Feb 15, 2024
What the fuck.
This is a good sports manga. From Shonen Jump. Unironically my favorite sports series from Jump.
And it somehow still hasn't been fully translated, despite turning 23 years old this very year!? It also got Nendoroids and plushies this July, and no translations have been attempted since five years ago!? That sucks.
Mr. Fullswing is unironically one of Shonen Jump's weirdest series. Not so much in it's premise or it's gags, more so having a overall weird history in the magazine itself. Despite running for 24 volumes, having appeared in Jump Super Stars (just jump super stars. not ultimate stars for some reason) and being
...
their last succesful baseball-related series, Mr. Fullswing... hasn't really been prominent in Shonen Jump as a whole. While talking about what I'd consider to be Shonen Jump's dark age (2000-2009), Mr. Fullswing isn't really mentioned. Heck, when discussing 2001, you don't even mention Mr. Fullswing! Bo-bobo and Bleach come to mind, but Mr. Fullswing isn't talked about much, for whatever reason.
And that isn't really fair. Mr. Fullswing is a good series. Not just a good sports series, a REALLY good series overall. This might be a bit biased since I work with gag manga a lot (and they're my favorite gender of manga in general), but I do NOT like sports manga most of the time. Despite this series having all of the odds against itself and me thinking about giving this series a 5/10 and moving on with my day after looking at the cover, Mr. Fullswing has a surprisingly good amount of Cerebus Syndrome after the last translated volume as of this review, that being the 7th one. Gags are still prominent, but man. The series is unironically REALLY good when not trying to be funny.
On one-hand, this series is really funny. Like, really fucking funny. If your type of humor is something more akin to Grand Blue, Mr. Fullswing will be at home for you. Absurd gags and cheesy one-liners are pretty prominent through the series, and the first few volumes that are read are pretty funny. Above average gag manga affair, and a good one at that. I'm not sure if this is due to me being used to just really stupid humor in general, or me just being more amused by "lol random!!! xd" type humor. Wouldn't say it like that, there's a lot of good visual gags here and there, which are pretty chucklesome to look at.
Now, the visuals are absurdly good. They have no reason to be this good. I wouldn't say they're on the level of someone like, Inoue or Miura, but holy fuck. Almost every chapter has a double spread page. These pages look gorgeous. Suzuki genuinely made a lot of use of the amount of double-pages he got, and made unironically one of the best looking manga in the magazine from this time period. Definitely in the top four atleast. Like I said, don't expect Inoue or Miura. While I doubt that Suzuki's art would impress people, he's honestly a really good artist either way. While this is a comedy series, the detail to the double spread pages, the passion of the various beautifully drawn baseball scenes, and just the covers in general... They're all quite pleasant to look at. This is also Suzuki's debut work, so you gotta give some credit in how he got THIS good at drawing in essentially five years.
Personally, I'd say that the story is really good. It's more interesting than your usual baseball "we'll go to the regional tournament and win!" sorta deal. While I don't wanna reveal the twist since this manga isn't translated (and I doubt it'll be for a while), I'll just have you know that Saruno really, really, REALLY cares for his mom. His dad is a dickhead, though.
And to wrap things up, Saruno is quite a wonderfully written character. Heck, there's a lot of good characters in here. While I am a bit mad that most of the Koushien gang didn't end up doing much at the finale, Inukai and Mikado got plenty of characterization in the last few volumes. Heck, they probably got even more development than the actual main character himself. This is not a bad thing, since SarunoÂżs growth as a character is quite fun! He does in fact get with Nagii at the end, but really now. Don't expect a kiss. You can clearly notice how Saruno genuinely becomes passionate about baseball, and actually lets go off this passion to pursue new things. Sure, he's stiill passionate about baseball as a whole, but remember. Saruno joined purely because of Nagii, letting go off the baseball club is honestly the best finale and the one I was expecting anyways.
Honestly? This is my favorite sports series in Jump. Heck, it might be my new personal favorite sports series. You can clearly see how Suzuki cared about Mr. Fullswing, this being his only-hit and his swan song at the same time. Bari-haken, his other series didn't really get far before being axed, which is a shame. While I am no means fan of Bari-Haken (spoiler alert... it's a 5.5/10), Mr. Fullswing is honestly the most underrated Jump series out there.
This is THE underrated Shonen Jump series. I will die on this hill. I think that Mr. Fullswing deserves the same amount of love as Eyeshield 21, Death Note, Bleach, Psyren, and Gintama. If you can speak Japanese, please give Mr. Fullswing a try. You WILL hate how the seventh volume ends, and you'll end up desperate like me. And it's fair, the series never stops being good. It never slows down.
I will die on the same grave as Saruno, by the way.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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