1) Characters: The manga made a great job focusing more on the psychology of them instead of the sports involved. For example, one of the protagonists made a mistake that nearly costs his life and left disabled her lover. The manga invested more time watching the redemption path of him, his internal conflicts, the steps he took to improve himself and the reconstruction of his relationship with the girl she loved who started the manga hating him for ruining permanently her life. I have to point that you will see him playing basketball rarely, so yes, this shows the strong psychological aspect that this manga offers. And this is not the only highlight character of this manga, we have, also a disabled main character who learnt what the true teamwork is about showing his struggles to accept this fact, another disabled character who spent big time of the manga in a hospital having to accept that he's now permanently disabled and the strong chemistry between him and another patients that share his condition, among others.
2) Multiple focus: One of the strongest points of this manga is that the approach is not only with one main character. During the reading, the manga presents the progress in the character development of it's main cast, and it's not like this stories are stand alone, all this characters have their connections and interactions with each other most of the time, so all of them grow together with the advance of the big main plot. Another important aspect and makes the difference between this and the other works of the author is the fact that every conflict and the main objective of each character in the show is different. Most of them are disabled, however, their stories and motivations are clearly differenced in the manga.
3) Realism: As the title of this manga subscribes, here are not Gary Stu type characters, miracle last minute points or convenient asspulls in order to advance faster the story and the character development. Instead, the result of the matches are consistent with the presented the previous chapters and the opponents our protagonists faced, the solution for the outcomes or the conflicts presented are really creative in several occasions keeping the internal logic presented in the manga and, ignoring the result of the matches, there's no inmediate character rewrite as a consecuence of the result previously mentioned, so the characters make a quick post-match analysis and then move on with their lives and their current conflicts.
4) Drawing: Excellent and the best part is the fact that it goes better with the advance of the chapters. Also, it complements very well with the topics and plot presented here.
Of course, I'm not telling you this manga is perfect. During the first episodes, the manga, actually, becomes melodramatic with the conflicts presented. Fortunately, this issue is solved progressively with the advance of the chapters to the point of becomes inexistent the rest of it. Another issue is that the pacing can be slower sometimes with the resolution of the protagonists conflicts, also, when this conflicts are not solved the manga can go in circles repeating some steps in order to make a new attempt of solve them.
In conclusion Real is a great sports manga that doesn't limit itself presenting just the sport referenced, it goes much further with its messages, characters psychology and its well made drama. Highly recommended.
