Forum - View topicJason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Harlem Beat
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2546 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Well, I'm in the same boat as you, Jason. Though I don't have any problem watching sports on TV if someone else is watching it, and I do understand the rules of most sports to enjoy them, I don't actively watch any sports; hell, I went to Rutgers yet I never watched or even cared all that much about their sports teams. Conversely, though, I love reading sports manga and watching sports anime. Baseball (One Outs), football (Eyeshield 21), soccer (Captain Tsubasa), boxing (Ashita no Joe, Ring ni Kakero, Hajime no Ippo, One-Pound Gospel; boxing is easily my favorite type of sports anime/manga), basketball (Slam Dunk), rugby (No Side), etc., if it's a sports anime/manga then I don't mind trying it out. This is partially why I find the whole idea that "sports titles can't sell because anime/manga fans don't enjoy sports" pretty stupid. That's like saying that only people who enjoy wine will enjoy Drops of God, or that only people with medical knowledge will enjoy Black Jack, or, hell, only teachers will enjoy GTO. Unfortunately, the whole "sports & nerds don't mix" mantra is an easy excuse to use and that's why it's still pushed so heavily... Becaue it's an easy ideology to follow. I guess my friend would be one of those people you're wondering about, though, since he played football for his old high school before moving to the one I went to, where I met him, and he also really likes sports manga & anime. Hell, he started reading Eyeshield 21 because he was once on the football team. So I would say that sports fans who enjoy sports anime & manga do exist, but I honestly think that they are the minority in this case. As for Harlem Beat itself, I wasn't familiar with this title until you mentioned Rebound. Though I never read Rebound I do remember seeing the books at my local book stores at the time, and reading that TokyoPop outright skipped two entire volumes is simply astonishing, especially since it seems like TP didn't restart the numbering with the name change, unlike what they did when they "restarted" GetBackers, i.e. TokyoPop went back to "Volume 1". Every collector of that series is missing Volumes 10 & 11, and they know it for sure. |
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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I've tried sports manga before, but the closest I can get is adoring the hell out of Hikaru no Go. I've tried Cross Game, but it just didn't do anything for me (I read 5 Japanese volumes of it too via the library, I think that's a fair enough shot to give it). I mean, with Hikaru no Go, you certainly get all the "striving to be better" and tournament things and heck, Go is probably even less accessible to manga fans than most sports (even after reading all of Hikaru no Go I still barely know the rules), but unlike sports where you already have to be in pretty good physical shape to even try, you kinda don't have to for Go. So on the level of potentially trying it out in real life, Hikaru no Go certainly wins on that aspect (especially since the manga tells you you can play it online, and not just as a random side panel, but as a major plot line in the manga itself. So yeah, you don't even need another person in real life, not when there are tons of people online and most likely computer programs too). But really, it's mostly that I just don't think sports are cool. I look at them and I go "....yeah, whatever" but when my friend tells me he's going offline to play D&D or off of messenger to play League of Legends I go "cool, tell me how it goes" (which, frankly, only makes me more attractive as a nerd female). This would be fine if I didn't think Cross Game focused way too much on the baseball (at least in the first 5 volumes) and rather turned me off. With Hikago, I felt like Go was hardly the focus. Seriously, if they made a manga about Calvinball but didn't ever go over any of the rules or expect me to know them and focused solely on the characters, I'd be game for that (and that's what everyone who likes Cross Game says it is, but I saw way too much baseball focus for my taste personally). Maybe it's that games are somehow ok (so also stuff like Kaiji), but sports, although their manga are often made in similar styles, just somehow don't do anything for me no matter how much I try to ignore the sport.
