing their jobs. Meaning, there's no sense that the two will ever get together or that they are even friends. Why is the male character staying in this relationship at all, sure he likes the girl and wants her to have her dream, but she doesn't seem grateful to him at all. Not that she isn't, but that you don't get to see any kind of internal processes of either characters or of anyone around them. There's no sort of ending either, though I think it wasn't picked up for a second volume or something, but that isn't the author's only problem in this story, it just adds to the piles of frustrations I already had. There's nothing to lead a reader from one chapter to the next. There's no sense of danger or of failure, its basically 'of course she'll do really well playing baseball' and 'he'll nervously pretend right now because he hasn't done so in a few pages' but nothing really plot oriented in how they can mature or improve. Continuing or not, there wasn't enough set up to get me to like the story or the characters that make up it. No real conflict, only gag-like incidents, glimmering a bit of humor that never goes anywhere. Now that I have finished reading this, and I have to write a review, I'm properly mad. It wasted my time. Don't waste yours.



1/5 I don't see even a little bit of appeal here. 

Tom Baker is too good a gif for this...

Fuyu Hanabi by Hidenori Hara

 I didn't particularly like the last two I read so I went for something different this time.




Fuyu Hanabi by Hidenori Hara 

Art and story (c) Hidenori Hara

Genre: Seinen, Sports
Length: One Volume – 9 Chapters



           I genuinely liked this art at first glance, its an older style which might put some people off, but it was always excellently done. Something about it reminded me strongly of Monkey Punch's Lupin III, though I'm not sure how close it truly is, it just had that same feel. The action was well done, too, and considering this is a manga about boxing, that’s a really good thing. The clothes are pretty nondescript but I found no fault in them. The backgrounds are pretty good, a few blank pages, nothing too distracting. The main character's scruffy chin is my favorite part of the art.
           When a nearly washed up actress meets a nearly washed out boxer to train for an upcoming movie, sparks fly. Combative and disinterested, Maki feels this role is her last chance to become a known actress before her career dries up for good. Dragon Gon is at the edge of retirement with out any prospects at making his name known as a boxer. These two make an “on the edge” couple who are forced to work together.
           I found this story rather endearing, and it made me smile while I read it. The story is

pretty predictable, but the details aren't too cliched. Its a fun, light read. The name 'Fuyu Hanabi' translates to 'Winter Fireworks' and that is an appropriate description for this, I

assure you. Its about two possibly past their prime professionals trying to just get one last hurrah before they are forgotten forever. With things not going too well for either party. Of course, some feelings start mixing in after a while, too, but only right before everything falls apart so the drama is better. As far as sports manga go, it has very little sports in it. You sort of get a half romance half sports blend where you kind of don't get either. The ending is a little ambiguous, too. For a one volume, its definitely worth a read; its well put together and the characters are funny. I had a good time and I think just about anybody else will, too. That’s not to say that some readers will not dislike some of the details. The art I've already mentioned isn't everyone's cup of tea, it can look sloppy (I've reviewed plenty of manga with sloppy or sketchy art and I personally have never found such a detail to be a totally make or break it detail anyway) and there is not a lot of beauty in it. Maki is also a character that could be hard to love, she's a bit spoiled and spends most of her time screaming or drunk. Also, the story doesn't go deeply into anything, either, and the conclusion is a little weak. I still really enjoyed it.



4/5 Super readable.

Kurogane by Haruto Ikezawa

Happy New Year! I, for reasons I cannot explain, waited until the last minute to do this post, well, I guess I can explain, I'm an idiot. Still, lets ring in the new year and out the old with responsible cheer! See you next year y'all!



