Recommendation: Eyeshield 21
Up for recommendation in this post is quite possibly my favorite manga of all-time, Eyeshield 21. For those who know me, this doesn’t seem like much of a surprise since I pretty much harp on and on about Es21 (some people are probably tired of hearing me trying to persuade them to read this). Since this is a very long-running manga, I’m sure some of you have heard of it at some point so read on to find out why I have such high praise for this (sadly finished) series.
Eyeshield 21「 アイシールド21 」
Riichiro Inagaki & Yusuke Murata
Genre: Sports, Comedy, Drama
Currently Scanlated Chapters: 333 (COMPLETED)
Premise: Kobayakawa Sena is a freshman in highschool. Despite his previous decisions to change his life, he finds himself in the exactly same place he was in during elementary school and junior high: a push over and an errand boy. However, this changes when Hiruma, the most feared person in his school and president of the American Football Club, notices Sena and forces him to join the Football Team. Now Sena will become Eyeshield 21, a mysterious running back with lighting fast speed.
Read ONLINE @ ONEMANGA | Download Volumes @ MANGATRADERS
The Hard Sell: If you are automatically turned-off by the fact that this is a sports manga, you are missing out on something much, much more. I know plenty of people who won’t even give this manga a chance because of the premise. Hopefully I am able to convince some of you that sports is just the outer layer of this series, since it is actually much deeper than that. If not, I don’t think it would have stood a chance in the highly-competitive world of JUMP, where rankings are king and new series get dropped so often that it’s saddening. For a manga which focuses on the relatively-unpopular American Football (at least outside America), for it to stay serialized for 300+ chapters is astounding, and has actually helped to boost the sport in Japan.
You don’t even need to be a fan of the sport. When I first picked this up, I was actually just starting to get into American Football, as I was interested in the sport after watching “Longest Yard”. This manga helped me understand it more, as it builds up on the rules slowly but surely, acting as a helping hand for newbies to the sport. You don’t even need to understand it to love it, as I know some others who read it out of pure love for it’s characters and comedy. For those who want to know more about the sport, I can’t recommend an easier and entertaining way than to read this, as I’ve pointed plenty of people to ES21 when they ask me of the sport.
A story of underdogs, in every sense of the word
The Characters: The thing that you can pick up on right from the first chapter is the easy-going attitude of the series. It’s not serious (although there are plenty of those moments later on), as it is quite a light-hearted take on the sports-genre. It is definitely no Slam Dunk (arguably the greatest sport manga ever) but what it lacks in seriousness it more than makes up for in humor and character (although SD has plenty of those as well). The characters all have their quirks and the mangakas do not hesitate on blowing them up. Take the main character for example, Sena Kobayakawa. An unassumingly weak character, he is seen as the victim of bullies early in the story. He even needs to rely on his female childhood friend, Mamori Anezaki, for protection and help. The only thing he has going for him is his inhumane speed, which he ends up using to run errands for others rather than to fend bullies off. He was also forced to join the Football team, but learned to grow as a person through the hardships of teamwork and battle. A cliched rise really but the way at which he climbed up to the top is the stuff of legends, as I’m sure plenty of readers will agree on.
A trash-taking genius, Hiruma will mercilessly mindfuck your soul when he needs to
Then there is the fan favorite Hiruma. He is the unique one of the bunch, as he is mainly viewed as the cunning and devilishly wicked leader of the team. What he lacks in physical prowess he more than makes up for in cunning plays, laser vision and genius tactical knowledge. He may seem like a horrible person on the outside but later on we learn that he is a great leader, someone who is willing to sacrifice everything for the cause of the team, as well as his comrades. He doesn’t show this freely but the team knows this and by using his devilish and shocking facade, he is able to build the team up from scratch and into a formidable squad. Also, his antics and way of doing things are hugely entertaining, as I’m sure you’ll find out in the images I posted along with this entry.
If you think these are awesome, you haven't seen the mermaids and the nurses
These two are just some of the colorful characters that you will learn to love through your reading. If you think these guys are awesome, wait till you see the rivals they face. All of them exude originality and confidence, and the designs never fail to amaze as everyone looks amazing and non-generic. If you like Bishies or even hot cheerleaders, look no further as there are no shortages of either of these in Eyeshield 21. For the ladies out there who need a little push, here are some of the bishies up for show (don’t worry guys, there’s some for us here too).
