Boys on the Run

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Japanese: ボーイズ・オン・ザ・ラン

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 10

Chapters: 116

Status: Finished

Published: 2005 to Jun 2008

Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Sports

Theme: Combat Sports

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: Big Comic Spirits

Authors: Hanazawa, Kengo (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.37¹ (scored by 2,629 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #4116²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #2246

Members: 8,949

Favorites: 173

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Wikipedia

7.37

Ranked #4116Popularity #2246Members 8,949

MangaBig Comic SpiritsHanazawa, Kengo (Story & Art)

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Volumes: /10

Chapters: /116

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Synopsis

The story is about how and why a guy goes from a worker at a dead-end job to becoming a boxer.

(Source: MU)

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Background

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Characters

Tanishi, Toshiyuki

Main

Ooiwa, Hana

Main

Uemura, Chiharu

Main

Shiho

Supporting

Ooiwa, Gen

Supporting

Mayumi

Supporting

Yochihisa

Supporting

Hasegawa

Supporting

Aoyama, Takahiro

Supporting

Reviews

Jul 29, 2022

kuramadoe

Recommended

i really cant wrap my head around this series if im being honest, on one hand i absolutely loved it all the way through, but on another hand the entire thing just pissed me off, and i think that was the point?? reading something that actually gives you a genuinely wide range of emotions CAN be a really great feeling, at other points it made me question the point of even reading it

story, 6: it was hard picking a score for the story, i felt like it was just gut punch after gut punch after gut punch, seriously, our poor tanishi never gets a break, ... but at the same time, its 80% of the time his fault, but more on that when i get to characters. the story has a very good pacing, reading it felt like i was being dragged by a wave, even the parts that made me want to close my eyes and skip 3 chapters (if youve read it you know the ones lol). reading this is like walking over firey coals to reach some snow and just repeating it over and over. like seriously, by the end i was left saying, "that's it? THAT'S how it ends? there's no more chapters??" the whole series felt like i was walking down a slightly sloped downwards line, with points of up, then back down again, expecting major growth followed by a huge line going upwards, but it never happens, it just ends.

art, 9: im a giant fan of kengo hanazawa and 'i am a hero' is in my top 5 favorite manga, i love his composition. a stand out mention is that the characters faces are all really pleasant to look at, i love their wide mouths, and i love a certain SOMEONE's teeth. its simple, but really detailed and effective at telling the story, no complaints.

characters, 8: thiiiis is a rough one, every single noteworthy character in this series only goes through either a very sliver amount of growth, stagnates, or plummets really really hard. all that i can recite tanishi growing in is bravery, he doesnt really grow as a person at all, the same mistakes he makes on the first few chapters by the end of the series, i cant even call him a good person, what he does to a certain character's life was really really heartbreaking, especially when i was under the belief that they would be the happy ones in the end. everyone he knows around him is moving up in their life, thinking of the big picture, but whenever he gets started on moving his life forward, its like he trips and falls back down to stage one again, he just keeps fumbling the bag over and over and over and over and OVER again, i cant tell you how many times i genuinely facepalmed over something he said or did. but even despite ALL of that, i cant say i hate him, he tries his hardest, and he never runs away, and i think that is his flaw AND his strength.

enjoyment, 9: this series will leave you feeling every single emotion in the books, it's what kept me going. moments worth smiling a huge grin over, moments where youre holding back tears, moments where you want to drop kick your monitor, all of it, it's a genuine rollercoaster.

overall, 9: i really dont think this manga will be for most people, but for those who are interested, i HIGHLY recommend it

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Jun 4, 2020

acloudwithfeet

Recommended

Ah I sure do love "Struggle Tweets (before struggletweets existed): the manga." Because no matter how often I took a gut punch in the feels department, no matter how angry I got over character actions, no matter how frustrating it might be to essentially watch a man be beaten down over and over again without learning a single fucking thing, I can't say that it was because this manga was poorly written. Like it or not, Kengo Hanazawa sure knows how to wright real characters with a hyperbolic spin: losers, assholes, and good people alike. And he sure knows how to draw too, every background ...