Now, my step-brother is a sports fan and likes manga, but, seeing how he is the same age as me, I think he got into anime and manga via Toonami. Also, I don't know if you're unaware of fantasy football, but I can't name a single thing thing in existence that I think is nerdier. I think sports fans are nerds, very very nerdy, just on a socially acceptable topic that isn't compatible with traditional nerds so the two never cross paths. But when I hear someone is a football fan, I think "what a sports nerd" almost right away. At least in America these two paths never cross, in Japan, it seems the norm, so of course they do better over there (not to mention they actually like baseball) I can almost safely say that the only way I will buy a sports manga is if it's made by Osamu Tezuka or Fumi Yoshinaga. And so far, I can't name any. |
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2123 |
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And yet there is empirical evidence that sports anime and manga do very poorly in the US. If you don't accept the not-sports-fans argument, that implies there must be some other cause. Maybe a slight modification -- sports permeates the American cultural landscape to the extent that the sort of people who get into anime and manga actively avoid it. Does that work better? |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2546 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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But why would reading a sports manga necessarily make you want to play that sport? Just because I like reading about something like baseball it doesn't make me want to play it, especially since I find actual baseball to be way too slow and filled with nothing but "moments" rather than an actual "flow". Granted, watching Akagi made me want to buy a mahjong set and Hikaru no Go does make me want to try out Go, but they still don't make me want to play it on any sort of regular basis... Hell, I still have never played Go, and I rarely try out mahjong. I don't think you have to be inclined to play a sport just because a manga you read is about it.
Well, I think Cross Game isn't exactly the best example of a sports manga not always being about the sport, since Mitsuru Adachi seems to make the sport such an essential part of the character drama, i.e. taking it out would be removing the essence of the manga. It's the same way with a title like Hajime no Ippo, which is distinctly about a group of boxers and their careers mixed in with their personal lives, or Captain Tsubasa, which is about people whose lives are all about soccer. On the other hand, titles like Ashita no Joe, Ring ni Kakero, or Hikaru no Go are more about the characters and their conflicts, with their respective sports/games being the way in which the conflicts play out. The sports/games here are still very important, but they aren't necessary essential to the way the story moves along.
Yeah, people who are really into fantasy sports can come off a good bit "nerdy", but it's a nerdy thing that still uses actual people and such as their bases, so I guess it's still treated as socially acceptable, unlike other nerdy things that are based around fiction. |
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GVman
 Posts: 729 |
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That's pretty much the main reason why I've never bothered with any sports manga. It's not so much I'm not particularly good at any sport (save powerlifting), it's just I'm bombarded by sports seemingly every day. Much less so now that I'm out of high school, though, which is probably the reason why I've been thinking of giving some sports manga a chance. I've also never really counted boxing manga as sports manga, either, despite the fact that it is. It's just happens that boxing goes along with your normal fighting manga very well. Speaking of which, I wish Ashita no Joe could get released in the States. Another thing I've actually been wanting to see for a while now, though, is a powerlifting manga, but I know the amount of people that'd read such a thing are extraordinarily low, and I don't even know if Japanese high schools have powerlifing teams. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2546 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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Yeah, it works somewhat better, but I still feel that these people are avoiding it due to their preconceived notions that, because they're "nerds/otakus", they shouldn't/can't/won't be able to enjoy anything that involves sports. To them it's something different, and they seem to be afraid to even try it out, seemingly fearing the worst could happen. I guess that because I enjoy sports anime & manga, even though I'm into the real thing, I'm not "nerdy" enough or something like that. Oh well, then. And, honestly, to say that America's love for sports like baseball, football, and basketball is actively keeping some people from enjoying anime & manga that involves sports really just makes these people come off as schizoids... Which, ironically enough, is what Japanese otakus/NEETs/etc. are pretty much. Sports permeates every country's cultural landscape, and it's why Captain Tsubasa became such a gigantic hit around the world, inspiring children to become professional soccer players. Slam Dunk helped make basketball somewhat more popular in Japan, though it could never reach the popularity of soccer and baseball over there, and even Eyeshield 21 had enough popularity to make NFL Japan support the anime adaptation to help bring more about awareness for the sport in Japan. |
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Lenks
Posts: 139 |
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Harlem Beat is on my absolute favorites. It was one of the first series I had ever read. I would love for someone to pick up the license for it, but that won't happen. It's not like the series is expensive online, though.