This is just a taste of the eyecandy
The Humor: The humor is what I’d like to describe as slapstick, since it is pretty crazy the lengths that the characters go through to give us our laughs. Since the main team the Devilbats are essentially a bunch of misfits that band together after blackmails and threats, you can expect that their teamwork will be shoddy at best in the beginning. This itself leads to some very funny moments, since there are clearly factions within the team that don’t really like each other. Couple this with the fact that Hiruma rules with an iron-first (or more accurately, weapons of mass destruction), you can expect a good laugh whenever the team doesn’t go through the plays that they should (since 95% of the team don’t even know the sport nor the rules when they first joined).
The Huh-huh bros and Komusubi share a "bonding" moment
Most of the laughs come from our very own Devilbats but their rivals also get into the act at times. A key piece of rival team Oujou Knight, Ootawara is a stereotypical all brawn, no brain player, as he often finds himself butt-naked no matter what the situation. While this may seem childish, it just shows the range of the comedy available as every player is susceptible to a bout of craziness themselves. The comedic duo of Monta and Sena, the one-man show Hiruma, the huh-huh rivalry, the perverted helpers, the technologically-challenged genius and plenty more show just how crazy this ensemble really is, and I am sure that they will manage to tickle your funny bone, no matter how hard-headed or mature you claim to be.
The perverted and the naive band together for the greater good
The Art: Oh gawd, the art. This is what initially drew me in, since I am as crazy an art-whore as any. The Eyeshield artstyle is easily my favorite since it is the perfect blend of shouneny clean lines and intricate attention to detail. Whoever thinks that drawing about American Football is easy has to be delusional, since it is waaay harder to illustrate than say soccer or basketball. Since there are 22 players on the field, the amount of players drawn as well as details such as stadiums and uniforms make it so hard to illustrate, especially since Eyeshield is a weekly serialization. With the amount of detail going into each character and their gear (the helmets themselves are notoriously hard to draw, and that doesn’t take into account the shading and tinting), it is mindboggling how the mangakas are able to keep this up week-in-week-out for over 300 chapters.
The style at which the character faces and physiques are drawn are also perfect to a T in my book, since there are no characters that look remotely alike. The character and uniform design is just unique and refreshing, and they do not even resemble characters from any other mangas. The originality alone makes it easy to stand out from the crowd, and with the amount of characters there are in this manga (easily ranging in the 50+), I’m at a lost for words at how creative you must be to think them up. Another good thing is that the manga develops it’s own style very early in the series, since you can see the improvements in every chapter. While the first chapter isn’t much to write home about, come chapter 20 or so there is a markedly noticeable difference.
Because of the art, Eyeshield also gets a lot of colour pages since it is very popular. This is where the mangaka shines since he is able to use copics to illustrate things such as water and reflections beautifully. While the colour selection is not as awesome as say Amatsuki, the depth of each colour spread itself is enough to make up for this fact, since nearly every colour spread has like 10-20 characters coloured in detail. My favourite of the spreads are the ones where the lines are taken off, giving the pictures a more realistic effect. If your jaw doesn’t drop from seeing the colour images in this entry, then you’re just blind. No two ways about it.
The second artbook can't get here fast enough....
The Epic Battles: It wouldn’t be shounen without the epic battles right? Since this is a sport manga, it definitely has it’s fair share of awesome fights. Since the Devilbats are perennial underdogs, they are always underestimated by their opponents. This may be due to the fact that the Devilbats were only formed not long before the manga started by Hiruma and his best friends Kurita and Musashi. Since the three were the only full members of the team, they needed all the help they can get, as they blackmailed and (forcefully) persuaded members from the school’s other sport teams to help them out to gain enough numbers for a proper team. This lead to some major losses and it wasn’t until their second year of high school did they stumble upon their gem, Sena. With Sena acting as the foil and team ace, they slowly but surely gained respectable and capable members to help fill the team numbers. With the growing potential of newcomers, the team improved immensely as they gained experience, with Hiruma cunningly picking the right opponents to help them fight to their limits.
