Issue #317: Adding One More Stroke to the Mona Lisa
Some things are really, really good. Good enough that they are universally revered as the height of their medium. Citizen Kane. Hamlet. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. The Celtics first half of basketball against the Golden State Warriors on March 3rd, 2024. Few who know what these things are would dispute their excellence. These are the kinds of things I like to understand and enjoy. There are plenty of these sorts of things, paradigmatically fantastic things, that aren’t as widely appreciated. They stand head and shoulders above their peers but for whatever reason are not recognized as such. It may be because of relative obscurity or because there are cultural incentives in place not to give these things their due. Regardless, I hope to surface the shining stars of art that aren’t widely assimilated into culture. This week, I am writing about one such thing.
As a note, depending on how you are reading the newsletter, you may observe that my font is different. That is not on purpose. It seems I am somehow unable to display my publication in the “Classic Serif” font, although it appears I am using it in the settings. I have raised the issue with Substack Support and hope to hear back soon.
“It’s too late now”: Time and Adolescence in Diamond no Ace
I’ve written about shounen manga a few times, but I’m not sure I have ever described one of the big reasons I find it so appealing. Any good story about high school, one that is going to appeal to both young people and adults, needs to capture the essence of what it feels like to be that age. When you are young, time feels like it passes more slowly. Everything seems important. A cynical mind might read the tremendous significance and weight with which characters in a shounen manga treat each event as naive, even antithetical to delivering a story with emotional weight or resonance. I think, however, that this overwroughtness is purposeful in making the story recognizable for the young reader who might evaluate a situation the same as the characters as well as for older ones, who can see how much less important these events are than they might seen in the moment. Unquestionably, there’s a verisimilitude to the experience of the high school student who believes whatever strife is the end of the world or whatever achievement will be the height of experience.
As one grows older, there are often fewer such opportunities to feel as if the world is at stake. People my age result to knowing fantasy or self-deceptive delusions — like imagining our viewing, cheering, t-shirt wearing makes a difference to the outcome of a sporting event. We assimilate ourselves to the successes and failures of things with which we have nothing to do with. It is a poor facsimile for the real thrill of participation in something, self-exposure in the opening one’s self up to failure. That is the optimism of these shounen texts that focus on sports with their sinister undercurrent. These characters who lay it all on the line to win an game of high school sports may never stand on their court or field again, relegated to a seat in front of a computer in adulthood.
Diamond no Ace, Yuji Terajima’s baseball manga that started in 2006 and wrapped up in 2015, is even more effective at delivering high drama with a widely recognizable piece of cultural context. In the manga, the fictional Seido High School compete to participate in the Japanese High School Baseball Championship. The tournament, with a 109 year pedigree, is played at the Hanshin Koshien Stadium, giving it the colloquial name “Summer Koshien.”
By some accounts, Summer Koshien is more popular than pro baseball in Japan. Kenta Maeda says Koshien is a greater aspiration for young Japanese baseball players than the MLB. In Diamond no Ace, that certainly checks out. The stakes couldn’t be higher for these students who hope to stand in the Koshien stadium, especially the third years taking their final opportunity to take the field.
“Don’t end up like me, Sawamura”
Diamond no Ace follows Eijun Sawamura, a novice pitcher who Seido High School scouts. Sawamura moves from his laid back middle school baseball club in Nagano to the metropolis of Tokyo to play at Seido while living on campus with other players. He is motivated to represent his middle school friends. Giving up the opportunity to continue playing with them for fun, he feels the pressure to do what he couldn’t with the less talented group: win. A protagonist who carries the hopes of his small town is appealing enough to me, but the rubber really hits the road when Terajima explores the relationship between Sawamura and third year catcher, Chris Yu Takigawa.
Sawamura is far from the best pitcher on the team, competing for time on the mound with Koichiro Tanba, an ace pitcher recovering from an injury, and Norifumi Kawakami. He’s not even the best first year prospect, with Satoru Furuya the more “complete” player. As a result, Furuya pairs up with the starting catcher, prodigy Kazuya Miyuki, while Sawamura practices with Chris.
Chris subjects Sawamura to esoteric practice methods and a grueling menu of conditioning with little in the way of actual pitching practice. Chris also leaves practice early, conspicuously absent when most players remain long after organized practice’s official conclusion. Nonetheless, he commands the respect of the starters. Sawamura nearly comes to blows with Miyuki, the latter angry that Sawamura is discounting Chris’s dedication to the game.
