Yawara!

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It was a lazy Sunday afternoon. I'd just helped myself to lunch at my girlfriend's folks' house. I was just about to head home when my girlfriend's sister held out the first volume of Yawara, recommending that I give it a try.

Ok I'm the first to admit I'm not the biggest fan of romantic comedy or the sports genre for that matter (having thought that that was what Yawara is all about at the time). I'd rather put out a cigarette on my eyeball than have to sit through an episode of Sex and the City. I'd rather inject sewrage shit into my arm than ... sit through an episode of Eyeshield 21...

So it was with a bit of trepidation that I approached Yawara. But I had a fairly long train ride home ahead of me and thought, what the heck? It's either this or looking at a bunch of derelict houses passing by the train window...

I'm happy to say that my impressions I had of Yawara before I read it were way off the mark.

The first thing that you notice is how superbly written Yawara is. Reading though it for the first time I was thinking that I SHOULD be hating this kind of story, yet here I am, nagging my girlfriend to get the next volume off her sister...

Yes it is a romantic comedy at times, and it does feature sports, but it is also a powerful character-driven human drama and so much more...

The story itself revolves around Yawara, a girl with god-like Judo abilities. Normally we get the same old story where the main character would start off a weakling and strive to better him or herself to the extent of their abilities in the hope of someday overcoming someone/achieving something. In Yawara we see a main character painted in a completely different light. Put simply, Yawara starts off the manga a Judo GOD... who wants to just live out her life as a normal girl.

Now you are probably thinking, "This must be the most boring manga of all time- If she starts out so strong and we know she's going to win, where's the sense of tension and excitement when she fights?" The big answer to this is that Yawara is a Judo manga that isn't really about Judo at all, rather Judo is simply used to bring all the characters together, to cause the drama. Even when Yawara is fighting it out on the mat, most of the time her attention, and consequently ours, is drawn to dramas taking place OUTSIDE the mat.

Yawara (the manga) essentially is based around the relationships Yawara (the character) has with everyone else. Firstly there is comedy found in the relationship between Yawara and her grandpa, Jigoro, who stops at nothing when trying to get his reluctant grand daughter to straighten up and realize (his) her dream of achieving Olympic Gold.

Next is the superbly written love triangle that is constantly at play between three characters focusing on the competition between Yawara and her rival Sayaka over Kazumatsuri, Sayaka's handsome Judo coach and an all round playboy to boot. This soon grows to four with the introduction of Matsuda, a sports newspaper reporter who starts off following Yawara in the hopes of promoting Japan's next sporting hero. The fifth member, "Kuni-chan" soon joins the fray, eyeing off Matsuda while working with him as a photographer. A love triangle with five people in the middle, what is that, a love pentagon??

Then there is friendship and rivalry played out with the strongest women of Judo; Jody Rockwell (Canada), Tereshikow (Russia), Christine Adams (Canada), Kim (Korea) all coming after Yawara with the aim to replace her on top of the Judo world. While these rivalries do have their moments, I much preferred the friendships Yawara forms with fellow members of the Japanese Judo team, her friend from high school (Hanazono-kun) and her friend from uni (Fujiko). The relationships with these two characters take a lot of turns, capturing just about everything, from love to drama to comedy to despair to shock...

The final "main" character provides for a lot of the mystery in the story, Yawara's father, who left Yawara's family home to go into training when thrown to the ground by Yawara when she was still just a child. Yawara and her mother's search for him is yet another well written, intriguing crux to a story that has so many points of interest already.

The characters, no matter how brief their appearance is in the manga, are all painstaking realized to give them three dimensional personalities. Whether hate them or love them, all characters instantly leaving an impression on the reader, which really makes the reader care about what happens to them next. In the end this, not the judo fights, is the real page turner for this manga.

On a side note, I have to say my favorite character in the manga (and also one of my favorite characters of all time) would be Matsuda. While Yawara is definetely the focus point of the story and the character that brings the story all together, I found that I read the story for Matsuda's exploits in pursuing Yawara, both as a news subject and as a love interest. His underdog charm, his all-round-good-guy-ness, that Yamagata accent!

Combined with Naoki Urasawa's distinctive and expressive art style this manga is a must-read. Hey, take it from a guy who starting out thinking that he'd hate this only to be blown away in a very, very good way.

((At the time of writing this review, I've only read 92 chapters since those are the only chapters I could get my hands on. So this review won't be about the entirety of the manga, just the chapters I've read.))

The story of Yawara! is pretty simple. It's about a Yawara who's basically a master at judo, but just wants to be a regular, fashionable, and feminine girl. Unfortunately for her, she has the stubbornest grandpa who wants her to be the worlds best judo player. She's also constantly being fought over by a reporter who's thirsty for a viral scoop and her "rivals" playboy judo ... coach.

Although judo plays a big part on the plot, it's not really a sports manga. It's more of a drama romance comedy. The manga does explain a little bit about judo every now and again, so you'll probably learn something about judo from it. It's comedy is okay, it's usually about the absurb situations that keeps intervering with her trying to have a "normal girl" life. It wont make you burst laughing and grow a six pack or anything. I think the romance is pretty nice, but incredibly slow.

Most of the characters are pretty likable, though some can get really really reaaaally annoying. Since I haven't read the whole thing, I don't know if they get any character development.

The art isn't a masterpiece or whatever, but it's still well done and pleasing to the eye. It's pretty simple which is perfect for it's story. I think the backgrounds are really nice too.

Overall, I give it a 9/10!

I don't really know how to sell you on this manga. The review above me is probably better. But from the 92 chapters I've read, this is a really interesting, fun, and enjoyable manga. I'm positive the other chapters I've not read are, if not better, still enjoyable. It might not be a masterpiece like Naoki Urasawa's other works, but it's not bad at all.

I recommend you this manga if you're bored and have nothing else to read.