Eyeshield 21 19
May 17, 2008
Holy crap guys. This volume had an entire chapter IN COLOR in the middle. Like, real color pages! When I started reading it and noticed some of the pages had red and blue borders, I thought it was a trim error for some reason. I was totally pleased with that, and I hope that it happens more often in other series as well.
Most of this volume is just the end of the game with the Bando Spiders. Once the main conflict of a game has been laid out (in this case, Bando has great special teams, which makes for an annoyingly hard game), if the solution to the problem is too long in coming, I start to lose interest. There was an additional conflict introduced when high winds started blowing in the middle of the game, but I was kind of disappointed with the impact this had on game play. This is the last game before Nationals, so the game is really built up and stretched out, but ends halfway through the volume.
I mean, I can’t talk about the next part without spoiling that outcome, but I feel like the series spoils it itself since it’s still running TO THIS DAY in Japan and Hiruma’s still in it (who is set to retire after this season). The celebrations are legendary after the game, though. I feel like the could have been exaggerated a little more comically, but I was still pretty happy with them. The color chapter in the middle contains several 1 and 2 page gag comics (which are always very funny in this series), then the first chapter of what I assume is going to be the Kanto tournament arc, where all the best players gather for the lottery to determine team placement. The next game is against the guy who’s been talked up as a real jerk for the past several volumes, and I like that the end of the volume introduces a conflict along the lines of… who’s more evil, this guy or Hiruma. The difference between the two is that Hiruma’s a funny kind of evil and the other guy is a “I’m going to literally gouge your eye out of your head” kind of evil. I’m excited to see where that goes.
May 20, 2008 at 9:11 pm
[...] to a formula. Connie reviews vol. 1 of Dororo, vol. 2 of Battle Royale (ultimate edition), and vol. 19 of Eyeshield 21 at Slightly Biased Manga. Ed Chavez has an audio review of two from Tezuka, vol. 1 of Dororo and [...]