Manga
Category: Sports, Drama, Psychological, Seinen
Manga: Chapters: 84 (Ongoing)
Summary: Nomiya Tomomi is a high school drop-out who wants to devote his life to helping Natsumi, a girl he sentenced to a life of immobility after a tragic bike ride he invited her on. He tries to change his life around, from a trouble-making delinquent into a reliable man. The problem is, both Natsumi and her sister don't seem to care at all for Nomiya, rightfully blaming him for the accident. Plus, the only notable talent Nomiya posseses is the talent for basketball. Everything changes for him when he meets up with Togawa Kiyoharu, a wheelchair basketball player.
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Wheelchair basketball! The manga is about wheelchair basketball!
A manga revolving around wheelchair basketball. This is another representation of the manga form's greatest asset: variety. There are manga out there about any subject, topic or issue. There is a manga out there for everyone. Real is for everyone. Everyone with matured tastes anyway. It needs to be made clear that this manga is heavy on characterization and not on battle royales involving hoops.
First of all it is a masterfully written manga by Takehiko Inoue revolving around overcoming what life throws at you. Three main characters are trying to live their lives and find their path.
Nomiya is a rash outspoken school dropout searching for a purpose in life. Everything about him says he should not give a shit and just be a hooligan, but inside that rough exterior of his is a decent person wanting to make good use of his life. This is a man who acknowledges who he is, a very mature act indeed. He looks for redemption in the girl who he caused to become disabled thanks to a traffic accident.
Togawa is already in a wheelchair and a rabid basketball player. His arc is more predictable in the Slam Dunk mound of wanting to be a better player, setting his sights on a rival to use as a measuring stick for his own skills. How he got into the wheelchair is more interesting than what he's doing in it, but regardless his predicament is still engaging in a conventional sense. You root for him to succeed.
Takahashi is an antagonist introduced early on, making Nomiya's life a misery by not adhering to the spirit of sportsmanship, causing Nomiya to become an outcast by turning the school team against him. He's pretty much your typical teenager, ugly egotistical traits and all. He unexpectedly becomes the reader's guide to disability and enables Takehiko Inoue to explore the horror of having control of your own body and senses wrenched away from you. This character's arc is by far the most compelling, as Inoue slowly turns the hateful archetypical bully of the first volume into a relatable person by the fourth.
Takehiko Inoue's Real is his most mature and accomplished work. You won't find constant court action here with secret techniques powering up peopleThis is simply a tale led by three main characters dealing with what's real in their lives, how to differentiate between reality and fantasy whether it be in society status or relationships, the falsities between the lines, how to hold onto truths, how to discover them in the first place.
How to deal with the cold harsh and undeniably true-to-life act of being abandoned by your so-called friends when you lose the ability to walk. How to continue to live in your new state, bearing that crushing defeat, the humiliation and loneliness that comes rushing in when you are outcast by nearly everyone in your life.
The manga, it's just simply a compelling story with a backdrop that's rare to the manga form, so kudos to the author for going there and tackling it responsibly and creatively. So for me Real isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, because some are so used to associating manga with certain tropes. This most certainly isn't Slam Dunk part two, but if you've an open mind and want to be pulled into the plights and trials of three young Japanese men dealing with life's challenges, drawn exquisitely by one of manga's most skilled artists, then read Real.
Overall Opinion: 7.9/10
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