Category: Sports

Manga of the Month: Ranma ½

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Ranma ½ (らんま½)
by Rumiko Takahashi

hisui_icon_4040 Ranma ½ is a lot like Akira.

Wait, wait, wait. Put down those torches and pitchforks. Let me explain for a second. It will all make sense if you just give me a chance.

They not the same when it comes to content. I meant that in the sense that at one point in time it was almost inconceivable to think that anyone who was any sort of casual anime fan had not seen at least a little of either. People tended to either love or hate either title and of course that led to lots of “overrated” and “overexposed” being thrown around about both. But even if you your opinion was in the middle of the road about it you were expected to have an opinion about both. They were an integral part of the framework of fandom conversations.

And then time passed and luster fell off both titles. Neither of them are forgotten. They still randomly appear on top 10 lists. They still influence people. They still get brought up in conversation. They are just no longer the essentials they once were. You can bring them up at a convention and if half the audience has not seen either of them you’re not too surprised.  And so at some point both of them went out of print.

Viz announced at Anime Expo that the Ranma 1/2 manga was going back into print in a new format. Then at Otakon they announced the same for the anime. With this classic coming back into the consciousness (and store shelves) soon I decided this was a good a time as any to talk about this series.

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Manga of the Month: Bamboo Blade

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Bamboo Blade (バンブーブレード)
by Masahiro Totsuka and Aguri Igarashi

hisui_icon_4040 Sports manga while well respected in the fan community is in general sales poison. Moe has a vocal dedicated fandom that talks with their wallets but in generally maligned by the critical fandom. But moe being this Sriracha sauce of anime can be combined with almost anything. But much like Sriracha sauce moe hardly goes with EVERYTHING despite what some advocates might tell you and adding it to some things turns some people away without question.

I don’t necessarily dismiss a series just because it adds moe elements despite not having a blanket approval for anything that incorporates it. This applies to the sports genre as well. Some manga like Saki and its derivatives positively bathe in the aesthetics and form making it an acquired taste indeed. But Bamboo Blade wisely avoids that pigeonholing and reaches out to a broader fandom.  At its heart Bamboo Blade is a manga about kendo and friendship first and foremost and a series about cute girls and their problem second. This lets the story appeal to more than a simple niche audience.

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Major: The Ball of Friendship

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I really enjoyed the first season of Major and so now we’ve finally continued on with Goro’s journey. Though this film actually didn’t come out after the first season, it takes place in between seasons one and two so we’ve decided to watch things in chronological order as best we can. That also means this isn’t a movie for jumping into the series, it makes no introductions.

Also, while there is a specific baseball that starts Goto thinking about his past at the beginning of the movie, calling it The Ball of Friendship is just odd. This movie doesn’t really have anything to do with making friends and being there for each other. Friendship doesn’t get Goro through in the climactic last game.

The ending of the first series was a whirlwind of changes at the end. The first season ends with the huge bombshells that are dropped on everyone in Goro’s penultimate year of elementary school. When the second season begins they have jumped ahead to junior high and there are even more significant changes that took place. This movie bridges the gap by explaining how many of those changes came to be from the first season to the second. In a way this is the secret history of Major: The Little League Years.

But as Narutaki said there is not pity for anyone who is not a Major fan. Heck the movie starts in the middle of Goro’s professional career. There is just a little refresher material at the beginning to bring you back up to speed after the intro but it is only there to jog the memory of people who already watched the first season. But other than that your on your own. This movie was made for the hardcore to see what happened in that missing gap. It is more a gaiden than anything else. But a vital one in reflection.

Just a quick note: The movie starts with a lot of awkward English to the point where you might assume you got an old dub. The story just starts in America with native English speakers who are clearly not voice actors. They jump back to Japanese quickly enough but I know it threw Narutaki and I for a loop at first.

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