Customer Reviews

Gothic Sports Volume 1 (v. 1)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ok this will make you want to change what you think about discrimination in a school and might even anger you. Wanting to read more and see what happens to the girl on the front cover, because I did and now i'm just waiting for the next volume and I'm counting the days.

I stumbled across Hage's Gothic Sports online, and felt like buying it right away. While there are probably too many characters (needed for a soccer team!) for her art and my inattentiveness to detail to cooperate on distinguishing, the illustration is top-notch and the story and translated dialogue really zip along. The content is not so ordinary as to fit manga stereotypes well, though there's enough overlap for any school-life/sports manga enthusiast to easily like. There's also a really big idea about bullying and cliques, and it's not didactic or forced - if feels an awful lot like high school (which I experienced for nine years - both as a student and later as a teacher).

This is Hage's first story published under her own title, not as an anthology contribution. It shows a little of her inexperience, and a lot of her drawing and storytelling talent. I'm thrilled to own the first three volumes, and looking forward to everything else she comes up with.

Another great title from Tokyopop.

A quick note about shipping - There was something stuck to the back cover of vol. 1 with an adhesive, and it removed a speck on the back cover. This might be okay with this week's trashy romance novel or bestselling paperback thriller, but the cover art is some of the very limited color material from Hage (though Tokyopop includes a few full-color pages at the start of each volume - nice touch!), so I was glad it was only the back cover. Kinda sloppy on Amazon's part, though.