The Old School Otaku Lounge

Do you guys have any favorite sport manga back in the days? I personally am not into sport, but I do something enjoy sport manga nevertheless. In my country Captain Tsubasa and Kattobi Itto/Buttobi Itto were big with the millennials, with Slam Dunk and the Prince of Tennis to a lesser extend.

Does Initial D count? Because that is underground touge/drift scene in the autosports world. Same with Wangan Midnight which was made at its peak popularity in the Wangan racing community in the 80's/90's. Initial D was the only series to get released in the states because it was cashing in on the hype of the Fast and Furious movie craze at the time. I wish Wangan Midnight got the same treatment in the states.

DKop wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 6:49 pm Does Initial D count? Because that is underground touge/drift scene in the autosports world. Same with Wangan Midnight which was made at its peak popularity in the Wangan racing community in the 80's/90's. Initial D was the only series to get released in the states because it was cashing in on the hype of the Fast and Furious movie craze at the time. I wish Wangan Midnight got the same treatment in the states.

Yeah, I do think drifting can be counted as a sport by that time. Hadn't Japan already had got professional drifting drivers by that time? But was the first Fast and Furious that big of a deal?

Probably the Mitsuru Adachi stuff, from what I read. Cross Game is the only one I've read in english, but I can tell I'd love his other stuff as well.

Fireminer wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 5:40 am

DKop wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 6:49 pm Does Initial D count? Because that is underground touge/drift scene in the autosports world. Same with Wangan Midnight which was made at its peak popularity in the Wangan racing community in the 80's/90's. Initial D was the only series to get released in the states because it was cashing in on the hype of the Fast and Furious movie craze at the time. I wish Wangan Midnight got the same treatment in the states.

Yeah, I do think drifting can be counted as a sport by that time. Hadn't Japan already had got professional drifting drivers by that time? But was the first Fast and Furious that big of a deal?

I'm not sure how Tokyopop did in sales for Initial D, but it must've been enough to keep them for releasing the manga up till volume 33 before Kandosha pull the plug on all their titles from them right before the anime crash in 2008 (that was one factor that attributed to the crash). Initial D was coming out in 2002 in manga form than in 2003 the anime was being distributed all through Tokyopop. There were translation changes in the characters name to sound more "hip" and "American" to cash in on the Fast and the Furious movie craze. These chances also affected the Initial D Arcade Stage arcades when version 1 came out in amusement/arcades across America. Theres a bit more on that found here: https://manga.fandom.com/wiki/Initial_D

I am probably too passive about sports to be considered a sports fan but I enjoy watching a variety of sports (especially if we use loose definitions of sports ). But I like sports as a genre of manga and I am not sure if I could narrow down a specific, single manga as my favorite but I could probably pick one per sport

llj wrote: ↑Sun Jan 31, 2021 8:46 am Probably the Mitsuru Adachi stuff, from what I read. Cross Game is the only one I've read in english, but I can tell I'd love his other stuff as well.

Adachi Mitsuru is still one of my favorite mangaka and while I love Touch, I personally think his best work are his short stories; namely Short Program and Short Game. The first two volumes of Short Program were translated and released by Viz; it doesn't look like volume 3 or Short Game have made it.

Yeah, Drew_Sutton, sadly those 2 vols were all Viz put out. I wish they'd consider reprinting them, those were excellent short story collections, even if we didn't get all of them.

As for sports manga, Slam Dunk is by far my favorite. Takehiko Inoue's art is just phenomenal, and it got better and better as the series progressed. I've always wanted to read the Yawara! manga, since I really enjoy the anime, but who knows if we'll ever get an official English release of that...

A recent article ive been working on came out on a website I write for. I covered an overview of the Initial D manga:

https://geeksundergrace.com/books/the-w ... initial-d/

usamimi wrote: ↑Wed Feb 10, 2021 3:15 am Yeah, Drew_Sutton, sadly those 2 vols were all Viz put out. I wish they'd consider reprinting them, those were excellent short story collections, even if we didn't get all of them.

Ah, I was worried that was the case. I was just thinking tonight though, the anime for MIX is streaming, I'm curious why the manga isn't available here. Did Cross Game not do that well when it was being simultaneously released?

usamimi wrote: I've always wanted to read the Yawara! manga, since I really enjoy the anime, but who knows if we'll ever get an official English release of that...

I really want to read the Yawara! manga, pretty much for the same reason - I really love the anime. I've thought about just breaking down and importing a set but it was expensive used (and shipped from Japan). Of course, I have a short list of other judo manga I want to read, that also all need to be imported. So little time, so many manga

Yeah, I think Cross Game never sold well, which is a shame because it was really good! I enjoyed it a lot.