Real 3
January 4, 2009
I’ve been avoiding both this and Slam Dunk, because I’m sure I would love them both and I really just don’t need to be reading another (in the case of Slam Dunk) 31-volume series. But I’m a sucker for a good manga, and I really just can’t turn Real down. I need to go out and buy the first two volumes, though things were surprisingly easy to follow starting with volume 3.
There was very little basketball being played in this volume, something that surprised me a lot. There was really only one game at the beginning, where one of the players gets worked up when a coach suggests he sit out, because winning or losing the game doesn’t matter since nobody cares. It was a really great scene.
The focus seemed to be on two characters. One of them is a relatively healthy-looking guy who paralyzed a girl for life when he got into a motorcycle accident with her on the back. After secretly watching her recovery efforts, he resolves to be a better person so he can see her without it weighing on his conscience.
The other character was a boy who was also in an auto accident, except his left him paralyzed from the waist down. This boy was apparently a basketball star, and the type who sat on top of the world. A lot of the volume focuses on him and his efforts to deal with his situation. His accident robbed him of everything in his life, and he really… feels nothing. He seems to reject anyone who tries to cheer him up, and also dislikes his therapy since it makes him confront the permanence of his situation. He is truly a powerful character since… well, I didn’t really know how he should feel, or how he personally could recover since I hadn’t read the first two volumes. I don’t know how he’s going to deal with his new condition, how he’s going to resume his life, and… well, a lot of things were really dark for him. But there were a few things that seemed to affect him towards the end of the volume, and I really want to see where the story takes him.
The two boys meet towards the end of the volume, apparently they know each other. I’d like to think the first boy lit a fire under the hospitalized one, but that remains to be seen. I do know I’d like to see the two of them together more.
I’m sure wheelchair basketball figures heavily in things later. Or maybe it doesn’t. I’m actually more interested in the characters, and I hope that the focus stays on them for at least a little while longer. I actually went around to a few different stores this weekend looking for the first two volumes of this series with no luck. I hope that means that people are buying it and not that the stores aren’t stocking it, because it would be a real shame if this fell through the cracks.
This was a review copy provided by Viz.
