Sayonara Watashi no Cramer (Farewell, My Dear Cramer)

With no soccer accomplishments to speak of during the entirety of Sumire Suou's junior high school years, the young wing gets an odd offer. Suou's main rival, Midori Soshizaki, invites her to join up on the same team in high school, with a promise that she'll never let Suou "play alone." It's an earnest offer, but the question is whether Suou will take her up on it. Thus the curtain opens on a story that collects an enormous cast of individual soccer-playing personalities!

(Source: Kodansha Comics USA)

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Sayonara Watashi no Cramer was simultaneously published in English as Farewell, My Dear Cramer by Kodansha Comics USA. The volumes have been published in print since July 30, 2019.

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Prequel:	Sayonara Football
Adaptation:	Sayonara Watashi no Cramer

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Characters

Onda, Nozomi

Main

Suou, Sumire

Main

Soshizaki, Midori

Main

Itou, Haruna

Supporting

Tase, Eriko

Supporting

Echizen, Sawa

Supporting

Adatara, Alice

Supporting

Kokubu, Tae

Supporting

Fukatsu, Gorou

Supporting

Kutani, Rei

Supporting

Reviews

Feb 11, 2023

Timothy-309

Recommended

Read this manga, and your feet will be itching to touch a football.

Sayonara, Watashi no Cramer is an experience, a journey. (P.S. This is gonna be my experience told. I can’t say how your experience will be. I can only hope yours is even better than mine, for I love this journey of mine.)The quality metrics are just as described in other reviews. Just this that, before I read the manga, I hated sports, be it indoor, outdoor or video games. And in this journey, I, and I guarantee that you will also, came to love football. I watched World Cup 2023 (though I was ...

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Dec 7, 2021

JohnTBrooke

Recommended

Not in my life did I ever imagine that a conventional shounen sports manga could be so captivating. While I do enjoy sports mangas from time to time, I've usually found that they always fall into the trap of perpetuity, where despite the fact that the characters have been developed and their intimate aims and goals have been attained, the story goes on much longer than it should in order to push the characters to 'reach for the stars', ruining the pacing of its story and tarnishing the central narrative. (There are of course exceptions. E.g. H2) Sayonara Watashi no Cramer by Naoshi Arakawa (of ... Your Lie in April fame) perhaps deserves to sit among the best of shounen sports manga for its sheer craft, entertainment value and most importantly, character and narrative restraint.

Despite the lightness in Arakawa's approach to character, the numerous characters in the manga (which is not restricted to the central characters) have a surprising amount of depth. Even the supposed throwaway characters written for humour have surprisingly deft characterisation that renders them humane. The art is very competent. It looks incredible, it is dramatic in the appropriate moments and it creates a fantastic sense of movement which is essential for a sports manga. At the same time, one thing I found very valuable in this manga is that despite the fact that some individual players have a tremendous amount of talent and skill, it may not necessarily be appropriate to play in such a way at that moment - psychology, teamwork and tactics play a very essential role in the battles on the field. I've not seen such a depiction done with such skill and clarity in a shounen sports manga. It is incredibly good.

Most importantly, Sayonara Watashi no Cramer understands that it is not the plot that makes a sports manga worth reading - for if it were the game that was exciting, why not just watch it in real life? Why even read a manga about it? It is the characters that make the journey worth sitting through. This is beyond writing believable characters with depth, it is about making the narrative be about the journey of the characters instead of the goal or a vague plot. And following this story philosophy, Sayonara Watashi no Cramer ends in a strong and appropriate manner. It ends when the girls' inner journey has been completed. While this may make you yearn to read more if there were more (I did for sure), the power of the ending would be broken if it were to go on.

Perhaps my biggest and only criticism of Sayonara Watashi no Cramer (it is maybe more of a nitpick...) is though it touches upon brief disappointments and feelings of inadequacy in sportsmanship, it never truly goes in-depth into the despair one might feel, on the failure of the body to keep up with others, on the failure of the body in the face of age and ageing joints. Perhaps I wish it dipped a little more in the 'Ping Pong' direction and explored the nuances and difficulties that entail a life in sportsmanship would face.

Still, what Sayonara Watashi no Cramer provides is incredibly masterful. I would even go as far as to say I very much prefer it to Your Lie in April. For despite the powerful drama and nuanced characters and developments of Your Lie in April, Sayonara Watashi no Cramer is affecting without the over-sentimentality and dramatic twists. It is simply great storytelling.

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Jun 3, 2021

Tahtsu

Recommended

Another Master Piece in the brewing from the author of "Your Lie in April". A sport manga needs to keep you engaged and hyped at key moments, which this author sure knows how to do proven in his previous work and proving once again he can capture the emotions of his readers in now a sports genre.

A cliché setting and start to the story, the difference is that its set in a high school girls foot ball team. What's great is that the speed in which the story is told isn't slow and at a good pace which allows for a good reading.
We have ...

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Poll: Sayonara Watashi no Cramer Chapter 3 Discussion weepingtendons - Jul 10, 2016	1 replies	by Romax24245 »» Feb 22, 7:51 AM
Poll: Sayonara Watashi no Cramer Chapter 55 Discussion Ash_La - Apr 9, 2021	5 replies	by Clumsy_Alpaca »» Sep 20, 2021 2:56 PM
Poll: Sayonara Watashi no Cramer Chapter 54 Discussion MegamiRem - Apr 13, 2021	0 replies	by MegamiRem »» Apr 13, 2021 10:22 AM
Poll: Sayonara Watashi no Cramer Chapter 53 Discussion MegamiRem - Apr 13, 2021	0 replies	by MegamiRem »» Apr 13, 2021 10:06 AM
Poll: Sayonara Watashi no Cramer Chapter 52 Discussion MegamiRem - Apr 13, 2021	0 replies	by MegamiRem »» Apr 13, 2021 9:48 AM

Sayonara Watashi no Cramer
Farewell, My Dear Cramer
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Farewell, My Dear Cramer
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