Manga Title: Baby Steps
Manga-ka: Kachiku Hikaru
Genre: Sports, Romance, School life
A few months ago, I’ve gone on an extreme manga marathon mode. I’ve read romantic comedies like crazy–from Akuma to Love Song (unfinished), Skip Beat (unfinished; impatiently waiting for the next update), Kaichou wa Maid-sama (unfinished), Cherry Juice, Dengeki Daisy, Gojinko Monogatari, Kimi wa Petto… suffice to say, these are just but some of the titles I’ve read. I sort of grew tired of reading the same plots with a few unique twist for each manga. I love the variation of each mangas artworks though so I guess that’s partly the reason why I kept on reading even thought I can pretty much predict what happens next.
This prompted me to search for some other genres. Maybe I should go back to reading action/thriller/mystery types? I bought Kamen Tantei and wasn’t disappointed. Two high school teens co-writes a mystery manga and won a competition. Turns out that their lead character comes to life to save them during tight spots in their amateur detective investigations at school. I reread Naruto, Bleach and eventually got hooked on Beelzebub. I also turned to reading sports mangas then. I read Crimson Hero (volleyball), Beach Stars (beach volleyball), Bamboo Blade (kendo), Over Drive (cycling), and Kuroko no Basket (basketball) before I finally found gems like Fantasista and Area no Kishi, both of which are heavily into soccer. Fantasista focuses more on the technicalities of soccer and how a ‘provincial’ guy would fare in a junior league through the help of his ace coach sister as a local ‘fantasista’, a term given to players who can stir overwhelming emotions in the audience making them anticipate for every play that he will make. While Fantasista is somewhat a me-and-the-world-of-soccer, Area no Kishi (Knight of the Area) focuses more on the position of ‘knight’ to the soccer ‘king’. It is deeply emotional and made me shed a tear or two. In here, the lead character’s personal life has affected much of his soccer career and team unity is highly explored in this manga.
These two currently remain unfinished as well. And therein lies my want to find more sports manga. They aren’t updated as regularly as the other mangas I’ve been reading and I needed to fill in that void in my sports series. And then I found Baby Steps by Kachiku Hakiru. The manga tells the story of E-chan Marou or “All A”. As expected, he’s a straight-laced, straight-A type of guy at school. He’s borderline obsessive-compulsive with his note-taking and has “honour student” written all over him when you meet him. As a freshie in high school, he decided to exercise at least once a week just to fill in his “honour student planner” (according to his school friend). Before he could even decide on it, his mom pushed him to attend STC or the local Southern Tennis Club where he met Natsu once again, another freshie from class 2 who borrowed his notes and dirtied it accidentally. E-chan, being a perfectionist, has been pushing himself to recreate the sensation he felt upon hitting a ball correctly while he was being temporarily coached by Natsu, who happens to be one of the club’s top players. On one of his practices, Natsu spied the determination and E-chan’s overwhelming focus to make things happen the way it needs to happen and decides that E-chan will be force to reckon with if she and Takuma, another strong tennis player, stop improving.
I’ve read only until Chapter 3 and I’m really liking it so far. It has stirred a powerful interest in me. I wanted to know more about E-chan and I wanted to follow his ‘baby steps’ towards being a pro tennis player. I’m really a sucker for people who try really hard for something they want. It reminds me of the days that I used to practice for a number of hours just to perfect a particular move. It also brings back the feelings of finally being able to do a certain attack with such ease after practicing. It would be easy for any reader to relate to E-chan’s determination and I guess us interested readers would be following closely how Natsu sees E-chan’s skills.
Of course, to spice up this manga is a seemingly love triangle in the making between the normal-looking E-chan, the school idol Natsu, and the tall, arrogant ass-type Takuma. From what I’ve read so far, Kachiku Hikaru has managed to pinch a good amount of comedy and seriousness into this piece. I’ll definitely be looking forward to reading more chapters of this manga.
Currently reading at www.onemanga.com/Baby_Steps.