Kurogane by Haruto Ikezawa

Art and story (c) Haruto Ikezawa

Genre: Sports Shonen
Length: 8 Volumes – 70 Chapters


            I have some mixed feelings about the art of Kurogane, on one hand it doesn't really have anything to objectionable about it but yet, I found myself nitpicking it. From a technical stand point it is well drawn. The faces are expressive and all the characters are unique and interesting. The clothes, at times were a little baggier than they needed to be or oddly fitting but nothing outstanding. This being an action manga, the backgrounds are a bit lacking but that’s to be expected. Still, it has a solid style and the movements are easy to read. All the same, I found the art to be not very appealing. For one, the most generic character happens to be the main one, and as the character designs got more wild as the manga progressed, he just seemed more and more plain. It could be seen as he is the 'regular guy' type of character but still, it didn't endear me to him. Then there are all those more outrageous characters. As this manga is about the sport of Kendo, where the participants all wear full armor and face masks, all you can see during a match is the face and what hair is showing there. So, most characters have hair styles and moles and eyebrows that are dynamic enough to be recognizable with only the face showing. That’s all well and good, except most of those hairstyles and faces look down right strange at times. Sometimes those modern types of hair where all the chunky points make an interesting shape (think newer Yu-Gi-Oh, for example) just look downright goofy, and that was a problem in Kurogane. I found lots of characters off putting just due to that, and it was impossible to tell if they were male or female, also. It was distracting.
           Hiroto Kurogane has always been weak at anything to do with physical action, sports are an

impossibility for him. Despite that fact, Hiroto has such excellent eyes he has to wear glasses to distort it just so he doesn't strain them, only causing him to despair further because he can see what needs to be done on any type of sport but can't force his weak body to do it. Then one night as he walks home, a beautiful sakura tree suddenly appears and he is challenged by a ghost from 150 years ago. When he dodges her attack, she claims him as the heir to her sword technique, a type of Kendo. Joining the Kendo team to appease her, will Hiroto see that his weakness can be overcome or will he only fail once more?
           I've already shared my mixed response to this manga, and it does continue on past the art, unfortunately. This was a pleasant read, but it reminded me too much of a sports manga. I realize that sounds really stupid, but let me explain, when you read a sports manga and all it is is a sports manga, things get a little tiresome. Kurogane is a sports manga like that. There needs to be some character development beyond what they do in their tournaments and training, or else it becomes a terrible grind with out any sense of time passing. Kurogane does that. Eyesheild 21 has to be my favorite sports manga, it has the most out there

characters and character designs but still gives you time to learn about them in at an easy going pace. Kurogane is a bit like Samurai Usagi where they explained characters before you ever had a chance to know them and so you have no kind of connection with them at that point, but then Samurai Usagi had lots of other things going for it. The plot of the whole manga is to be stronger, and you do get to see that but it bounces here and there in between the actual matches to the point that knowing exact time is impossible.Don't take all this nitpicking as total hate, though. Like I said in the first paragraph, this manga is not bad in any sense. The action is easy to see, as much as possible in the one-strike types of bout, and the imagery is very good at conveying intimidation and determination. Kendo, while having lots of technical terms, is pretty easy to understand as most of the terminology has to do with positions and hit names than what it actually takes to win. Still, that also means there isn't really a lot of difference between all the fights either. Personally, I found it a little boring at times. I guess the bottom line is, this manga is good but it wasn't anything more than that. Kendo is a sport steeped in tradition and Kurogane doesn't ignite any interest in looking at Kendo any further than this, and that's a bit of a shame.



2/5 Doesn't really catch the eye.

Crimson Hero by Takanashi Mitsuba

Crimson Hero by Takanashi Mitsuba



           Genre: Shojo Sports
           Length: 20 Volumes - 81 Chapters with a few extras and two one-shots



