ROUGH times with Adachi Mitsuru

Who knew a swimming manga could be so good? Well, with Adachi Mitsuru as the mangaka, you can guarantee that I did. I have not even tried to hide my love for Adachi Mitsuru because I could never be embarrassed of loving such a quality mangaka with such a lasting career in the business. He is a true mangaka's mangaka. He has written successful manga for many genres and, as I have stated in an earlier post, he really is the King of Romantic Comedy and baseball manga. There just is no contest for me. He knows how to balance out the characters and the sport so well that it becomes too easy to turn the page and keep reading.

I actually finished this manga in about 6 hours. It's that easy to read and I really enjoyed the change in sport. I an honestly not able to pull up a swimming manga off the top of my head. I would have to goggle search to even come up with another title.

Quite honestly, this is not a real essay. Just thoughts that I had while I was reading. 

Since I used to be an athlete, I love me a good sports manga. It's always a little nostalgic and it also always makes me feel a little guilty for quitting, but I'm still not cut out for that kind of life. It also reminds me how different sports clubs are in Japan from sports teams in the US. I don't know if I could have spent so much of my time doing nothing but sports. 

Anyway, I have to say that I think Keisuke is one of my favorite Adachi leading men. He is driven yet down to earth and this combination really appeals to me. There are too many athletes that get so full of themselves, especially manga ones, that it reminds me of how sports are usually full of nothing but egos. This point was showcased splendidly by Aikawa in this story. 

With Adachi's drawing style, it is very easy to see a repetition in his leading characters. When I started reading I saw Keisuke and automatically thought of Tatsuya, so it was really refreshing to see that Keisuke's characterization and personality were different. That quite strength connects the characters, but Keisuke is able to push more determination into what he does. 

The thing that really makes Adachi Mitsuru's manga so wonderful is that they are so easy to enjoy. There usually isn't any crazy drama going on and you could almost imagine these scenarios happening in real life. It is far to easy to just keep turning the page or hitting the tab button on your keyboard for any of his manga.