Run Time: Mar 3, 2004 - Sep 21- 2007 Author: Kouji Seo Publisher: Kodansha Volumes: 18 (166 Chapters) Welcome back everyone! This week will be another manga post and I'm thinking of changing the structure around from our last post. Let's see how it goes! This week we will look at one of the mangas/animes that initially got me into this genre. This manga is called Suzuka, a sports-themed anime about the romance between two upcoming stars. Suzuka does have an anime adaptation and I did watch it way back then, but I felt like the manga stuck better with me throughout all of these years. I had way more memories of the manga than I did with the anime. I guess the reason being is that the anime had those generic endings that left you wanting more, so the manga was able to provide you with all of the answers to the questions you had on your mind. Anyways, allow me to introduce to you one of my most nostalgic series, Suzuka. Synopsis: Yamato Akitsuki is a high school aged boy from the countryside of Hiroshima prefecture. An energetic boy, Yamato is excited to start his high school days in Tokyo where is aunt allows him to live rent-free at her apartment complex. Little does he know, the apartment complex is actually an all-girls dorm! Yamato visits his soon-to-be school where he sees Suzuka Asahina training hard for the high jump event of track and field. Yamato is fascinated by her abilities and also struck by her beauty. He yearns to learn more about this mysterious girl and it is almost love at first sight. Luckily, Yamato soon figures out that Suzuka lives next door to him! Since then, all of their encounters with each other have left poor impressions of him. It is at this point that he joins the track team as a 100 meter sprinter in efforts to impress Suzuka. Yamato quickly discovers that he has the potential to be a top runner in the event and trains hard everyday to become the best and to win the heart of the girl he loves. Storyline: I know I said that this was a sports-themed manga but it really is just a romance manga with sports on the side. Don't get me wrong, the sports part of the anime plays huge roles in the character's lives and their development, but the heart of the series is the relationship between Yamato and Suzuka. The sports aspect is just there to help their romantic advances and helps them define who they are as individuals. The author even said that he planned on telling this story as a romantic story and not a sports story mixed with love interests. I think this becomes apparent as you get through the first couple of chapters or even reading the synopsis above should have given you that indication. Yamato first sees Suzuka and instantly becomes interested to the point where he joins the track team without any prior experience just to impress her. That's very telling of a high school boy wanting to get closer to his crush. This is also probably the reason why I liked this series back then because I felt that Yamato was relatable to my situations back in my junior high and high school days. I'm not afraid to admit that I may have done things that I wasn't entirely into just so I could impress a girl I liked at the time (/。\) As is with most slice of life series, the importance of character development and interactions are where the source of entertainment comes from. Most slice of life series get stale after a while since it's just day to day events with little trips mixed in to change the scenery. Suzuka is different though since you really connect with the characters and you root for them as they are maturing into adults. You can see them develop from care-free, risk-taking teens into people who are more reserved or think things through before acting. This series basically allows you to see these characters mature from kids into adults which not many series does well. Majority of the time you see the bulk of the story from their high school days up to where a major event happens. The story then fast forwards a couple of years and we suddenly see them as adults who have matured with more responsibilities or jobs. This is not the case in Suzuka. You get to see every step of the way and see all the struggles that the characters goes through. Even the relationship between Suzuka and Yamato have rough patches and even break ups. That's something you normally don't see since mangas tend to see things through rose-tinted glasses once the love interests get together. Another big selling point of the series is that we actually get to see Suzuka's and Yamato's relationship AFTER they start going out. That's something that I rarely get to see as most series end once the leads get together. I loved being able to see the strains of a relationship and how much work they really are. The "happy endings" in most stories don't give you that perspective. It also makes you appreciate Seo's uniqueness in using that relationship to show the characters maturing and making decisions not only for themselves, but what would be best for the couple. The peak of seeing Suzuka's and Yamato's maturity and love for each other comes at the end of the manga. I won't spoil it for you, but it ties everything together in what the two leads learn as they go through high school and college. They are left between two difficult decisions, and the decisions they made together showed how much they matured. Art: This manga was released in the early 2000s so that means that the graphics and drawing styles aren't as complex and clean as they are nowadays. The drawings are somewhat jagged and pointy in their features. That was just the style back then and looking back on it, it might seem ugly. You have to remember though that during that time, that's how good the graphics were with the technology they had. Try looking back on old video games that you used to play as a kid repeatedly. You might say they look relatively ugly compared to present games, but it still has that nostalgic effect. This is what I feel when I look back on Suzuka or any series that came from the late 1990s and early 2000s. The panel transitions are crisp, however, and you never really get lost in what's going on even during the panels of them performing in track meets. This easy to follow format allows us to focus more on the characters especially since most panels are of the characters front and center. The background is usually simple or non-distracting which makes it even easier to focus on the characters' body language. This manga is definitely an easy one to read with their panels and suggest it to people who are just learning to read in a manga format. Overall Impressions: I really enjoyed this series, both anime and manga. Although the anime felt kind of flat and lacking, it still follows closely to the manga's story and even the character designs. Only minor changes were made such as hair color. I thoroughly enjoyed the struggles of the couple's relationships and seeing the rough patches they come across. All the idiotic things that Yamato does to the things he does to win Suzuka's affection back. All of the ups as well as the downs was a journey that I was fully committed to. The only issues I had with this manga was how Suzuka seemed to be less powerful as the series went on compared to how strong she was in the beginning. It might have been deliberate with all the issues she comes across after dating Yamato, but I dislike when powerful female leads always gets weakened to seem more feminine (looking at you Asuna from SAO ☜(`o´)) Overall, I think this is a solid series and gets more flak than it deserves. It's a genuine slice of life series that can actually happen in the real world. I'm sure that a good amount of people have gone through what the characters have in this manga and because of that, it is relatable and enticing to read. I would recommend this to anyone that is interested in this type of genre. Thank you guys once again for getting through my post! I know it definitely is wordy recently, but I just want to be as unbiased as possible giving my reviews. I want to be able to allow you guys to form your own opinions based on the material I give you in these posts. As a result, this kind of makes my posts more verbose than others you have come across.
I hope you all enjoyed this review and hope to see you guys next week!
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Coffee senpaiJust an Otaku who also loves his coffee. Grab some coffee and watch anime with me ٩(θ‿θ)۶ Posts for this blog every Friday!
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