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Yet Another New Fandom: Whistle!
Often, I get into new TV/anime/manga by seeing someone else talk about it on my flist. Whistle! was a little different. The Boy came home from the bookstore one day and told me he'd seen a listing for a sports manga about soccer. Soccer, unlike tennis, is a sport I like to watch in real life. (Preferably down at the pub with a pint.) So I told him to order it and we got the first three volumes.
I enjoyed it so much I looked around online and found there was an anime based on the manga. So I downloaded all 39 episodes and watched them all within a few days. As is so often the case, the manga is better than the anime, but it's not a Beck-like gap in quality.
A few of the characters:
Our Young Hero is Kazamatsuri Shou. His dream is to play pro soccer. He worked hard to get accepted into Musashi no Mori, a prestigious middle school known for its soccer team. But because he's so short, he could never actually play. So in his second year, he transfers to Sakura Jousui. He's not very good, but he has a lot of spunk. Shou is a pretty typical bright-eyed and bushy-tailed earnest hero. But I like him anyway.
Mizuno Tatsuya is Sakura Jousui's ace. He's so good, everyone wonders why he's there and not at Musashi no Mori. Which is a good question... Mizuno is basically a nice guy, but he has Issues sometimes. He's pretty.
Sato Shigeki (Shige) is flashy, bored, and loves to give everyone weird nicknames. He's very entertaining.
Shibusawa Katsurou is the Musashi no Mori goal keeper and captain. He's the coolest.
There are lots of other soccer players at SJ and elsewhere that I really love, too many to mention. SJ is an underdog team and it's the struggle of the players that I enjoy.
And then there's Fuwa. *points to icon*
Fuwa Daichi doesn't show up until about episode 10 of the anime and volume 4 of the manga (he's on the cover, anyhow). He's a super-genius who annoys everyone at Sakura Jousui because he's too smart to be able to understand other people very well.
Fuwa is, frankly, Inui and Kaidoh's love child. From Inui, he gets his brain and his habit of saying things like "The data have been collected and the shot will come at an angle of 32 degrees, so the probability of a shot to the upper left corner is 86%." From Kaidoh, he gets his pretty hair, his general physicality, and, delightfully, his seiyuu. Fuwa's attitude of disaffected insufferability is all his own.
This isn't the best anime I'm watching, not by a long chalk. But the reason I'm posting about it when I never post about Naruto or Bleach or Monster (well, I have pimped Monster) or Yakitate Japan (the crackiest crack ever cracked) is because Whistle! just pings me in the right way.
Which is to say, there will be fic, even if nobody reads it. :)
VIZ is publishing the manga. The first 3 volumes are out. I will continue to buy them, but if anyone happens to have scanlations... You can download the anime in two packs. It doesn't cover all of the manga (23 volumes, I think) but AFAIK, stays pretty close to the same story. There are two LJ comms that I know of:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
whistle_boiluv and whistlefans.
If you're already a Whistle! fan, please sound off and let me know. And what's with me and all this sports manga/anime? Should I be watching Slam Dunk too?
I enjoyed it so much I looked around online and found there was an anime based on the manga. So I downloaded all 39 episodes and watched them all within a few days. As is so often the case, the manga is better than the anime, but it's not a Beck-like gap in quality.
A few of the characters:
Our Young Hero is Kazamatsuri Shou. His dream is to play pro soccer. He worked hard to get accepted into Musashi no Mori, a prestigious middle school known for its soccer team. But because he's so short, he could never actually play. So in his second year, he transfers to Sakura Jousui. He's not very good, but he has a lot of spunk. Shou is a pretty typical bright-eyed and bushy-tailed earnest hero. But I like him anyway.
Mizuno Tatsuya is Sakura Jousui's ace. He's so good, everyone wonders why he's there and not at Musashi no Mori. Which is a good question... Mizuno is basically a nice guy, but he has Issues sometimes. He's pretty.
Sato Shigeki (Shige) is flashy, bored, and loves to give everyone weird nicknames. He's very entertaining.
Shibusawa Katsurou is the Musashi no Mori goal keeper and captain. He's the coolest.
There are lots of other soccer players at SJ and elsewhere that I really love, too many to mention. SJ is an underdog team and it's the struggle of the players that I enjoy.
And then there's Fuwa. *points to icon*
Fuwa Daichi doesn't show up until about episode 10 of the anime and volume 4 of the manga (he's on the cover, anyhow). He's a super-genius who annoys everyone at Sakura Jousui because he's too smart to be able to understand other people very well.
Fuwa is, frankly, Inui and Kaidoh's love child. From Inui, he gets his brain and his habit of saying things like "The data have been collected and the shot will come at an angle of 32 degrees, so the probability of a shot to the upper left corner is 86%." From Kaidoh, he gets his pretty hair, his general physicality, and, delightfully, his seiyuu. Fuwa's attitude of disaffected insufferability is all his own.
This isn't the best anime I'm watching, not by a long chalk. But the reason I'm posting about it when I never post about Naruto or Bleach or Monster (well, I have pimped Monster) or Yakitate Japan (the crackiest crack ever cracked) is because Whistle! just pings me in the right way.
Which is to say, there will be fic, even if nobody reads it. :)
VIZ is publishing the manga. The first 3 volumes are out. I will continue to buy them, but if anyone happens to have scanlations... You can download the anime in two packs. It doesn't cover all of the manga (23 volumes, I think) but AFAIK, stays pretty close to the same story. There are two LJ comms that I know of:
whistle_boiluv and whistlefans.If you're already a Whistle! fan, please sound off and let me know. And what's with me and all this sports manga/anime? Should I be watching Slam Dunk too?