Because of their rapid rise, as well as Hiruma’s cocky persona, the team gained their fair share of rivals, such as Shin of the Oujou Knights and Agon from the invincible Shinryuuji Nagas. These are just two of the best and the developing rivalry between their teams throughout the manga is very entertaining, as they go through a lot together. Sena and Shin are the ultimate rivals as they are forever improving themselves in order to catch up to the other, leading up to an insanely emotional final battle. I’m not gonna spoil too much about their journeys here but believe me when I say that the character development and the way that backstories and rivalries are fleshed out make the manga a very well-told story. If you think that this is gonna be very shallow than you’re sadly mistaken, since I actually think that there is more depth in character here than Slam Dunk. Hopefully the panels I’ve chosen for this section is enough to make you tempted, since they are just a sample of what you can expect.
CONCLUSION: Hopefully what you’ve read so far has been enough of a push for you to give this great series a chance. I personally guarantee that you will like it and even if you don’t, I’m sure the art still made it a worthwhile experience. Since the manga is really light-hearted and not too intense, it is very easy to get into so don’t feel too afraid that it is based on a sport that you don’t know anything about. If you do give it a read and end up loving it, I’d love to hear your comments and we can hopefully discuss about the stuff that we loved. Promoting Eyeshield was one of the main reasons why I started blogging in the first place so it has a very special place in my heart (I’ve read it 11 times now so you know that I’m crazy for it). I can only wish for it to be the same for others.
Read ONLINE @ ONEMANGA | Download Volumes @ MANGATRADERS
Premise Source: ONEMANGA
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I DUNNO BASS IT SEEMS LIKE YOU'RE HINTING AT SOMETHING HERE BUT I'M NOT QUITE SURE WHAT IT IS
But seriously dude, if I read this whole thing you'd better read all of The Ravages of Time or something.
Lol I will give you my word that I will read SaO or Ravages till the end.
Your pick on what I read of course XP
I'll probably pick Ravages since its more obscure (and awesome).
Plus your room mate might get you to read SAO for me.
Ahhh! I'm so in your boat: I LOVE Eyeshield 21. My heart swells just to think about how great it is in every sense. I wanted to write about it at Bokutachi, but Boss said no since we don't normally focus on manga.
I'm so sad that it's finished though, but I think it finished well.
My recent post Durarara!! Chart
Damn, he should've let you D: We need more people to know about Eyeshield at well.
I think it is wrongly stereotyped into the sport category, it's way more than that :3
My recent post Eyeshield 21: Field of Dreams
There's no doubt ES21 was one of the best running series in Jump at the time. It went downhill with the X-mas unfortunately, but still remained enjoyable.
Yea, the Xmas Bowl wasn't as great as it could've been but I still enjoyed the ride.
While the World Cup wasn't great too, it was a nice hurrah for the fans :) Pity they rushed it, it could actually have been a very good arc.
My recent post Eyeshield 21: Field of Dreams
I love the humour in ES21. I was even able to convince my brother, who never listens to my recommendations, to read it after showing him a few pages of Hiruma antics.
Now you've got me feeling all nostalgic. Guess I'll just have to read it again.
Yea, I prolly will read it again soon.
I wish there were more HQ scans out there, my HQ scans only stop at 215 I think, the Ballista chapter
My recent post Eyeshield 21: Field of Dreams
Wow, this really seems like a great series. I'm hoping it's as good as you say it is, 'cause I'm gonna start reading it right now!
Oh that's great news. I'm sure you'll like it. It's quite light-hearted so it's easy to get into.
I've been rereading it too recently and I'm currently on chapter 170 lol. Update me if you like it or not :D
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Dude I loved this post! Although I haven’t read any of the series for about a year, when I stumbled on this site and read your views on the characters, humour, etc., it reminded me of how much I miss Hiruma and the rest of the Devil Bats XD. Im off to reread it from the beginning now, so thanks so much for reminding me about how awsome Eyeshield 21 is!!!
I don't avoid sports manga, but you know I've never really felt the urge to try one out. I'll give this series a chance once I finish off GTO.
Kukuku, I'm two years late but I'm loving it. Speed-blitzed through it and within four days or so, I'm on 251. : p
Yaaaaa-haaaa~~~
PS: Wanted Sena to end up with his nee-chan. As far as I'm seeing it, it ain't gonna happen. : (