           Same mangaka as Akuma de Sourou (The Devil Does Exist) so I knew what the basic art style was going to be like, lots of spiky hair and punk styled clothes. Still, this manga is obviously written after Akuma de Sourou because the style had matured. The distracting blush lines were reduced and faces are significantly slimmer. Clothes are very well done, along with the hair, there is the spiky-spiky hair that I expected but it wasn't everywhere. Body motions and poses were good but there were a few body issues that bother the eye from time to time. Firstly, in the beginning there were many manly girls that I should have assumed were girls considering this manga is primarily about women's sports teams but kept thinking they were men because they looked like men due to their very wide shoulders. Perhaps its largely, because they are volleyball players, most of the cast is really tall and I'm sure that made proportions hard to nail. This man/women issue resolved itself eventually, the faces are what really confuse you and they become much easier to distinguish later on. What didn't help was the wide hips often given to men and women alike, making the full body shots look rather dumpy. This artist also has this way of drawing mouths that really has dynamic motion but that leads to gaping mouths on every panel, or if not gaping, showing more teeth than necessary. Most of the time you don't notice the mouths, until a very dramatic part gives you more mouth than anything else. Still, nothing devastating, the artist has much improved her art and integrated her style seamlessly into what can pass for a trendy type of art style. It feels more like Akuma de Sourou in the beginning but by the end it seems very grown up. All around, its good to look at.

Art and story (c) Takanashi Mitsuba

           Nobara is the first daughter in a family that runs an old-style Japanese inn and is assumed to take over for her mother when she grows up, but Nobara can't find anything girly in herself and she can't stand dressing up and being graceful. All Nobara wants for now isn't lessons and serving customers but playing volleyball! She even entered a high school with an excellent volleyball program so she can spend her school days on the court, despite her mother's refusal to acknowledge her dream. Yet, at the first day of school, Nobara can find no trace of the women's volleyball team anywhere and when she asks she is informed that such a weak team was disbanded the year before. That won't stop Nobara from having her rose colored volleyball school life, even when it causes her to run away from home, Nobara begins to assemble enough people to recreate the volleyball team at Crimson Field High and share her love of the game with those around her. To survive she may have to work as a house mother for the male scholarship students' dorm but she will do anything to play volleyball.
           Be aware, at twenty volumes you are in for a long haul of shojo. I'd say it's about 50/50 in terms of volleyball action and school drama, though the line does tend to blur at times, that puts it at a lot less sports action than a shonen sports manga. Personally, I liked that, this being the first girly sports manga I've read besides Girl Got Game and that manga is something completely different. The story itself is sports cliched, but when you want to read a sports manga you expect these things. There is a true humanness in this mangaka's characters, and in Crimson Hero you get more of the same, seeing people by their flaws makes for good love stories after all. Sure, there is some shoehorning on a few of the rival teams where you suddenly must care for the opponents (what kind of sports manga would it be with out that?) and there were a few I simply couldn’t care for, but that was only when it was whole chapters about characters I wasn't going to see again. There is a big cast list too, and after a while some of the backgrounders, when spoken of by name only, got mixed around in my head. Big cast lists do lend to re-readability and this manga is published in English so that is probably more of a positive than negative. My main problem with Akuma de Sourou had been the long waiting mixed with a sudden fix that did match the length it took to get there, but with Crimson Hero I didn't get that feeling as much. It helped that the tournaments and such kept the time line moving, but all the same, it isn't as painfully drawn out as Akuma while still having the heavy dramatic read. Sometimes its hard to read that type of romance but the sports sections help things along, too. Here and there there were some word bubbles composed in a confusing manner and I would read them out of order, it was annoying at the time but looking back it didn't much effect my reading enjoyment. The action isn't the best, its actually impressive at times, but several instances the volleyball matches are carried through with still shots and score boards changing numbers. Hmmm, I feel like this review sounds really negative overall but this is a really good manga that, though it feels twice as long because of DRAMA, is a joy to read.



