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REVIEWS

• 

  unimportantuser

  100/100
  Ode to Real. My 2nd favorite manga of all time.

  Can I even call this a review? I mean, I’ll be talking about things I like. I’ll be going over aspects of the series as if it was a review. But I won’t really be talking about Real as if I’m reviewing instead I’ll just be talking about it as if I was casually discussing it in a discord chat or VC. But before we start I need to establish 3 things. Firstly, Real is still an ongoing manga as of the writing of this review. Secondly, I haven’t caught up to Real, I’ve read 13 volumes. Thirdly, Real is my 2nd favorite manga so there really won’t be any talks of criticism as quite honestly, there isn’t much, if anything I find wrong about Real. I think Real is one of the greatest works of art I’ve ever read & it submitted Takehiko Inoue as not only my favorite mangaka, but my for sure one of my top 5 favorite creators in any media (Music, Games, Manga, Anime, etc.) of all time. Sufficed to say Real is a manga that means a lot to me which is why I want to stress the question asked at the beginning of this lengthy introduction “Can I even call this a review?”.

  So what is it that makes Real such a god tier favorite for me? Well it’s the whole package as a short answer but I’ll be discussing this package because I doubt anybody wants “It’s the whole package” as an answer to that question. But firstly, lets begin with that story. Real’s story is about taking these 3 (& then later 4) very different characters, exploring their minds, & finding their own paths to self discovery. If there’s one word to describe Real’s story, it’s “Human”. It gives us very realistic, & to some even relatable situations. It gets us to understand how these situations effect each individual & really understand their state of mind. I don’t think it’s a stretch to state that these characters are extremely unlikable at first, but I don’t think it’s an extreme unlikable. Like lets just think about things, Nomiya in the beginning is a lost loser who has no desire for his future, a high school drop out, brash, & he ruined the life of this girl named Natsumi by paralyzing her from the waist down due to a motorcycle accident. Takahashi is a dickish brat who steals somebody’s bike just because he feels like it, makes fun of Nomiya for dropping out of highschool & looks down upon him harshly, & is very self centered. Speaking of self centered, we’ve got Togawa, somebody who’s selfishness caused the demise of his own team. While these described traits make the characters sound really unlikable, we quickly learn of their backstories & it helps us to peel back the layers of these characters & really understand where they come from. Plus Real’s phenomenal character development turns these characters into tragic heroes in a sense. Nomiya, after rediscovering his love for basketball thanks to Togawa. Does his best to set things right with Natusmi (and succeeds). Gets his driver license whilst simultaneously getting over his fear of the road. Gets a job that sets him on the right path. Changes his attitude on life & becomes a generally more positive person. Togawa gives into authenticity, learns the value of teamwork, & gets the tigers back together after splitting them apart originally. Takahashi gets over himself, takes his rehab seriously, much like Tomiya, rediscovers his passion for basketball, & gains a newfound appreciation for life that he originally didn’t have. Character development like this throughout 3 very different, yet equally layered individuals take Real & turn it into a manga that so easily cracks the top 2. All throughout this manga I’ve been engaged & when you’re at such a point that you can’t put a volume down until you finish it because you’re that immersed into the story that’s how you know you’re reading a fantastic manga. Now is also probably a good time to mention it. But if you’re coming into this manga expecting fast paced, frantic exciting Basketball action, either don’t or turn back & don’t read this manga. While Real does have really good & exciting Basketball action like Slam Dunk. That isn’t what Real’s about. Real is a character drama at its core & it’s about character development. To put it bluntly, if you’re reading Real for the Basketball action, you’re doing it wrong. Unlike Slam Dunk which is about the sport but has fantastic characters with good pacing. Real is about character drama first & foremost with the sport of Basketball as supplementary material that helps serves as a driving force for this character development to take place. Just for we’re clear, I’m not shitting on or trying to undercut Slam Dunk. Slam Dunk is my 12th favorite manga, my favorite manga that ran in weekly shounen jump, & a manga that I think appeals to everyone. I really do love Slam Dunk but what I’m getting at is that if you’re expecting Real to be like Slam Dunk, then your expectations aren’t in the right place & you may end up disappointed.

