Eyeshield 21 29
Posted: December 13, 2009 Filed under: Eyeshield 21 1 Comment »Riichiro Inagaki / Yusuke Murata – Viz – 2009 – 37 volumes
The sinister feeling I got from Gao last volume pretty much carries through all the way here. Things look a little up as of, like, the last page, but Gao is a pretty horrible threat. He’s fair, in that he plays by the rules and everyone recognizes that getting injured is part of playing football, but serious bodily injury is a terrible thing to threaten in situations like this.
This game will probably last at least three volumes, so this chunk of story was spent with both teams just matching preliminary strategies. Touchdowns are had, and plans are developed and foiled on both sides. Surprisingly, Gao isn’t really much of a threat save for two instances, but terrible things do happen right at the end.
I’m a big fan of the correct use of solid black pages, and we get a good use of them here. My heart broke, which says a lot considering who the character was it happened to.
There’s still touches of humor, but with the beginning of the game, we get down to some pretty serious business right away. It’s mostly football, but it’s always fun to see the wacky strategies and fake-outs all the characters pull on one another. So yeah, still a great volume.
The character popularity polls in this series are always fascinating. It’s true that Hiruma steals the show, but it’s almost unheard of for the main character of a Shounen Jump series to not come out first in these things. Not only that, after Sena came in second, most of the other members of the Devil Bats don’t even rank in the top ten, it’s mostly side characters. That just goes to show you the power of goofy gimmick characters, I suppose.
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