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Reviewed by Park Cooper Real is the story of some guys, and wheelchair basketball. It’s good, but I wish it wasn’t meant for older teens. Viz’s ratings system specifies on the last page: 16 and up. I’ve never seen a manga where that hurt more. First, let’s cover the story a bit more. We’ve got, basically, 4 guys: --18-year-old Tomomi Nomiya, known by his last name, Nomiya. He’s a bad boy who got kicked off the basketball team, and went a little wild after that, and now he’s expelled. One day, he chatted up a girl, invited her for a ride on his motorcycle, and had an accident. He injured his leg, so that now he can walk, and still play basketball, but he can’t slam-dunk anymore. But the girl who was riding with him can’t walk any more, and is in a wheelchair. Nomiya keeps visiting the girl, trying to show a sense of regret... she never smiles, and she never looks at him, although she never stops him from visiting nor forbids him to visit. And then one day, he is taking her out for some fresh air, and they pass a gym, and the girl seems interested in the sound of someone squeaking the gym floor and shooting hoops. It’s inside that they meet: --Kiyoharu Togawa, age 19. He lost most of his right leg to bone cancer, and now he’s in a wheelchair. He loves basketball as much as Nomiya, but he’s quit his wheelchair basketball team because he felt they had a defeatist attitude. They don’t get along at first, so Nomiya gets in a chair (Togawa’s good one, so that Togawa won’t have the wheelchair advantage), and plays some one-on-one. To his surprise, Togawa beats him handily—but Nomiya is not only excited to play again, it’s also the first time he sees a smile on the face of the girl whose injury he’s responsible for. Later, Nomiya realizes that he’s met Togawa’s sister elsewhere, who’s trying to get her driver’s license so she can drive her brother around—Nomiya sort of likes the sister. Things start heating up when Nomiya comes up with a White Men Can’t Jump scam—himself and Togawa playing suckers in 2-on-2 games for money. It works great until the suckers call in a ringer: --Mitsuru Nagano, an exchange student visiting home, apparently on break from the University of New South Wales. One-on-one, his long reach and extremely athletic upper body beats Togawa, and then, of course, Nomiya, too, when he tries it from Togawa’s chair (you’d think he’d stop trying that). The burn fires each of them up to improve their skills... and, of course, they’re broke again now. Togawa, especially, is certain that he’ll face Nagano again someday, and you as the reader are pretty darn sure he’s right. But while all of this is going on... --Hisanobu Takahashi, the seems-like-a-clean-cut-guy-but-is-actually-a-jerk who took over being captain of the school basketball team after Nomiya left, steals a bicycle to impress a girl, and then gets chased by the large-and-intimidating owner... into oncoming traffic. Now he’ll need a wheelchair to get around... So there you go. Because Nomiya is injured but doesn’t actually need a wheelchair, Real barely avoids one-too-many coinicidences, and so it stays on pretty darn plausible territory. I seem to have told you a lot about this book, but that’s because I want you to appreciate the care with which drama and emotion have been put into this work, like any really good sports manga. Believe me, I’ve left out a lot of details. But this is a sports manga for those whose love of the game gets them to overcome something that would be a huge tragedy for most people—or so most people would think, anyway. It’s a good manga. But I feel bad about that Older Teen rating. I think it’s probably going to hurt the book with school librarians. Yeah, there’s bad words in this, but the clincher is going to be one example of full-frontal male nudity, as Takahashi realizes that he can’t feel anything (but vague-yet-intense pain) below the waist anymore. Why, oh why couldn’t Inoue have drawn some underwear on Takahashi? Well I understand why, because it’s a very intimate moment of horror to realize for the first time that, underneath the bedsheets, underneath your clothes, you’re no longer fully connected to all of your body. But 16? Heck, most 18-year-olds aren’t mature enough to handle a picture of the totally-naked human body. ANYONE’s body. Some are, but while I wish I could give a copy of Rebound and Whistle! to every school librarian everywhere, that won’t work with Real. On the other hand, you know who maybe SHOULD get their hands on copies of Real? The United States soldiers in physical therapy at Walter Reed Memorial Hospital, that’s who, and hospitals like it across the country. Maybe I’m looking at this erroneously as a basketball thing when there’s certainly enough of a wheelchair thing these days... My wife says “it’s a good book for anyone who has really large life challenges but is either overcoming them or needs some inspiration in overcoming them...” Partially in hopes of it realizing its potential next volume even more now that everyone’s been introduced and everything’s been set up, I think I’ll give Real volume 1 an A. Interested in writing for MangaLife? We're always looking for talented reviewers and columnists, so drop us a line! Charles Webb Editor-in-Chief, MangaLife.com |
1 September 2010
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