  Now onto the characters. I’ve already gone over our main 3 that Real centers around. But they’ll still get mentioned from time to time. However, there is one other character that more or less becomes a main character later on in the story that I’ve failed to mention until now. The Scorpion, otherwise known as Shiratori. Shiratori is a former wrestler who found himself in an accident that made him lose his ability to walk. But unlike Takahashi (at first anyway) he’s very optimistic, claiming that he’ll be able to walk again within a month. He’s a hard worker with a very optimistic outlook on life, & with a certain volume that I’ll be discussing later on in this segment is really impressive given the circumstances he’s had to put up with. We also got Shiratori. An aspiring manga artist. Although Tomiya paralyzed her from the waist down. It ironically ends up helping her to pursue her dreams of creating manga. Real has a lot of characters, & it makes them all memorable. We’ve got Hisayuki, Takahashi’s father who expresses extreme regret over neglecting his son for most of his life & tries his best to make up with his son after the accident. We’ve got Tora, a guy Togawa looked up to as if he was a brother. This character specifically actually has one of my favorite moments in the series in which he gives Togawa a wheelchair designed for Basketball & Togawa breaks down crying. The pure emotion this scene carries with it it powerful & I’ll fully admit this is one of the moments of Real that made me cry. I can go on about these characters but I honestly don’t think that’s super interesting & even still, there’s no way a mere text post could peel back all the layers of these characters. So I’ll give off three character moments of Real that add onto making this my top 2. We’ve got Takahashi crying & yelling at Shiratori not to lose his first match after rehab after learning that his other rehab partner was the one who sent Shiratori the letters that he talked about earlier. We’ve also got the moment where Nomiya gets fired from his job & instead of sulking takes that as motivation to continue finding his new path in life & uses it as motivation to get back into basketball. We’ve got the moment where on his death-bed, Togawa still texts Yamauchi “you’re my hero”. If I had to give 2 volumes that exemplify what makes Real what it is. It’s volume 11 & volume 13, Volume 11 we get the main , we see Nomiya trying out for the lightnings. Togawa continuing to learn the value of teamwork. & Takahashi starting to find the motivation to take his rehab seriously & gain a newfound appreciation of life that he didn’t have previously. Combine these 3 stories together & you’ve got as of now my favorite volume of Real. Volume 13 is the shiratori volume in which we learn of his backstory. We learn that he went through a divorce & lost his kid, we learn the reason he became a wrestler in the first place, we learn what wrestling really means to him, & we get to see some of the best character development Real has to offer up to this point. I think I’ve exerted about all the energy I can on the characters of Real without going into college essay territory. Honestly, I don’t feel like I’ve even began to scratch the surface of why these characters are so good but I do hope I’ve at least offered enough as to give readers an understanding as to why these characters are so good & why they only add onto how much this manga means to me.

  Onto the art. To the surprise of nobody Real’s art is amazing. Takehiko Inoue is one of the most renowned artists in manga for a reason, & Real is just another exemplary showcase of Inoue’s artistic prowess. While I’m not sure if I’d say Real’s art is as good as Vagabond’s on the whole, I will say it’s better than Slam Dunk even at its best & the art only continues to go up from volume 1. The text to art ratio is on the lower end, Real’s pages can have a decent sum of text on them but it’s not huge & I found myself flying through the pages no matter if it was majority text or just art. The art itself in the action scenes flows really well & there’s never a dull moment, the hype of these games can equal Slam Dunk in all honesty. I’m sorry this section was significantly shorter than the other 2 segments but I really don’t know what else I can say about Real’s art being amazing without repeating myself.

  That’s Real. If I can say 3 words. “Thank You Inoue”. Thank you for creating one of the best pieces of fiction I’ve ever experienced. Thank you for giving me some of my favorite characters with some of the best development in all of manga. Thank you for creating a story that immerses me in a way that very few manga. Thank you above all else for creating Real. I know Inoue will never read this. But I still want to thank him for writing my second favorite manga of all time & cementing himself as my favorite mangaka of all time. Please read this manga people, if you love human drama you have no excuse not to read this because I honestly don’t think you’ll get a better drama series than this one. I don’t think you’ll get better character development than Real. I don’t even know where I’m taking this anymore, but I wanna end this with a final “Thank You Inoue”.

