Now there are a lot of sports manga out there, and basketball is one of the most commonly depicted sports in the medium but, as far as I can tell, girls’ basketball has always been weirdly untapped. That alone was enough for me to pick up the series, and I was very pleasantly surprised by what I found.
Tsubame Tip Off! is a somewhat unique sports manga in how it depicts the sport being played. Specifically, I’d say it’s unique in how… normal it is. Manga and anime focused around girls’ sports tend to skew erotic or overly soft and often don’t do the sport in question much justice, so it’s incredibly refreshing to see the sport here being handled with the same kind of aggression and physicality you’d expect to see in a manga about a boys’ team. The art, while not always stellar, does a good job enforcing this portrayal of the sport, and the illustrator really knows when to go all-in and make some beautiful double-page spreads.
Now just because I said the series depicts the sport in a fairly normal manner doesn’t mean everything else follows suit; Tsubame herself is a pretty unconventional protagonist. With her awkward demeanour and self-consciousness regarding her own height, she’s a far cry from the intensely passionate and egoistic protagonists that are typically associated with the genre. I do think that really works for this series, though. With its very route A approach to basketball, I think it was a good move to make the main protagonist stand out in this way.
And obviously I couldn’t talk about Tsubame Tip Off! without mentioning Ibis. Every sports manga has a genius, and Ibis is this series’. She hasn’t really been explored in much depth yet, but enough has been shown to make me feel secure claiming that she’ll get some really good development in the future.
My only real issue with the series so far is how underutilised the supporting cast has been in these early chapters. It’s done a good job setting up a couple of rivals, but most of Tsubame and Ibis’ teammates are woefully underdeveloped. I can’t really hold that against the series, though, considering how early into the story we are.
We’re only in the early stages of the manga now, but I’m optimistic about what’s to come, and I’m very excited to see Tsubame grow as a character and potentially grow to see her height as a blessing. I don’t really expect this series to ever top people’s lists of must-read sports manga, or even maybe must-read basketball manga, but it’s got a unique feel to it and I really appreciate what it’s doing.
