sports Archives - Page 5 of 12

Scout Seishirou manga review

Norifusa Mita is fairly well-known in Japan for his seinen series, most of which revolve around sports. Western manga fans probably only know him for either Investor Z, which Crunchyroll has been releasing, or Dragon Zakura, which was so popular it even got made into a movie. I haven’t read Dragon Zakura and I don’t plan to do so immediately, but I do plan to follow more of Mita’s stuff because he writes a lot of… baseball manga. Yes, I’m still at it. Most of his stuff is fairly long, so I thought I’d cut my teeth on his shortest series, Scout Seishirou.

What happens to failed baseball players when they retire or get canned? If they’re like Seishirou Takemitsu, they go out and get a job like everyone else. Unfortunately Sei has never done anything except play baseball, so he’s terrible at his new job. That’s why he jumps at the chance when his old team hires him back as a baseball scout. Through the eyes of Seishirou, Norifusa Mita takes a look at the baseball scouting process in Japan, from finding a future star to drafting and signing him.

Scout Seishirou is only 2 volumes long, but it does give a taste of the kind of challenges scouts face when trying to sign a player. First off, if the player is any good then you’ll have to fight your way through a swarm of other team scouts to get him. So you want your player to have superstar talents, but at the same time you don’t want him to stand out too much, so it’s a bittersweet feeling when he does.

Apart from competition from other teams, scouts also have to deal with opposition from the player’s family and also help the players overcome their own doubts about their abilities and about going pro. It’s a lot of legwork and traveling, and it’s also hard psychologically because you might go through the trouble of talking a player into wanting to sign for your team… then your team decides not to draft him after all. Not. Cool. But it’s part of being a scout. The manga did tackle (briefly) why teams might choose to sign one player over another even if they both seem equally talented. Attitude seems to have a lot to do with it.

The main character himself can be a bit annoying because he’s a bit timid and wishy-washy, but the manga establishes from the start that that’s his great character flaw and the reason why he quickly got cut from the majors. And he does get a bit better over the course of the series, if only because sitting on your bum whining is sure to get your player signed under you, and then what will you do?

It was an interesting introduction to life behind the scenes in a baseball team, though it did leave a few questions unanswered. Like, for example, how much do Japanese pro scouts make? Do they get any extra money if a player of theirs is signed? Does their stock fall in the company if their player turns out to be a dud?

If questions like that intrigue you, you might be better off reading about the Baseball Scout School the MLB runs in the Dominican Republic instead. But if you’re looking for a short, well-drawn and unexpectedly interesting introduction to the subject then definitely give Scout Seishirou a try. And now it’s time for me to move on to some of Norifusa Mita’s meatier stuff.

Ro Meishi ga Yuku manga review

This will be fairly short since I didn’t read more than a volume of Ro Meishi ga Yuku. It’s a one-volume manga by Takao Saito, better known as the author of Golgo 13. While personally I would favor the title Lu Ming-tsu ga Yuku, sites like Mangaupdates tend to write the title of this manga as Ro Meishi ga Yuku because in Japan “Ro Meishi” was how they pronounced the name of the Taiwanese player (呂明賜) that this baseball manga profiles.

So, what’s so interesting about Ming-tsu Lu (or Ming-soo Roo depending on how you romanize it) and why would a veteran mangaka spend a whole volume on him? Well for us modern fans it’s not that interesting, I suppose. Ming-tsu Lu was signed by the Yomiuri Giants and spent some time cooling his heels in the minors because of the Japanese “2 foreigners per team” rule (said limit was later waived precisely because Lu played so well).

His chance finally came in June 1988 when Warren Cromartie went down with an injury courtesy of a dead ball. Lu moved up to the majors and performed spectacularly, enough to garner him his own manga which purports to track down Lu’s history and find out the secret behind his stunning abilities.

The first chapter started off innocuously enough, showing bits of Lu’s personality (he works hard, eats a lot and has lots of friends) as well as the circumstances that led to his call-up and then his first few games for the giants. After that the manga rapidly goes downhill with the appearance of an extremely annoying reporter who is sniffing around to learn more about the player… for no good reason, really. It would make sense if there was some big secret Lu was hiding, or if he came out of nowhere, but we quickly learn that Lu was spotted when he played for the Taiwanese Olympic team, there was some debate over whether to sign him or some other player but Lu was better, so they got him.

