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Watashi no Koshien volume 4 & 5 (skimmed)

Yup, as I suspected volume 3 was the end of Watashi no Koshien‘s run of quality. The manga continues for another 2 volumes and manages to achieve its initial objective, but the light had gone out and it was just a bitter angry manga till the end. Still the ending doesn’t feel abrupt, so I suppose it was meant to be a 5-volume series from the start. I’m all for the rare, short baseball manga, but this was just crap.

Not that I’m 100% qualified to say so, since I read about a third of volume 4, skipped through to the end and skimmed most of volume 5 as well. All I wanted to know when I started 4 was whether Wataya had repented of her selfish abuse of her charges, but not only had she not repented but the writers had decided “This is no longer an issue, okay?” and done an arbitrary time-skip to the next academic year. Plus all the angry team members suddenly love to practice and think Coach Wataya is the best thing since sliced bread. Explain? They don’t owe you any explanations!

Then 4 new students show up (recruited due to Wataya’s passionate efforts). The coach’s new plan is revealed: pamper and promote these new students to make the older students jealous, desperate and exceedingly grateful for every moment of playing time she chooses to bestow on them. In a better-written manga this would come across in a more charitable “trying to motivate everyone to do their best” kind of way, but as usual Shihono Wataya comes across as stubborn, scheming, self-centered and inconsiderate.

After that the team has a game against the best school in their prefecture, even better than the one they played last time. Aaand I stopped reading. Skimmed. They drew. More jealousy and bickering between team members. Somehow they all learn to get along and appreciate just how wonderful Shihono really is. Then the Koshien prelims start and they win all their matches and go to Koshien, the end.

Final verdict: That was… pretty bad. The art is nice, the baseball action is interesting and clearly drawn and most of the characters are passable but when the main character is selfish, self-righteous and is portrayed as someone who can do no wrong even when she is clearly wrong, it doesn’t matter what the rest of the manga is like. I saw some parallels between this series and Ookiku Furikabutte and I can only hope the latter doesn’t fall apart as quickly and as completely as Watashi no Koshien did.

Watashi no Koshien volume 3 review

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.

Watashi no Koshien volume 2 review

Right-ho, continuing where we left off with the Kugunari High School baseball team and their rookie female coach. The entirety of Watashi no Koshien volume 2 is spent on the fall tournament match that was started at the end of the previous volume where the Kugu 9 go up against Seiryo, the best school in Miyagi prefecture, in their very first official match. If that sounds similar to Ookiku Furikabutte, let me assure you that the similarities don’t end there but are plentiful and easy to spot for anyone who has read both.

But just because I thought I knew how things were going to play out doesn’t mean I got any less nervous as I read the game. It’s not like Seiryo is ready to just roll over and play dead. While they started out underestimating pitcher Kouhei, by the halfway point they had pulled out their second-stringers and populated the lineup with nothing but regulars. Kouhei hangs in there valiantly, but by the end of the volume his stamina is starting to fail him – and he’s finally starting to appreciate that the training from hell he went through in Tokyo actually had a point.

This volume also gives a bit of development to some of the other guys on the team. Rookie catcher Moichi has never caught anything other than a fastball before, but there’s a limit to how far Kouhei’s fastball can take them, so he has to learn to catch sliders on the fly. Third baseman Baba makes a fatal mistake and nearly costs them a run. Can he redeem himself? And was girly-boy Bei recruited just to round out the team or does he have hidden depths? The star of the team is clearly Kouhei and he gets the majority of attention, but much of the rest of the team gets their chance to shine as well.

So what about the initial mystery of the story? Coach Wataya’s dead boyfriend who is now a ghost possessing a baseball, what’s up with him? Well halfway through the match he manages to possess the body of the team adviser. He uses the opportunity to give the team all kinds of advice and encouragement, like teaching Moichi to catch sliders and reminding Kouhei of a certain pitch he threw once, because it’s not a baseball manga if the pitcher doesn’t have a special pitch. What the ghost doesn’t do is tell us exactly what happened to him, but I suppose Shihono already knows so there’s no need to go over it in the middle of a game.

In the end the conclusion of the game is delayed until volume 3. This one ends in the 9th inning with Kouhei needed just one more out to narrowly eke out a win. Unforunately he’s barely staying standing, and if he can’t strike out the current batter then the next one will be the team’s cleanup. What does fate (and the author) have in store for the team? Find out in volume 3 of Watashi no Koshien!

Watashi no Koshien volume 1 review

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.