Eyeshield 21 22
Posted: February 8, 2009 Filed under: Eyeshield 21 Leave a comment »I haven’t read this series in a long time. The newest volume just came in, so I figured now was as good a time as any to catch up.
I was kind of surprised to see that the Nagas game was not concluded in this volume. While this would be a problem in any other series, Eyeshield 21 is immensely enjoyable because I really enjoy watching how all of Hiruma’s tricks play out during a game of football. This volume devotes 200 pages to the last 8 minutes of the game. The first chapter alone features nothing but a pass. The ball was actually thrown sometime last volume, but for 20 pages, it is in the air, and the pros and cons of Monta catching it and two or three different split-second strategies are employed while Monta grapples with Ikkyu in mid-air.
It sounds like too much, but I love it for things like this.
In the second half of the volume, the game (of course) comes down to one touchdown. Said touchdown has to be pulled off with a 97-yard run with less than a minute on the clock. It takes some true trickery to pull it off, and things are still up in the air as of the end of the volume.
With such serious business going down, the wonderful sense of humor doesn’t have as much a chance to show this time around. Of course, there’s some humor in all of Hiruma’s tricks, but the sober nature of the game is broken up nicely by the letters column between chapters. Some of the features are a little mundane (there are a few character relationship charts that aren’t all that interesting), but sometimes there will be letters like “How can I be brave like Cerberus?” with answers like “You can’t be a dog!”
I read the next volume right after I finished this one. The volume ends with the clock running down, and then being reset with four seconds left for a touchdown. Epic stuff.