All that makes for a very simple and straightforward manga and I guess that wasn’t good enough for Takao Saito, so he opted instead to throw in first the annoying reporter then another reporter, a female one who the first one has the hots for. They bicker and compete and run around and generally get on my nerves, so much so that I quit pretty quickly because it was obvious there wasn’t much story or drama to go around beyond what the author felt like inventing.

The other reason I quit was that while the manga does admit that Ming-tsu Lu is a naturally-gifted player with a great build and a great work ethic, they’re not content to leave it at that. That’s good and all, but in their search for that “something extra” they choose to play up a so-called “Taiwanese connection” between Lu and the great Sadaharu Oh, manager of the Giants at the time.

Now it is an established fact that Lu went to the Giants because Oh was there, but it still seemed to be like they were playing up the foreign-ness of both players by hyping their ‘unique Taiwanese background’ blah blah kind of thing. It’s like urgghh, why can’t he just be a great player on his own? Even the conversations he has in Chinese are largely transcribed as gibberish instead receiving any meaningful translation. It’s a bit sad. Ultimately the two reporters bugged me so much that I just skipped through the rest, so maybe it gets better. A quick skim told me later chapters focus on Lu’s childhood and introduction to baseball, but I wasn’t interested enough to stick around to find out.

At any rate the art is excellent and it’s not a bad manga per se. If you’re a fan of the player or of the mangaka, or if you’re interested in 80s Japanese baseball then Ro Meishi ga Yuku is a worthy read in a history book kind of way. Since it’s only 1 volume long, you don’t have much to lose either way. But to be honest, I found it a bit disappointing for the reasons I’ve just stated.

Boy meets Girl ~Mound no Shoujo~ manga review

No, I hadn’t forgotten that I was on a baseball manga kick. I’m slowly weaning myself off it and reading other stuff in increasing amounts, but I’ve still got a mountain of baseball manga left to try. Currently on the chopping block: Boy meets Girl ~Mound no Shoujo~(～マウンドの少女～) by Natsuko Heiuchi.

It’s a bittersweet sports romance story about a short little leaguer named Fumitake Morita (Moritake for short) who has a huge crush on his little league team ace, a tall girl named Shiori Kanzaki. Unfortunately Moritake suspects and becomes increasingly certain that Shiori has a crush on the catcher/clean-up of one of their rival teams. What, if anything, is he going to do about these feelings he has for her?

Along the way Shiori herself has to deal with the changing balance of power on the team as the boys reach puberty and begin to grow taller and stronger faster than she can keep up. Moritake especially starts out as a shrimp who can’t even hit a double, much less a triple, but by volume 2 he’s hitting home runs and batting better and running faster than ever before. Shiori meanwhile hits a slump and begins to contemplate quitting baseball altogether. And on top of all that there are rumors her family might be moving away soon. What’s going to happen to this hurdle-fraught relationship? Does Moritake stand a chance with Shiori?

Heh, find out for yourself, I’m not telling. :-p I recommend you read it for yourself, seeing as it’s only 2 volumes long with full furigana. Moritake’s character is well-fleshed out and easy to relate to while Shiori – and the rest of the cast, come to think of it – remains an enigma until the end, but that just makes Moritake’s feelings for her all the more understandable. He’s a kid trying to be an adult and stumbling in all the typical kiddult ways, it’s just too cute.

As a bonus the baseball action is pretty good as well. The ending of the final game was predictable as most baseball manga final games tend to be, but the matches are fun to read, the art is clear and simple and the action is always easy to follow. And there were some moments where I went “What’s gonna happen next?! *doki doki*” but since the focus in Boy meets Girl is on the relationships rather than the game, such moments were few and far between.

If I write any more I know I’ll end up spoiling the ending so I’m going to stop here. I enjoyed it as a short, sweet baseball romance series that made its point and got the feelings across without resorting to the constant arguments and unnecessary melodrama that frequently characterize other baseball romance series (*cough*Adachi*cough*). If you’re not looking for anything deep and just want something you can read, enjoy and forget, give Boy meets Girl a try and see if you like it.

Daiju no Mound manga review (it’s terrible)

I’m still on a baseball manga kick and I still have a lot of ground to cover. I’ve read some good stuff, some not so good stuff and just recently I read Daiju no Mound (大樹のマウンド) by Masashi Asaki, which is flat out terrible. Unlike something like A Single Match, which is terrible because it makes no sense, or Ayako, which is bad because it’s so trashy, Daiju no Mound is bad because the author doesn’t know the first thing about writing likable characters. Since there are no summaries out there, I’ll have to write one myself this time. Tch.

