Manga, sweat and tears: Run with the Wind
Run with the Wind is at a point now where every episode explodes with such a cathartic resonance. The boys are a mere qualifier away from the Hakone Ekiden and ...
Tag: sports
Winning & losing, running & writing – Run with the Wind
If the end goal is to win, how easy is it to enjoy doing a thing? Be it playing table tennis, running in a marathon or just writing for your blog, we do things ...
The best decoy ever
Is this the era of the sports anime? Without doing the research, it really feels like it, more so than at any other point in recent history, and what’s mo...
Aim for the Ace!
Her hand bloodied and blistered, she bandages it up, ties it to her racket and keeps going. Giving up isn’t an option. This is her moment! Her chance! Her dream...
Can you make a giant killing happen inside of you?
This is a show about football (out of respect to Bateszi I’ll avoid using the word soccer…). The featured team, East Tokyo United (ETU), is dysfunct...
“Next time, let me see a Matsuri Special.”
Something about the transience of adolescence never fails to inspire. More often than not we wake up, 20, fully grown, and confused as to how we got there. For ...
The quietness of Cross Game
When writing about Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, I noted that I think it’s great because it has moments of exciting, fluid animation. I realise that&#...
Cross Game and Touch, and feminism in Japan
I wasn’t aware Mitsuru Adachi (mangaka) even existed until the spring season of this very year, but all that changed after I’d seen the first two ep...
In support of sports drama and Hajime no Ippo
You may scoff at the formulaic concept of sports drama, may think that you can ignore anime like this because you're not into boxing, but I'll retort by suggest...
Time to champion Ookiku Furikabutte
Living in ol’ Blightly, we aren’t taught the delights of baseball. For us, it’s either cricket or rounders, and the latter’s enjoyed mos...