After a bit of a break I tried to get back into Shinji Mizushima’s Ikkyuu-san, but I think I’m going to end up dropping this series after all. Volume 4 and (most likely volumes 5-8 at the rate this is going) covers the winner-takes-all practice match between the first and second-string teams of Kyojin High School, but it’s just painful to read because Ikkyuu sucks so, so badly.
He himself might have an excuse for being so bad since his coach pretty much left him to his own devices, but there’s no reason why he still, after 4 volumes, doesn’t know many of the most basic rules of baseball like forced plays. And the coach puts him on third even though the poor soul can’t catch the most basic grounder — because you didn’t teach him, you idiot!!!!
What’s worse, even after it becomes clear that the opponents are aiming exclusively for Ikkyuu, the other team members don’t budge from their positions to help him out. There’s no law saying the shortstop or the left fielder or the whole team can’t move closer to third base to help Ikkyuu defend, is there? Instead they just stay where they are and whine and complain. The pitcher isn’t off the hook either, since he’s throwing balls that are so easy to hit that that the other guys got 10 runs in one inning without really trying. It doesn’t matter if Ikkyuu can’t catch if the enemy can’t hit your pitches, right?
So everybody sucks and I’m annoyed. At the end of the volume Ikkyuu FINALLY managed to catch something and the sides change, which was like PHEW! Obviously it’s going to turn out that this was all part of Coach Iwakaze’s master plan to awaken Ikkyuu’s true powers, blah blah blah, but it’s going to be a while before I return to Ikkyuu-san to find out what happens next. No wonder this series is so much shorter than Mizushima’s other stuff: it’s really, really frustrating!