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Yes. I watched it over the summer (My cousin took one look at my Prince of Tennis manga, declared it brainless and crappy, and said I needed to watch some good anime. He then bought me Slam Dunk v. 1 and downloaded a dozen eps, which are all, sadly, on his computer in Korea.) and it is bloody hilarious. Hilarious not in the PoT chibi 'wtf???' kind of way, but because the personalities are written to convincingly collide with each other. It's awesome.
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Slam Dunk is rather different from Whistle! in tone, but pretty good crack as well. It's an old fandom, and I know of people who still love it 10 years after.
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yay! a new Whistle fan! (spoilers below for Whistle manga)
The manga is slightly different from the anime - Shige never goes to Korea & the story continues past the Korea-Japan game.
And if you like the Shige-Mizuno interactions, volume 23 of the manga (and some parts of other volumes) will blow you away with their (romantic! - total romance novel-style) backstory.
I like Whistle (and Slam Dunk) so much more than Prince of Tennis, mainly because they're more "realistic" - the kids aren't all great from the beginning, and there aren't a whole bunch of cracktastic super moves. There's some genuine suspense about who'll win the games, and there's a lot of room for improvement for the teams.
I have scans of the entire Whistle manga series if you want them, but they're all in Chinese.
As for Slam Dunk, I definitely recommend the manga over the anime - the anime's production value is _extremely_ low, and it's not as funny as the manga (there are some parts of the manga that just reduced me to laughing hysterically), This is probably my favorite manga series ever -- the plotting is extremely well-done, and the ending was absolutely perfect (finally! a manga series that ended well!). The art improves throughout the series, so the final drawings are very different from the first volume.
The Chinese/ Japanese fanbase for Slam Dunk is extremely well-developed, so there are a lot of doujinshi and excellent fanfics, but it's another one that I haven't seen much of an English following. (can you tell I'm desperately hoping you'll fall for Slam Dunk & write fic to fill the gaping void? :P)
Anyway, email me if you want the Chinese scans for Whistle, and I'd be happy to try to pimp Slam Dunk further :)
- loup_argent AT hotmail.com
Re: yay! a new Whistle fan! (spoilers below for Whistle manga)
Not sure how generous you're feeling, but I would love the Whistle! manga scans. *bats eyelashes*
Let me know. =D
- Gwen
Re: yay! a new Whistle fan! (spoilers below for Whistle manga)
I'm downloading the SD manga now. We'll see how long it takes for me to get through it. Lots of people seem to recommend it, so I'm looking forward to it. The anime will be harder to find, as it's been licensed.
Re: yay! a new Whistle fan! (spoilers below for Whistle manga)
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And let me know if you need to be fixed up with Prince of Tennis. I am all about the pimping. :)
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I've watched most of Dear Boys, and it's also pretty good. No Slam Dunk, though. The characters looked too...severe for me. I like the cute stuff.
I /am/ curious about PoT. I'll try to find the first few episodes online, otherwise I'll let you know. =D
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http://a.scarywater.net/ao/
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Damn you, I don't have TIME for another anime... but now I must see this! *sporfles* Kaidou and Inui's love child, indeed...
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Woo! I was just asking for anime recs, too!
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Samurai Champloo -- Historical journey story with a hip-hop twist. Great characters, very funny but also dark at times, amazing animation.
Bleach -- Teenage shinigami and friends. Great stuff.
Yakitate Japan -- It's about bread. Bread and Azuma Kazuma, the Boy with the Solar Hands. Total crack.
Kyou Kara Maou -- A bit of a parody of a few anime genres -- harem, humans vs demos, BL, etc. It's very cute. Very cute.
Monster -- Much more serious than anything else I'm watching. About Dr Tenma *points to icon* who is a Japanese neurosurgeon in Germany. It's dark, depressing, and a little supernatural. If it were a live action show, it would be filmed in Vancouver. Highly recommended. Also, Tenma needs more hugs.
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I'm waiting to start watching Samurai Champloo--got to have some anime in reserve for the summer, after all--but I've heard such raves that it's difficult to hold off!
Bleach--I tried the manga, and was kind of eh about it. However, I tend to find anime more accessible early on, so watching might change my mind.
Monster--I just started watching this a week ago, and I am already so in love with it that I can barely pimp it. Am madly downloading more episodes.
As for the others, I haven't tried them yet, but I'll be on the lookout! I'd like to recommend Gankutsuou to you: it's a retelling of the Count of Monte Cristo, but the count is a blue vampire with an earring and a penchant for wearing black clothes with flames up the arms. It's unbelievably gorgeous, though the opening and closing songs are horrifically bad, and I'd rec it for the art alone, though I think their adaptation is intriguing. I've never seen any anime quite like it.
Am also watching Mirage of Blaze (not sure what I think yet), Witch Hunter Robin (ditto), Wolf's Rain (love beyond expression), FMA (slowly, so as to savor it), and of course, Hikaru no Go. For the third time. The sacrifices I make to share it with the world, man.
Thanks for the recs! I'll have to let you know what I think of Whistle! Also, LOVE the Dr. Tenma icon. Must get one of my own.
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Where are you getting your manga, BTW? I've looked for it in Barnes and Noble and Borders, but the stores near me aren't carrying.
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The manga is really good, so if you can find it, I'd really recommend it. I did find some scanlations of the first volume and a half here: http://hoshimanga.cjb.net/
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There's also Ring ni Kakero, which is fairly new, so there's only a few episodes. It's also boxing, but of the ridiculous over-the-top variety. There are apparently boxing Nazis. And more. It's...cracktastic.
ILA was subbing the classic 70s shoujo tennis series Ace wo Nerae, which is a hugely influential show, but I think they may have dropped it after only a few episodes. *frowns*
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