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• 

  InspectorJKB

  100/100
  REAL is one of the greatest visual journeys ever told. An energizing tale of self-identity and resolve through despair.

  “What is despair?”

  *Spoilers ahead.* __Despair.__

  At first, it is almost an alien word to us. A definition of the lowest points a person has seems inflexible on paper.

  __Despair. __

  You now go back a bit in time and point out the significant moments in your life. Your achievements, victories, downfalls, breakdowns, and pauses. You begin to witness again records of your struggles from past to present. All those done deeds appear small compared to the obstacles you are about to face anew. All those opportunities, taken and lost, have brought you to this point, still breathing, still standing.

  Would you still struggle and continue forth?

  ---

  Despair is a word REAL expounds into the fore and pounds into a central force, like gravity. Its ever-changing weight on our shoulders pushes us down, but, unlike gravity, it’s not spread even. Some people have already sunk into the soil, but some were already born sunken deep in the ground. Life becomes an everyday chore of pushing up this exasperating weight, and when you get strong, you either close yourself to this individualistic pursuit, or you give a hand to others who cannot raise the weight themselves. Or, you climb up from the seemingly endless ground all your life.

  It’s a word that disperses itself into a rainbow of many synonymous parallelisms. Inoue masterfully weaves these discordant elements into the focus of REAL, and with it, he presents a message with all its glories and disgraces. A central theme readers could easily mention would be “living the hard life”, but that statement doesn’t fully cover all of what REAL strives to be. A hard life is different for everybody, and it's not that easy to measure and show to people who have not experienced it for themselves, and I am pretty sure everyone wishes to be replete with a good health and a good life.

  Yet, in REAL, the main characters that we meet at first are already put in this spotlight of “a hard life”. Togawa, a disabled wheelchair basketball player, has dreams of putting his team into the championships. Nomiya slips and falls repeatedly throughout the story, but in each comeback he remains steadfast in his pursuit of purpose. Takahashi is met with a terrible and injurious fate, and in his wretched state is an untying of invisible gaps that stretch from his past.

  

  Each of these individuals undergo an ever-changing metamorphosis of character and identity throughout REAL, and through their eyes, their every struggle, their every second of loneliness, we find them breaking, shattering, morphing, and changing under every realization of their manifesting hopes and fears. It’s awe-inspiring, it’s enthralling, and it’s riveting to be completely engrossed by the way they, written as human as we are, are given immense capacity to be paragons of the way we can break past our very limits, or give us an honest eye-opener of how our very lives can be snuffed out in any second. But the body and the mind that has tasted the verge of death is never far away from the reach of hope, and you will see this theme echoed in Inoue’s writing every time.

  

  I am quite sure that in REAL, Inoue has confidently achieved all the quintessential tool sets to make a compelling chef d’oeuvre surrounding a difficult subject of disabilities. He presents it as it is, showing how disheartening it is to the affected person and it’s inevitable emotional damage to the person’s close ones; how inescapable are the countless stigma almost inherent in it and the huge negative influence it has on the disabled; how helpless we are most of the times to assist them with all our strength.

  In REAL, this inopportune situation and its weight upon almost all affairs of human nature is relayed truthfully in the story. This is mostly the gravity in the story for two of our main characters, and in different perspectives we see how they dealt and reacted to it. Both of Takahashi and Nomiya’s lives are filled with melancholy and exasperation that is almost hard not to relate to. To be reading and seeing them in their lowest points in their lives, and knowing out there in the real world, someone is in the same, difficult situation as them, is a powerful synchronicity to keep in mind. This aspect of Inoue’s depth of storytelling is sharpened by embracing a push-and-pull with pathos; for the three main characters have their human flaws, but their flaws and shortcomings transcend them above their disabilities, above the entirety of who they are. They become motivations themselves that enrich the REAL story and experience. Through how they defeat their old selves, we inch ever closer to defeating ours. Through how they come to accept themselves, we inch ever closer to accepting ourselves.

