Ace of the Diamond

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this baseball manga, but after it is all said and done, it is an average sports manga that generally anyone can have a good time with. The story of this manga can be divided into two halves: the first half was really just packed with action that added nothing to the narrative, except until the very end of that first half. The second half was where it became more complex, with more interal struggles on the characters, and also serving to hammering the nature of unpredicatibility, and that *anything* can happen in the world of baseball. All the excellent storytelling in thesecond half would then accumulate in a very tense final match. When you are able to make a reader engage in a sports manga to such length, you know you're doing something right. I would rate the story 8.5/10 for the second half alone, but when combined with the bareness that is the first half, I would have to downgrade the story to 7/10. I've always had a problem with the characters in this manga. I don't mind cutboard cut-outs, but the way that the story weighs heavily on Eijun Sawamura after the culmination of the first half (I mean, I love him) was just a disserving on other characters that need a certain edge on them, like Kawakami (especially, Kawakami). Nevertheless, I think that the writing around Sawamura on the second half was well-done. 7/10. One thing I really enjoyed from the start of the manga until the end was how the rivalry between Furuya and Sawamura developed throughout the course of the manga. It's rare to see two characters trying to one-up each other without really antagonizing each other nor just becoming close friends afterwards. The dynamics between them was what carried this manga, I believe. That's why my overall enjoyment for this manga is 8/10.