          4.5/5 Really Recommended

color by me

Eyshield 21

Eyeshield 21 Story by Inagaki Riichiro and Art by Murata Yuusuke

           

            Genre: Shonen (13 and up, though it depends on the translation, some have more foul language than others)

            Series Length: 37 Volumes, 333 chapters

            Back in the days of my youth when I was in high school and I read any manga that I could get my hands on I read things I wouldn’t now touch with a ten foot pole. Including a manga called ‘Eerie Queerie’ my first shounen ai (also called ‘BL’ or boy’s love) manga though I did not realize it for a long time. My point being, that if I was judging manga by their premise then like I do now I would have missed out on one of the greatest manga of all time. I hope, with this article, to have you avoid this mistake, too, because even I was skeptical. A sports manga about American football? And I’m supposed to be interested in reading it? Really? But Eyeshield 21 is so much more than football and even the football parts, which are about seventy-five percent of the manga, are so amazing you wont even care they are about football. Seriously, football matches that span volumes, and you could care less. Sure, maybe that sounds like a stretch, but I wouldn’t football lie to you. Football.

            The art of the manga is superb from the beginning, though it does get even better as the characters are pinned down, but there is no period at the beginning that makes you hope it will improve soon like some manga do, the artist is a pro and it shows. The premise is introduced quickly and effectively and the gags are truly laugh-out-loud funny. But, be warned, if all you have is the first volume, you will be cut off and angry about it because it’s just getting warmed up by then. They do explain the rules of football ad nausea, probably because this was released in a magazine a chapter at a time so they wanted to make sure new readers understood the rules, too. If this happens to be your first sports manga, which it was for me, you’re in for a treat.

            Sena Kobayakawa is painfully shy and awkward, but now that he is starting high school, he hopes to break away from his past self as a ‘go-fer’ and live the rose-colored life with his childhood friend, Mamori Anezaki, his only friend and crush. Sorry, Sena, this is a manga so... Very quickly, he is targeted by some rough kids who make him run to the store for snacks for them and do any other task they ask by threat of force. His days as a go-fer beginning again, Sena laments his fate but is too cowardly to stand up for himself. On one such outing, he is spotted by Hiruma Yoichi, captain of the school’s American Football team, and Sena’s amazing speed is discovered. You see, all of his years going for snacks and errands for others gave Sena amazing legs. From then on out, through Hiruma’s unique brand of persuasion (i.e. threats and blackmail) Sena is drafted into the team’s roster as the manager, but is really the man with the golden legs, Eyeshield 21. Typical shonen manga fare follows, the glory of success and defeat and common interest friendship. YA-HA!
            I won’t lie, this manga is all about Hiruma and by the end of the first chapter you will understand and recognize it. I can’t imagine my life before Hiruma and I don’t want to because a life with out him is hardly a life worth living. Hiruma makes you want to play American football. I admit that I love shonen manga, I’m a girl with the heart of man, but all the same this “boy’s” manga is just a fun read. Though there are some… cultural things that may be a little… iffy. This is nothing new in manga, I’ve run across it lots of times and maybe it just has to do with my over sensitive American nature but there is the use of, to use more PC friendly words than the manga itself, ‘African Americans and their achievements in sports.’ There is quite a bit of it to the point where you can see it coming. Like I said, maybe its just me but they pretty much flat out say, to not use PC wording, ‘Black men are better than anyone else at Football’ through out the story, especially near the beginning when the Devil Bats go up against an American high school team, but it follows through the whole manga. Even my favorite manga One Piece has gone a little into the cringe area with such statements (though with them it’s a gag with an ‘afro.’) The proclamations don’t really detract from the story but I would feel remiss if I did not mention it, especially if it were your first manga to have such themes. It’s just cultural, and if you plan on reading manga or watching anime, getting across that culture gap is one of fun things about becoming a fan. Like how it’s always ‘American Football’ even though here in America, it’s just plain football and everyone else’s football is ‘soccer.’

            Boy I went off on a rant there…

            Anyways:

            5/5 And I dare you to find something that detracts from that score, because explaining football a lot didn’t, borderline racism didn’t, endless streams of oddball high school football players didn’t, and I’m convinced nothing will.

Hiruma, that is not how you recruit people to your team...