Daiju no Mound is about a boy in junior high named Daiju. He badly wants to play baseball. However his dad, who pitched at Koshien but ruined his shoulder after going pro and never made it out of the minors, is dead set against Daiju following in his footsteps. In his third year of junior high, however, Daiju runs into the cute manager of a little league team who wants Daiju as their ace pitcher and won’t take no for an answer. Will Daiju be able to run from his destiny?

Of course not. Otherwise the manga would have ended, mercifully enough, after two chapters instead of five volumes. Daiju himself is bland but occasionally stubborn with a weakness for pretty girls, like most shounen heroes. If he was the only character in Daiju no Mound we wouldn’t have a problem. Unfortunately everyone around him just sucks. I’m not going to cover every single character in the series, firstly because this manga doesn’t deserve that kind of coverage and secondly because I have luckily started to forget them all. The worst culprits, who made the manga nigh unreadable, are:

The cute manager, whose name I’ve forgotten: Her sole raison d’existence is to nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag x200 Daiju into doing things he usually doesn’t want to do. He had made peace with not being able to play baseball, for example, but she just wouldn’t let it drop. She showed up at his house day after day after day until he joined the little league team.

That was bad enough. But then once it was time to pick high schools, she ignored the school he was planning to go for and dragged him to another high school and nagged, nagged, nagged him – with the help of his team mates – until he finally gave in and went to that school.

Sure it’s his fault for not having the will to stand up to this annoying girl, but she doesn’t make her case easier by being such a noisy, nagging shrew. The author quickly realized what a pain she was and tried to give her some sob story about “Boo hoo, I have a weak heart, my parents don’t want me to be a manager but I love baseball so much, boo hoo” but it only makes her even more irritating, so that plotline is quickly dropped.

The little league coach: I can’t remember his name either, so I’ll call him Coach. It turns out Coach also led Daiju’s dad to Koshien. If that’s the case then he should be aware of the disaster that later befell Daiju’s dad and thus more likely to protect young pitcher’s arms, right? Wrong! Instead Coach goes on and on about finding a pitcher who can be the future of Japanese baseball, but when he finds him what does he do? He promptly begins to destroy Daiju’s shoulder!

Daiju's 'rivals' are deliberate clones of Mashiba and Miyata from Hajime no Ippo. — Daiju’s ‘rivals’ are deliberate clones of Mashiba and Miyata from Hajime no Ippo.

Coach is so focused on winning some little league tournament (which they lose quickly anyway) that he rushes Daiju into playing in the tournament without teaching him a thing about proper pitching technique, without imposing pitch limits, without teaching him anything about protecting himself, nothing.

And when Daiju does come down with a shoulder injury, predictably enough, you would expect Coach to bench him and tell him to take better care of himself, right? Wrong! Instead he follows Daiju from doctor to doctor until they find a quack that okays him playing, then Coach teaches Daiju another pitch he can use while his very badly injured shoulder is healing.

When Daiju finished middle school and moved to the high school level, I thought “At last, he’s going to be paired up with a sensible coach!” You know, someone who knows that protecting a future star means not destroying him in a petty tournament at age 15. But noooo, right after Daiju enrolls a coaching change is announced and here comes Coach again. Nooooo! I stopped reading at that point and jumped to the end. There was no point, really.

Daiju’s dad: Parenting is a tough job, no question about it, and being a single dad to a teenager must be even tougher. I want to cut Daiju’s dad some slack, but he made a lot of mistakes in handling Daiju. The first one was making baseball some kind of ‘forbidden fruit,’ which only made it more enticing to the kid. He’s a teenager, after all.

Mistake number two, which was even worse, was not guiding and advising Daiju once the kid inevitably started playing baseball. Daddy must have known first-hand all the pitfalls awaiting a young, highly gifted pitcher. In fact, that’s the very reason he didn’t want his son playing in the first place.

Once he gave tacit approval for Daiju to play, then, he should have done everything in his power to avoid a repeat of his own fate. Check his form, check his diet, check what kind of exercises he’s doing. Impose pitch limits and make him stick to them. Teach him warning signs that mean ‘Stop immediately.’ And when it comes to picking a high school, help him find a school with a baseball team that is active but not overly-rigorous. Basically just take an interest instead of throwing up your hands and walking away. You’re his dad, for goodness’ sake!

