Dec 15, 2023
this manga kinda disappointed me. when it initially started, it framed itself as a coming-of-age story, where the main character slowly learns to stand up for herself and discover what she's truly passionate about through fencing. she's a typical shonen MC: shy, acts in a very relatable fashion, but has an unexpected reservoir of courage, even if she isn't very strong. one scene that illustrates this is when, during a practice match with the best team in the country, her club president puts her up against the the other school's president, who's a fucking beast. MC is scared as hell (especially considering this is literally
...
her second ever match), and goes in the bathroom to freak out, but after overhearing some surprising character development from two of her opponents, she gains the courage to go out there, even though she knows she'll get rocked.
and boy does she ever. in this respect, the manga (at least initially) does a great job of keeping it grounded, by having her get her ass kicked the first time she fights, and later getting an injury during another match because she hasn't done enough strength training. however, it unfortunately decided to go the battle manga route, with the MC unlocking some BS ability that lets her keep up with one of the best fencers in japan (who, for some odd reason, has this ability to analyze her opponent and completely predict every possible move like a fucking computer).
now let me say this before anyone gets mad: i have no problem with the battle manga genre. if you looked at my profile, you'd see it's the complete opposite. however, this manga commits to neither grounded realism nor supernatural powers. if you want to a battle shonen that deals with the implications/actual consequences of superpowers, go right ahead! if you want to have a slice-of-life/maturity based normal manga, go right ahead. my problem is that DUEL! tries to have its cake and eat it too. you can't have people who can slow down time or run perfectly predictive mental simulations and also say "oh yeah, actually you have to work out too lol". if this were a joke manga, i'd be fine with its idiosyncrasy, but it seems to want to be taken seriously.
imagine if, while on planet namek, goku had just killed frieza (spoilers) but ended up getting blown up because he twisted his ankle when he stepped on a rock wrong. if something like that happened in original DB, sure you could laugh it off, because it was mostly jokes. but in a manga where the powers of the characters are impressive and to be taken seriously, it just doesn't make sense. the art is fine, nothing too crazy. the characters are extremely hit or miss. there's the asshole, the ice queen, yamato nadeshiko, the psycho, etc., etc. some of them actually get some development/establishment, but most of them are just boiled down to "the fat one" or "the really tall one".
personally, i can't really recommend this one. it's not the "turn your brain off" kind of dumb but fun manga, but it's not the intensely narrative driven one that lets you see into characters and feels like the real world either. it unfortunately ends up in this lukewarm middle ground where it does neither of those things well but tries to do them anyway. which, i suppose, is a metaphor for the story of the mc's journey in a way.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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