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May 8, 2023

hexashadow13

Mixed Feelings

tl;dr: A manga that’s mostly just the character screwing up and suffering, though in a pretty well written way that makes it pretty interesting.

This manga is not one that is supposed to make you feel happy or satisfied, at least not long term. It does have moments that may seem to hit such positive emotional beats, but they’re pretty much always there for a stronger negative emotional beat to build off of. Rather, the moments that do have a lasting positive feeling are the ones that are bittersweet, wherein the sense of happiness of satisfaction is so marred by complications that it’s greatly subdued. But ... in the see of pain that is the majority of the manga, those moments still stand out.

The mangaka very clearly isn’t afraid to put his characters through the wringer and make them suffer. And this very much includes the protagonist. Everyone in the manga has messed up parts to them, even the most normal of characters. Everyone suffers, and in return they make others suffer. The protagonist just wants to be happy and feel like he matters, but that’s not as simple as it sounds and a goal forever past his reach. He works hard for it, but the ways he works hard for it are pretty much always just barking up the wrong tree. They never actually improve things for him at all, rather they mostly just make things worse. The protagonist is a mess, but a believable mess, and one that’s easy to empathize with, even if he clearly is being incredibly dumb a lot. So, you can’t just hope for him to finally get his break and for things to finally go his way for once. They never really do though, even if they seem like they are.

Still, despite everything, he slowly but steadily does make progress during the second half. The implication there being that he makes absolutely none in the first half. The first half of the manga is just the protagonist getting screwed around with by everything and screwing up everything in return. I suppose that the aim of this half of the manga was to convey what sort of mindset the protagonist has and to get the reader invested in him despite his faults. The protagonist having no idea what’s going on and being directionless is a key aspect of this half of the manga, which results in it feeling like it dragging on and longer than necessary. Though I suppose this was necessary to a degree, to really convey how pointless everything is, though still important from a thematic point of view because it’s not just pointless but also a waste of the protagonist’s life, and I suppose wasting the readers time is an easy way of getting that across.

Now returning to the second half, it moves along much faster and there is very clear progress that leads to a clear conclusion. However, I would have to say this half went too fast, especially towards the final stretch where it basically felt like it was just sprinting towards the finish line and not really paying much attention to anything along the way. The ending especially, it felt like it completely glossed over and while that in and of itself it made for a pretty satisfying ending, the speed at which it just sped through it diminished that tremendously. The epilogue I suppose made it clear why it did so, because even with it’s faults, I suppose the ending was too happy or satisfying for the manga, and it needed to throw one last gut punch to diminish, though not completely extinguish, even that.

The art is gritty and generally gross, but it’s clearly supposed to be. There are rare times that it looks nice, so it clearly can, but the vast majority of the time it wouldn’t fit for it to be so, and so it simply isn’t. The art quality is somewhat hard to judge because of this, but overall I’d say it’s fine and works at what it needs to do.

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Boys on the Run Chapter 47-48 Discussion Clashmore - Nov 23, 2014	1 replies	by garmatico »» Feb 16, 4:37 PM
Poll: Boys on the Run Chapter 49 Discussion MagEarwhig - Sep 18, 2012	4 replies	by Matsuui »» Jan 4, 11:58 AM
Poll: Boys on the Run Chapter 116 Discussion live2win - Jul 26, 2012	21 replies	by removed-user »» Apr 10, 2022 2:33 PM
Poll: Boys on the Run Chapter 86 Discussion Ale1212 - Jun 24, 2013	3 replies	by Desu_Ga »» Feb 20, 2022 9:47 PM
Poll: Boys on the Run Chapter 87 Discussion MagEarwhig - May 28, 2013	4 replies	by EGOIST »» Aug 13, 2020 10:55 AM

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