Anyway, the characters aside, the manga itself wasn’t remarkable in any way. The art was pretty good (albeit heavily inspired by Hajime no Ippo) and the action was usually easy to follow, but apart from that there’s nothing to recommend Daiju no Mound for. Except, I guess, that it made Masashi Asaki realize that he can draw but he can’t write. Since then he’s made his living as an artist partnering writers like Ira Ishida and Yuma Ando, so you may have seen his work in titles like Shibatora and Psychometrer Eiji.

Since the manga was so bad I’m not going to bother doing a sample chapter. The chapters in this manga are about 70 pages long anyway, so the odds were against it from the start. Most likely I’m not going to do samples of future series either (too much trouble, also it’s illegal) so I’ll spoil the abrupt ending: Daiju’s high school team plays some other team in the Koshien qualifiers and win. They’re probably going to Koshien, but the manga was cancelled just then so we’ll never know how they fared when they got there. The end.

Hei no Naka no Korinai Menmen manga review

Sorry for the long break. I’ll continue my discussion on good fonts for manga typesetting later on. Today I’m continuing my love for baseball manga by which has led me to attempt to read just about anything labelled as a ‘baseball’ manga. The only problem is that Mangaupdates’ categories are seemingly written by people who haven’t actually read the manga in question, so as with Iruka-chan ni Yoroshiku, it turns out the sport played in Hei no Naka no Korinai Menmen is softball, not baseball. A later chapter even explains why certain sports, particularly sumo and regular baseball were banned from the prisons. But I’m getting slightly ahead of myself.

The Hei no Naka no Korinai Menmen (塀の中の懲りない面々)manga is an adaptation of an autobiographical novel by Jouji (George?) Abe, probably better known by Western fans as the writer of Rainbow. I haven’t actually read Rainbow, but it won the 2005 Shogakukan Manga Prize, got an anime recently and receives regular translations, so I figure most people must know it.

The original Hei no Naka novel came out in 1986 and was a smash hit, Japan at the time being relatively favorably disposed to yakuza tales. The book spawned a TBS drama, a movie and this manga and even won an award for introducing a new catchphrase, “— menmen” into the Japanese language.

Hei-no-Naka-172 — Sample done by me. The original manga is in Japanese only.

What’s the book actually about, though? The title should tell you: “Hei no naka” = literally “within walls” i.e. in jail and “korinai menmen” = literally “people who haven’t learn their lesson.” Maybe something like “Unrepentant Jailbirds” would be a good title in English.

The manga chronicles Abe’s time in jail for… I forget exactly what he did. Does he ever say? Not sure, but he was definitely guilty. Most chapters focus on different individuals he encounters within the prison system. While there is a recurring cast of regulars, most chapters can be read on their own as standalone chapters.

That’s it for the content. Is the manga any good? Alas, it’s lacking quite a bit. It’s only 2 volumes long, but I suffered before I could even finish volume 1 and didn’t bother with the second one. Artistically speaking the art is clean, the character designs are simple but memorable, the panels are simply and effectively laid out, etc, etc. There’s nothing to complain about visually.

The problem is, the Hei no Naka manga sticks way too faithfully to the source text. It’s more like a heavily-illustrated novel than like a manga. It’s most likely because nothing much happens in the novel (which I haven’t read). To cut a long story short, most chapters consist of page after page of people just sitting around talking with these huge dialogue boxes full of reams of text over their heads. And they don’t talk about anything important either, just complaints or ranting about society (which is rich coming from the dregs of society) or Prisoner X explaining Prisoner Y’s background at length to the other prisoners, that sort of thing.

I must also take issue with the “golliwog”-style design of the African character in chapter 8. The other characters all have clearly defined features (though the slitty-eyed Chinese man is… not cool) but John Karbo is just this black mass with eyes and a vague nose and thick lips. And you thought blackface was a thing of the past. It’s a documented fact that some people in West and East Africa have very dark skin, but they aren’t featureless golliwogs the way this manga portrays them. I’m going to put it down to Japan being very ignorant about Africa back in 1988 and an overzealous artist trying their hardest to convey the “blackest of the black” skin the author calls for.

tl;dr Hei no Naka no Korinai Menmen is not a very interesting manga -the premise and the setting are intriguing, but the execution lacks a lot. If you like wordy, slice of life manga where nothing much happens you could do worse than this, but otherwise it’s not that great. If Jouji Abe’s story of his life in prison interests you, see if you can find the movie or the TV drama instead.