  

  The characters aside from the main ones are written excellently as the three. They all have their own unique share of purpose and presence that ties immaculately within REAL. Like with the patient Azumi, we see her touching perseverance to understand and accommodate Nomiya’s disability and his cold and often rash attitude. From childhood to growing up, she’s been the only one who knows how intense Nomiya’s mentality towards pursuing a goal can be. The broken relationship between Takahashi, his mother, and his father, cascades into an sudden outpour of unsaid words that has been repressed by years of fond memories and the absence of a loving father. Thus, before his disastrous fate, he was already swirling into a directionless teenage life, leaping here and there, fitting into molds which he had no intention of doing so. The bottled Takahashi metaphor shows his rigid plasticity very well, and it was only when he was released by meeting various people in his life that he arrived at a liberating revelation of his own. The unbottled Takahashi now has the drive to find his own purpose, and learns to open himself up to others.

  

  Nomiya is my favorite main character in the series. My connection with him only grows stronger each chapter. What separates him from the two is his solitude; Togawa and Takahashi are surrounded by characters that deal with and influence them, while most of the time, Nomiya has to bear all the burden by himself. Even with his relationship between the two, they have a little impact on his path overall. He is passionate and determined, a man with well-versed knowledge and attention to things around him, except within himself.

  

  At first, Nomiya’s life is wracked by guilt of involving a certain girl, Natsumi, into a devastating accident, leaving the latter disabled for life. Accepting this damning responsibility, we get a glimpse at his initial character. He is unswerving in his attempts to seek atonement from Natsumi, a seemingly impossible request for what he has done. But we see his willingness to fix his mistakes, from here starts his journey, his search for his own path. Hitting dead-ends, opportunities slipping away, and bad choices, Nomiya remains steadfast, believing in short-term goals in order to anchor himself from one point to the other. That’s one of the things that actually got him back on his feet, but in the long-run, the short-term goal he had proves that it doesn’t really give him the clearest path ahead.

  He acts on his emotions too much; he gets angry, he is pulverized by jealousy, and he is easily pulled back into his lowest by the slightest inconvenience. And this is where Inoue’s trademark storytelling really shines, and like I said, a push-and-pull with pathos allows us to embrace the pathetic Nomiya, and in return, with our faith in him, we get to see Nomiya work hard to achieve great things even within himself.

  Basketball is a huge theme in REAL, and it's a unifying sport that ties all of our main characters lives. It's a sport that has saved them, bestowed them meaning, or it was their whole life. We see this in Nomiya being spurred by the sight of the sport, or Togawa reflexively assuming a shooting position out of muscle memory, or Togawa's fiery sportsmanship being either the bane or spirit of the team. Inoue really loves basketball and he'll make sure you acknowledge how significant it is in the manga with little moments like this:

  

  These are all poetically entwined with Inoue’s art. It’s full of visual metaphors and wonderful implicit storytelling. His art has a start, a middle, and an impact; you can see how this complements the pacing of the story. In one panel, Inoue will set up the purpose, and in the end he will have you deeply moved by the resulting impact. Moments of tears, moments of defeat, and moments of resolve are all given a sentiment of power and triumph. Inoue's unique panelling ties all these up to finalize a lasting impression. He could show an emotional breakdown through a series of "glass-shard" panels, or wide, urban shots to emphasize a transcendent emotion. Being a mangaka that has authored the monumental Slam Dunk, he never fails to deliver that rush of adrenaline and sweat whenever he draws sport sequences. You can feel the speed, the hot air, the collision of bodies and gears in his majestic art.

  Perhaps the strongest message REAL tells us is our mishaps do not determine our ends. We see these main characters all have their share of suffering, and in their shoes, we might not even survive a day. Yet, REAL constantly assures we are not alone, and our stories do not end until we run out of breath. Through the main characters, even the most discouraged of us might find the will to get back on their feet, and start walking, even if they're small steps. Inoue really encourages us to celebrate our small improvements and our small victories, and to never stop finding our own path.

  There will never be a manga like REAL. It is a work that I will forever adore and share its glory to others. Nomiya, Togawa, and Takahashi will always inspire me in my life, and I hope you find them as inspirations too.

  
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