Ranked #57

Beck (Manga)

I began reading this manga after marathoning the anime adaptation over two days and finding myself left wanting more, as the anime ended all too quickly for my liking.

Story:
Beck follows the life of 14 year old Tanaka Yukio (Koyuki to his friends) as he grows from a shy, directionless teenager (with terrible taste in music) into an ambitious young musician. After a chance meeting with talented guitarist Minami Ryusuke, his life starts to change and gather momentum as he discovers music's ability to affect people. He begins to learn the guitar, and there is the budding romance with Ryusuke's sister, Maho. He joins Ryusuke's band, Beck, and the series follows the band's struggle to achieve success, both in Japan and the rest of the world. Because this is predominantly a slice of life style manga, many of the minutiae of Koyuki's and Beck's day to day life are covered, but the manga spans 5-6 years, which allows the various characters and their relationships to properly develop. The one aspect of the story I felt should have been developed a bit more was Maho and Yukio's relationship, it was very well done when it came up, but I think it should have been given a bit more development over the course of the manga.

Art:
Sakuishi Harold has a fairly distinctive art style in Beck, which I found a refreshing change from much of the overly disproportioned characters found in many manga and anime. I thought his more realistic style perfectly suited the realistic tone of the manga. His full page frames of the band's performances perfectly captured the spirit of a 'live', and were a personal highlight in the artwork of this manga.

Character:
In a manga of this length (both in chapters and period of time covered) there is real space to develop and flesh out both the main and some of the supporting characters. Koyuki's character develops beautifully over the course of the series, from an apathetic teenager into a determined young man. The other characters don't develop in the same fashion, Ryusuke's background is fleshed out and provides much of the conflict in the series, and while more time could have been spent developing the rest of the band members, especially Saku and Taira, they all have their moments during the series which give them real depth.

Enjoyment:
As I said at the start, I read this manga after finishing the anime adaptation and found myself wanting more. This was the first time I have watched an anime and then gone on to read the manga, as well as one of the first manga I have read, and I was unsure if I would be able to enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed watching it. Turns out there was nothing to worry about, and I even rate the manga higher than the anime, predominantly because I feel the story reaches a much more satisfying conclusion.

Overall:
To anyone who loved the anime, I thouroughly recommend reading the manga, as it has everything the anime had, as well as a complete storyline. I would also recommend this to anyone who is a fan of rock, or music in general, as it is the only series I have come across that deals with music in such an in depth and genuine way.

Best read with the OST playing in the background, just like this review. read more

At the first I watch Beck's anime by chance and when I loved the anime and when it's come to end I quickly jumped to manga and read it with an enthusiasm cuz it was an overwhelming joyable story.This manga is one of my favourites and here's my review...

Story:
This story centered about Tanaka Yukio(Koyuki) and the band named Beck(Mongolian Chop Squad).The story starts slowly with main characters acrossed each other and slowly developed but strong friendships and not too much but enjoyable love parts.Even if it's a manga about music life and even it's music's part was great/awesome/amazing the relation parts was the most effectives on me and I enjoyed it till the end.

Characters:
Every character in this manga have it's own attractiveness about it(main/supporting doesn't matter).I love this manga cuz you can find a character to bond yourself to him/her.This is important cuz if you cant bond your toughts to an anime/manga you can't enjoy it fullfilly(atleast that's what I think).

Drawing:
The drawing was good and fit for manga's reading age gap.Atleast I can say Sakuishi Harold did a great job in this manga's drawings.(I wrote but I don't find right for writting about drawings cuz every people has his/her own taste so it doesn't matter how it's drow)

Enjoyment:
There is nothing much to say I already say over and over this manga full of enjoy ;D

In The End:
It's a manga worthy of reading(i didn't mean when u bored you can read this,this manga will be your best enjoy treasure when u read it ^^)and I know if you read this manga because of me you will thank me(don't think bad :D)cuz when my friend lend me this manga and after I finished it I was really thankful to that guy for letting me enjoy this kind of pleasure... read more