Kenji Gion has always had a complex about his height. On his first day of high school, he meets the giant Iwashimizu and a certain ball game: rugby. This classic shonen manga of youth and high school rugby starts now!
It's not the best drawn Manga out there but it brings me back to my first days of joining my rugby team in college. It's really an amazing sport and this Manga captures that.
I like sports stories and was excited about this one as it's a rugby story. I liked the action/game/practices scenes, and I think this volume does a great job of introduction a lot of characters in a short period of time. We do seem to follow a bit more strongly 2 players: one returning, one new to the game (great dynamic). They are also extremes in heights, one is really tall and one is really short.
But I was a bit disappointed that the short player that really wants to tackle everyone, was considered for positions like scrum half (for which you need to be experienced) or wing (for which you need to be really fast). There is one position uniquely suited to that short + tackling, yet it didn't come up. I played rugby for years, so I acknowledge my bias of knowledge here but still it was disappointing. Hopefully as the series goes on it will come up!
There definitely are a lot of interesting character dynamics, and as we kind of see this from the perspective of the new player, there is lots of opportunity to see how everyone knows each other, plus feuds with other teams, and gameplay to boot. I will keep reading and see where it goes.
Quite nice! I'm usually not a fan of sports manga but I enjoyed this one! The two main characters are really likeable, and I like their relationship. The rythme is also quite good and I kept flipping the pages. There's a little boy's love vibe and I hope we'll get a cute romance but since it was published in a shônen magazine, I doubt it (no matter, I'll fanfic in my head).
If you've ever wondered how close the anime is to the manga - the answer is "incredibly close." The main difference is that the art is much less homoerotic (clearly the anime played that up for the fujoshi) and the sport is explained a tiny bit better.
I don’t mind the art. But it was kind of just boring to me. There was a lot of being mean to each other as a motivation and that just isn’t my cup of tea.
The action scenes while practicing and playing rugby are fun to follow like the action sequences in action manga. While it doesn't "teach" about the game of rugby for a non-rugby person, it does give readers enough context to know what's being discussed such as positions and obviously understanding that Gion's weaknesses need to be strengthened in order for him to be taken seriously on the team against much bulkier guys at his high school now that he's on the team.
Plenty of banter between the guys regarding stature and musculature to make it guy and sports forward.