Of course, Chris is doing something worthwhile in his time away from team practice. Instead of burning the midnight oil on the field, he is in physical therapy, recovering from a potentially career ending shoulder injury. Chris even hid the injury, playing through it and exacerbating it further.
If this story of high school sports injury sounds familiar, you might be thinking of what I wrote last year about The First Slam Dunk (2022) and my favorite character from it, Hisashi Mitsui.
Unlike Mitsui, though, Chris’s dedication to baseball never waned. His seemingly sadistic conditioning regimen Sawamura chafes against is actually intended to protect Sawamura from injury.
This revelation changes the relationship between Sawamura and Chris. Sawamura is a dutiful, somewhat aggravating protégé to Chris. He even comes to prefer Chris as a battery partner to the savant Miyuki. But Chris has physical limitations he can’t surpass. His injury is serious, and every game of baseball risks a recurrence that could spell the end of his baseball playing career — again, familiar stakes.
Chris’s father, a retired NPB (Nippon Professional Baseball) pro, is staunchly against Chris’s continued participation in the Seido baseball club with eyes on a professional career for Chris.
Sawamura’s boundless optimism and tireless work ethic, standard shounen fare, comes to inspire Chris. Instead of heeding his father’s warnings, Chris takes to the field for a second string game with Sawamura. Chris makes the risky choice not just to show his determination as a player, but to help Sawamura. Seido’s regular second string pitcher can’t catch Sawamura’s pitches. Without Chris, Sawamura won’t be able to show the result of his efforts.
I can’t quite put my finger on why I find situations like this so moving. But Chris and Sawamura’s only game together is one of my favorite moments in the whole of Diamond no Ace, and a staggering start to one of the all time great shounen sports manga. There’s Sawamura’s herculean effort to prove himself to his team and show Chris the time they spend practicing together wasn’t for nothing. There’s Chris himself, who makes an effort to stand on the field as a full member of the Seido baseball team, making up for the lost time recovering from injury. The scenario is naturally tense, too: will Chris make it through the game without another injury? And there’s Chris’s father, panicked by Chris’s playing, the resolve of a son and father meeting in opposition in this moment of defiance.
It’s just too good. In the end, Chris’s resolve gets through to his father. What other outcome would you expect?
But Diamond no Ace isn’t without it’s tragedy. Unlike most shounen anime, the heroic Seido players don’t always win. Sometimes Sawamura and Furuya and Chris’s efforts aren’t enough. In the end, Terajima’s manga is one where hard work can amount to nothing. That’s what makes it a great, and occasionally painful, read. The story of Chris and Sawamura is a story where the weight isn’t contingent on victory or defeat, though. It’s about what they stake on their commitment to be great — and the minor, second string victory that constitutes momentary greatness for them.
Weekly Reading List
https://www.ign.com/articles/unicorn-overlord-localization-debate — Tweets are rarely worth a news article, but there are always exceptions. Yasumi Matsuno’s commentary on localization is one of those exceptions. Always interesting to hear the thoughts of one of the GOATS — and one who’s work, Final Fantasy Tactics (1997), is especially relevant to the issue at hand.
Yeah buddy.
https://bloodrage.bigcartel.com/product/cadaver-dog-barbaric-nature-t-shirt — In the Weekly Reading List subcategory, Weekly Personal Shopper, Denver hardcore band Cadaver Dog is selling merchandise. When I looked at the sizes on offer, I was impressed:
I can buy a 5XL Cadaver Dog shirt? A size usually reserved for the most terrifying NYHC band? Is this the normal top end size range for the band? Then I read the qualifier: “THIS ITEM IS A PRE-ORDER.” A band assumes no risk printing various sizes to the exact amounts of orders they received. This may be more economically advantageous to a band, and a guarantee that nobody will have a box of unsold shirts in your attic, but it is not fun. The pre-order madness has to stop. Choosing how many of each size shirt a band prints is a referendum on who they think makes up their fanbase. It’s a window into the mind of how a band sees their potential shirt buyers. It’s fun. Plus, if I have to have boxes of unsold shirts in my attic, so does everyone.
Cadaver Dog, print the 5XL shirt. Enough is enough. I want to see how the print looks on 5XL. Don’t make people buy the big shirt size unseen.
Substack, please give me back my old font.
Until next time.