It's not about Shadow of the Colossus, or mass murder, it's about soccer. Specifically, about a professional soccer team, East Tokyo United, on it's last legs and the coach (Tatsumi) who's determined to bring them out of their rut. From what I've heard about it, it differs from most sports manga in that it focuses more on the coach than the team, and that's what interests me about this series. Underdog sports stories are nothing new, but this story's angle, as well as the art, make it seem pretty nifty. The series is currently at 11 volumes and still going.
I'm not a sports guy at all (who has time for sports when there's manga to be read!), but this seems to have the Eyeshield 21 factor, where the art is solid enough to attract me to the story regardless of its subject matter. Admittedly, I haven't read Eyeshield 21 since volume 10, but super kudos for keeping my interest as long as it did despite being about something I'd normally not care for.
Anyways, take a peek at the goods:
I really like Tsujitomo's art style. It has enough energy to make an otherwise boring (to me) sport look damn exciting. There's a shift in panel layout whenever there's "action." Any non-game scenes play out in mostly square and rectangular panels, but once the games start, it's crazy quadrilaterals and parallelograms aplenty! The sequence in the fourth page above is pretty boss. Check out the way he draws knees, too. I guess in most manga, you wouldn't notice them, but here they'd be important, so it's fitting that they have a distinct look. They look unusual, but appropriately muscular in a boxy, Dragonball Z way.
Also, Coach Tatsumi looks so cool!
Who: Del Rey
Likelihood: The way I see it, this has several knocks against it. One, it's a sports manga. We have a few sports manga in the US, but I wouldn't call it a popular genre. Two, it's soccer. It might be the world's game, but it certainly isn't America's game. I say Del Rey because it's published in Morning, and Kodansha seems to be their buddy, but while they have released some seinen (from Morning as well as others), they don't do it quite as often as other companies. Even if they were to release more Morning manga, I'm not sure this would be high on their list. Maybe when the World Cup comes around and everyone pretends to care about soccer for a few weeks, Del Rey might find it an opportune time to release and market the series. For now, I'll say a 20% chance.
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