Rikudou

The classy sport of boxing holds many entertaining merits for the average viewer, exhibiting technical precision amongst the most primal physical activity, effectively casting a shiny aesthetic over devastating injuries and sacrifice. Rikudou, like many sports media, attempts the delicate balance between violence and what one could argue is an art form. The manga follows Riku Azami, a boy from a tragic background, who discovers a light of salvation in the combat sport. In his search for purpose, there lie trials and tribulations, but more importantly, Matsubara contains the dramatization within tenets of real-world struggles. While some of it may be telegraphed around coincidence, thebulk of it is indeed character growth through stimulating masculine desires. The very idea of pummeling an opponent's face seems like savagery, yet the trained eye will notice beautiful combinations of fluidity, which is depicted here in impressive detail. There is elegance in spilling blood on the canvas under the limitations of merely being allowed your two hands. As a character study, the series excels in creating consistent parallels across multiple deuteragonists. The intersecting paths to glory is a recurring theme, and Matsubara emphasizes the element of achievement. Unfortunately, it's also occasionally a detriment given the number of boxers introduced, where one will remember a face merely because of a one-liner. Nonetheless, the major takeaway from Rikudou is successful in emanating why athletes even bother staking their lives, and it's noteworthy that the idea of keeping one's fight record clean is discarded early on. Initially, it spends a fair bit of time exploring the middle ground of Riku's past and how he can harness those experiences, although, after the shaky beginnings, the narrative settles into stronger points of archetypes, simultaneously rejecting talent or even hard work as what dictates the direction of a fight. The fights have their fair share of predictability, but ultimately, the outcomes intend to carry personal weight. Matsubara's visual style has all the right traits for action, be it exaggerated movement or distinct impact shots. The musculature and metaphoric imagery combined with dotted shading make for solid blacked-out X-ray effects. Admittedly, his paneling is not friendly for newcomers to either the medium or the sport, and that's partly due to the terminology not being supported by ample context. There is a lack of exposition that may create varying levels of understanding among readers, specifically during quieter sequences, where techniques like feints and defense are simply implied without the sweet science behind them. My knowledge of the sport compensated for anything the storytelling lacked in clarity, however, I'm willing to acknowledge that targeting Riku's training more attentively might have given the series a better impression in its premature stages. Rikudou intentionally contains itself in the hungriest challenger mindset, perpetually encouraging those who dare to be great.

As a child, Azami Riku goes through a series of tragic events that scar him deeply mentally and emotionally. As a result, he becomes incredibly withdrawn with a complex about his own powerlessness. In his quest to become stronger, he follows in the footsteps of his savior and becomes a boxer aiming for the OPBF title belt. This manga follows his career from his professional debut all the way to the big leagues. Boxing matches are the core of this series. These matches have a lot of intense action which can seem really cool in the moment, but I still found them pretty shallow. This isbecause there wasn’t any logic to things. The boxers hit each other in all sorts of ways while also countering, dodging, and blocking but this is pretty much just a contest of physical abilities. The manga doesn’t really dwell on the boxer’s skills or strategies. As such, a lot of matches had a flow of one boxer being on the backfoot for most of the match until they simply manage to dig deep and turn things around instantly with a KO. This is satisfying at first, but it gets pretty repetitive and thus dull. There is also not really any sort of well-defined ability growth or anything like that. Riku obviously does put a lot of effort into training, but because it’s never really clear to the reader what he gains as a result it’s not all that satisfying. Thus, the action per se didn’t do much for me. Beyond the actual combat, what’s just as important is the stories of those fighting. And in that regard, I felt this manga was even weaker. The manga does an awful job at conveying what characters are thinking and feeling. As such, it’s hard to understand their motivations and empathize with them. And as a result, it’s really hard to get invested in their struggles. Riku is the most prominent example. He’s a lone wolf that pushes people away most of the time and he has a character arc that involves getting over his traumas and connecting more with others. However, this is terribly written with any growth he goes through feeling completely random and unearned. The rest of the cast is even worse with lots of them taking all sorts of major nonsensical actions, but those actions simply being ignored afterwards. Everything was so messy it was hard to really care about anyone or anything that was happening. That resulted in an ending that should be incredibly satisfying not having much impact. I also can’t say I was much of a fan of the art style. There are times where everything aligns and the result does look great. However, most of the time it looks pretty bad and is hard to follow. I feel the art works reasonably well for the edgy parts, but the manga actually isn’t all that edgy. It starts out pretty edgy, but once things get moving it’s increasingly less so with major spikes every so often. Thus it’s just not a good fit. tl;dr: A boxing manga that’s all around okay at best.