As for the question at the end, my friends got into tennis because of Prince of Tennis. |
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SuperSaiyen312
 Posts: 27 |
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This is true. Although it would be better if you enjoyed the actual sport itself so that you can get the most out of it. Especially if you understand it and it inspires you. I'll never understand why nerds don't like sports though. The human body was made to be "active". Don't people want to be healthy? I'll admit that I'm pretty out of shape myself but hopefully I'll start exercising again especially since this is my first year in high school lol. I got lazy during middle school. |
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GVman
Posts: 729 |
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It's just that most nerds don't find most, if not all, sports interesting. To me, almost anything involving throwing or carrying or hitting a ball is a genuine bore to me. That, and I'm about the most uncoordinated son of a bitch alive. Catching a ball, for me, is a rare accomplishment. Which is why I like powerlifting so much. Another reason just came to mind about why most Americans wouldn't read sports manga: They don't think about the characters. When they hear "sports", they probably assume there'll be very little to no character development, or that most characters will be like most athletes you see in the news today. At least, that's the only other reason I can think of. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2546 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I guess, but to think the "little to no character development/it's all about the sport" argument would require one to think that same thing to other genres, like cooking manga ("it's all about the food"), mech manga (it's all about the robots"), etc. Granted, there are probably titles that are like that, but to assume that all of them are like that is silly. As for the "athletes similar to real-life ones" argument... Well, it probably depends on the title. |
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GVman
Posts: 729 |
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I hope to high Heaven there isn't a sports manga where the main character is similar to Terrel Owens.
@Lord Geo: While I haven't really heard people say such things about cooking manga, I have heard people say such things about mecha manga. Which irritates me every time. |
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partially
Posts: 702 Location: Oz |
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And yet I am Lord Geo on this. Your getting distracted by the subculture you are part of, rather than looking at society as a whole. Sure their are some who will actively avoid it, but so there will be others who don't. It is easy to point a finger of blame when you can't think of any other reason. However think of this, sports stories in general no longer do well in America. Think back to the 90s and there were a ton of sports flicks, see such stuff as Cool Runnings, Mighty Ducks etc. Turn of the century and they vanished, the problem of sports stories is not solely related to your little niche so don't inflate its self importance. Why are these stories going out-of-fashion? I don't have an answer to that. But simply levelling the blame on hearsay, and a bit of correlated data does not help the situation. |
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White Lightning Alchemist
Posts: 51 |
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I've always liked manga about games like Hikaru no Go and Yu-Gi-Oh!, but never sports, I guess it's my whole aversion towards them being a nerd and all.
Strangely enough, this is the one manga my school had in the library, I have no idea why, but they had Volume 1 of this. |
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Tamaria
 Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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It's not the sports themselves, but the culture that surrounds it. You HAVE to be good at sports, especially the sports that are often played during P.E. Just enjoying the activity is not an option, you need to be good at it. If you aren't, you're considered lazy and worthless. Only experience sports in an enviroment like that and of course you're going to grow up hating it. Why play sports and be humiliated when you can do something you are good at or something you do enjoy? I was, and still am, pretty uncoordinated. I sucked at all ball sports. Stuff like the shuffle run also never went well for me because of exercise-induced asthma. In my senior year I skipped P.E. class nearly half the time, because I could never do anything right. It took me years to figure out I was actually in pretty good shape. Sure, I sucked at sports, but I did cycle 22 kilometers every schoolday. I'd speed up at my own pace and had made it a habit to keep up with bicycle racers. I'll never forget the look on that one guy's face while I raced past him on my very ordinary bicycle, wearing a plaid skirt, blouse and sweatervest. I stayed ahead of him for 5 kilometers before I had to take a right while he kept following the road. Anyway, I enjoy sports manga, but some more than others purely because of the subject. Soccer and volleyball were played a lot during P.E., so I'd rather not read a manga about those sports. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14761 |
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Heh, had those Harlem Beat issues.........
For those of us at least who actively play the sports, part of the disconnect is that it's harder to buy into the illusion the story is selling, when it's understood what it takes to play the real thing or how it works. The suspension of disbelief is harder to come by. To me, learning is just the spirit of the challenge - from chess to mahjong to puzzles to videogames, to outsmart and outplay the other guy, while having fun learning to get better. Now I'm helping with my god-daughter and her middle-school sports teams. (Complete with cheerleaders in mini-skirts and everything!) Nah, it's just a good way to keep in shape and mind-sharp. As the Far Eastern philosophers always say: sound mind, sound body; yin and yang - ya can't have one without the other. 
Funny ya mention that:
"ESPN - It's not crazy, it's sports - Jocks or Nerds" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TBusqMaCEM |
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