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Reviewed by Barb Lien-Cooper My husband is a big fan of Takehiko Inoue’s samurai epic, Vagabond. I found the work to be a bit too decompressed for my taste, although I thought the art was some of the best I’d ever seen, whether in comics or manga. I was happy, therefore, to have gotten into Inoue’s sports manga, Real, about wheelchair basketball. It gave my husband and me something (extra) in common to geek over. Real is different from other sports manga, as it usually focuses on character development. In Real, winning isn’t always what matters. For some of these characters, just being able to find enough self-esteem to wheel their chair to the basketball court and to play is triumph enough. In volume seven, we finally get to the sports in the sports manga. Kiyoharu Togawa, one of our lead characters, has gotten really good at wheelchair basketball. His almost single-minded determination has brought his good-but-not-great team a certain reputation as bad-asses on the court. He’s gotten so proficient that a “better” team, The Dreams, want to recruit him. The dilemma: Does he stay with a team that rises or falls on his abilities, or does he go onto greater fame with a team that may really challenge his abilities? It’s not a black or white situation, as his team, The Tigers, is a real repository of a lot of our hero’s self worth. To leave the team would be like leaving a part of himself behind. In volume seven, a lot of time is spent on an important game, pretty typical of a standard sports manga. Now, it’s a hell of a game, exciting and surprising at every turn. It’s incredibly well-drawn, with speed lines that have a reason for being. However, I was a little let down that there weren't just a few more scenes off the basketball court. I’m sort of into this book for the character development. I mean, I get it, it’s about sports. However, it’s about sports and self-worth, even more so than in a standard sports manga. The two themes are so intertwined that slighting the character development, even inadvertently, matters even more than who wins or loses. However, I know that this may be a minority opinion, as most people who read sports manga want sports. In fact, I think that a lot of sports manga types might have felt that that Real might have been a little slow to get to the sports. So, if that’s you, the sports has finally happened… and will probably take more and more front and center stage in future volumes. All in all, I still liked the volume, so I’ll give it a B Plus. Think you could have written a better review of Real v7? Write us and we'll probably let you give it a shot! --EiC PC |
30 March 2010
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