Tag: sports

Sometimes it comes as a shock when a manga is cancelled. Sometimes it’s more of a mild surprise, because you could see the series declining but you didn’t think it was that bad yet. And then sometimes, as in the case of Watashi no Koshien, you can pinpoint the exact moment when the whole series began to fall apart. Volume 3 is the clearly the beginning of the end for this series, though it will continue to limp along for another two volumes before the merciful end.

To explain I’ll have to spoil a bit so spoiler warning. So, the Kugunari Nine manages to pull of a major upset at the beginning of this volume, defeating Seiryo 2-1. However the coach of the team they’re facing next was watching the game, and he’s picked up on some of pitcher Kouhei’s habits. While they’re practising hard to defeat Kugunari, Kouhei and his troops have let a little success get to their heads and are spending their days singing karaoke and their nights playing video games.

The problem starts after they (predictably) lose by a called game in the 5th. See they didn’t just lose, they also embarrassed coach Wataya in front of her former teammates, and she is mad. How mad? So mad that she orders them to run 40km from the ball park back to the school. You could argue that she didn’t force them – merely told everyone who wouldn’t do it to quit the team. But why does it have to be an either-or thing? And why does it have to be so radical? What is this supposed to change? There are so many things wrong with that scenario. In the end not a single member manages to complete the course.

The parents are naturally outraged and the PTA bans Wataya from coaching the team any more. But here’s the issue. It would be one thing if this was a deconstruction of the hot-blooded shounen training-from-hell genre, but instead the writers actually try to justify Wataya’s behavior! Forcing tired, out-of-shape kids to run 40 km with no food and no water since morning just because they lost a match and embarrassed you? In a tournament they didn’t even want to play but you made them to? And by her own admission Wataya did it because “she was angry” and because “it’s necessary if we want to go go Koshien”!

Now the “My, not Our Koshien” part of the series title starts to come out – it’s Wataya’s dream to go to Koshien again because of her dead buddy. The team members don’t even know about that stuff. Yet they’re the ones who have to play the game, they’re the ones who have to do the training. They’re just her tools, to be kicked around and tossed aside if they don’t work as she desires. To end to the volume she refuses to apologize because “If I apologize then it means I was wrong.” Uh, but you were wrong. “If I apologize then it means I can’t do it again.” Uh… you mean you want to do it again? Yes, yes she does.

And as I said this is all portrayed as right and proper and necessary if the team want to go to Koshien (which, as I said, they don’t). Some of the team members skip school for the next school days, not because they’re sick but because they’ve got a good excuse to. And that is used as justification to claim “See! It wasn’t that bad, was it?” That’s like stabbing someone and seeing him walking the next day and saying “See, being stabbed wasn’t that bad, was it?” It’s not for you to decide! Then the team manager decides she’s going to run the same 40km course, again to prove it wasn’t that bad. Again, that’s not for you to decide!

I suppose Watashi no Koshien could still salvage itself at this point. Maybe Wataya could learn that Koshien isn’t a dream you impose on people but a dream you share with others. And then they’ll all live happily ever after. The writers could also use this as an opportunity to discuss what, if anything, discipline should be administered to a team that loses because they’ve been slacking (but if they win after slacking then it’s a-okay), how much training is too much, what lengths a coach should go to motivate his/her team and other such pertinent questions of that nature. It’s not going to happen though – if it was certain in-story characters wouldn’t be going to such lengths to defend Wataya’s actions.

Honestly I’m not feeling very motivated to continue. But there are only 2 volumes left to the end (cancellation?) so maybe I’ll see it through. I’ll decide later.

As you can see from the cover, the title is actually Watashi no Minna no Koshien (私のみんなの甲子園), i.e. Our My Koshien. The main character (?) is putting the “I” back in team by whipping a reluctant team of misfits back into shape to fulfill her dream of taking her school team back to Koshien once again.

It’s like this: Shihono Wataya was the manager of a high school baseball team that made it to Koshien once. After being eliminated they all swore to make it back there again but never did. At some point in time the team pitcher and ace (and Shinono’s boyfriend?) died. 10 years later Shihono gets her hands on a baseball that contains the ghost of the dead pitcher. This prompts her to become a substitute PE teacher at her old school + the baseball club’s coach. Said baseball club has really gone to seed, so it’s her job to get them fired up and ready to go again.

…Which she achieves rather easily in a few short chapters. Though I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising – anyone who would join a baseball team in the first place is at least moderately interested in playing the sport, Even their new pitcher Kouhei, who moved from Tokyo out to the boonies because he was allergic to the word “Koshien” (it’s a long story) gets with the program really quickly. As with most manga pitchers he’s also a highly-talented diamond in the rough who just needed a bit of molding.

Watashi no Koshien Volume 1 ends with our plucky team being suddenly thrown into a match with the best team in the prefecture, another staple of high school baseball manga, for those of you who follow it. And if I know my baseball manga I can predict how that game is going to go, but it’s still fun to watch it play out. Shihono is a complete amateur at coaching baseball, most of the players aren’t very good, and one of them was borrowed from the Handicraft club to make up the full 9, so we can expect a lot of silliness before the game is over.

So far the team of Ken Kawasaki (author) and Youji Kamada (artist) are doing a good job of making both the story and the action simple and easy to follow. The art and character designs are very well done, very “seinen-looking” a term that probably only makes sense to me, but it’s a style that makes me think immediately of dramatic seinen manga whenever I see it. I may have read something else by Kamada before. The only thing I can fault him for is that his backgrounds are a bit flat, as the page I posted shows, but since sports manga is more about what goes on in the foreground between characters I guess we can let it slide.

The cast is small, characters who should stand out do stand out (catcher, pitcher, two others) and the rest are clearly relegated to nameless fodder so we don’t waste brain power trying to remember their names. Contrast that to something like Big Windup! where it took nearly the whole show (season 2 included) to learn who was who.

It’s only volume 1 of 5, so it can be forgiven for being a little sparse on content as well. No great rival has shown up, no real problems have cropped up, everyone’s working hard and getting along nicely. So there isn’t much to say about Watashi no Koshien at this point except it has nice art and the story seems quite promising. Will the team make it Koshien where so many other baseball manga teams have failed? I will find out and tell you in due season.