Manga Alphabet: E is for Emma, Eyeshield 21

[rainsometimes]

Emma by Kaoru Mori (Also known as Victorian Romance Emma)

Emma is a romance seinen manga that takes place late in England in the Victorian era. It's centred on William Jones, a well-to-do young man of the upper classes in Victorian England, and Emma, a young maidservant who first works for William's former governess. (It should be noted that she never works directly for him or his family.) Naturally, they both understand that the class gap between them may well make a serious relationship impossible, and after the first bloom of love there is a separation where they both try to put the other out of their mind. It's a clichéd premise, but Mori manages to make the story feel fresh.

Not in the least due to all the other characters we get to meet, particularly William's family, the young woman his father would prefer for him to marry (neither she nor William's father are demonised, thank heavens: the fact that William's love for Emma could well be seen as irresponsible to act upon is pointed out clearly); Emma's first employer; and everyone in the big household Emma later works in, where the family is German and so is half the staff, making an unusual mesh.

Frankly I was hesitant about the story at first, which seemed to move quite slowly in the first volume without too many characters to know. But soon enough, as their world became larger and the viewpoints many more, I got sucked into the story, embracing first the delicious attention to detail and then, eventually, the romantic drama itself. Eventually things take a really dramatic turn and even hovers at the edge of tragedy for a moment, before the resolution. Unusually, the last volumes mostly consist of short stories for the supporting cast, before we finally return to the leads in the last chapter - which by then felt very fulfilling and enjoyable. Mori is clearly in love with the whole world she depicts; if there's any real flaw in the series, it's that her Victorian England can feel a mite too fluffy at times, but I think that's forgivable. It's not like it's the only depiction we have of the period.



Eyeshield 21 by Riichiro Inagaki (script) and Yusuke Murata (art)

Well, I wrote an appreciation post about this one fairly recently, which was also a basic introduction, so now I feel repetitive. Hmm. (The earlier one was here.)

Can't be helped, I guess! This is one of the few sports manga I've come to enjoy to the max, not that I've sampled many. It helps that the creators have to be pretty clear to the audience about how the sport is played, since American football isn't that well-known in Japan (nor is it to me). It mostly stays on the realistic side, though some of the feats shown look fairly doubtful and the final seconds of any intense game seem to be more like minutes.

The characters are fun and expressive, which reflected in the artwork (very cartoony at the start of the manga, more detailed and realistic later on). But there are also often unexpected depths in them. I found the insecure protagonist Sena very easy to like: he starts out as being scared of any violence but very good at running away from it and weaving through a cloud at full speed, slowly develops into a running back who starts to seriously enjoy playing American football and strives hard to meet challenges together with the rest of the team. Even if he has to don a helmet and an assumed identity (the "Eyeshield 21" of the title) to do it.

Team leader Hiruma, devilish, foul-mouthed and (to the characters) scarily driven, is very memorable and pretty intriguing. The gentle giant Kurita is perhaps the most enthusiastic about the sport of them all, and it's the Kurita-Hiruma friendship that's at the core of the team, even as it needs Sena and the rest of the players (who come along later) to get anywhere. And there's a third founder of the team who's the Lost Member everyone would like to get back, in an interesting subplot.

This is a work where a tournament structure takes up most of the manga, and it's done really well. The opposing teams for all the important matches are presented well, shown to have their own dreams and goals, so for the most part (there are some more unsympathetic characters) you feel for them as well: there are Honourable Rivals all over the place. Sena especially has his two big rivals Shin and Panther to contend with, though there are additional wrinkles to that re his secret identity.