vignette00's manga / #high school(74)

An odd debut by the mangaka who would later go on to do Strawberry 100% (?!) and whose most recent story, Gunjou ni Siren, is basically a more mature, better illustrated retread of this. But, without getting sidetracked, Sora no Seibun is I'll/CKBC (http://www.mangago.me/read-manga/i_ll_generation_basket/) meets Kimi no Mukougawa (http://www.mangago.me/read-manga/kimi_no_mukougawa/). Okamoto, a junior high basketball prodigy, ends up at a high school with a weak basketball team, but still manages to inspire his classmate -- the tinier, completely amateur, but naturally gifted, Koizumi. In typical bl fashion, basketball and a latent attraction forges a strong bond between them, but it's shredded to pieces when Koizumi is chosen over Okamoto to be on the provincial tournament team. Added to the mix is Okamoto's "distant relative" Yumi, who is something in between a sex friend and a girlfriend to Okamoto, and is hiding her own wounds (which, I might add, Okamoto is helping her lick). There's nothing revolutionary about the development of the story, which really is equal helpings of the basketball drama in I'll and the rather rudimentary and tired machinations of Yumi + "we can't be together/but you're the only one for me/let's sacrifice our emotions stupidly for the sake of drama" that you'd find in Kimi no Mukougawa. What saves it from the slush pile is an inspired ending that predates The Carp on the Chopping Block..., only with two characters walking together slowly in the summer instead of in the snow. Okamoto tries to let Koizumi down gently, but Koizumi parries with a loaded metaphor, comparing his feelings for Okamoto to Okamoto's feelings for basketball. Though the last scene ends, abruptly, with none of the characters actually together, you can almost smell the sweat, hear the cicadas, and feel the hot sun as Okamoto and Koizumi reach an understanding somewhere in the middle of love and friendship. It's very real, and oddly human. Can't say I'd necessarily recommend it, but there's something psychologically interesting hidden in the banality, and at the very least, I look forward to the rest of Gunjou ni Siren.

Haru is the heir to his father's Japanese dance studio, but when Russian-transfer student Yuri finds him dancing Giselle's ballet solo, Haru is pressed into being the Giselle to Yuri's Albrecht for the end of the year performance. Highly unrealistic vis a vis whether an amateur could become ballet-ready in three months, and even more unrealistic at the end with Yuri inviting Haru to spend the rest of his ballet career with him as his dance partner (how are they going to hide the fact that Haru is clearly a dude?!) but still good-natured, sweet, entertaining, and bl-lite.