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/ Sakai Yoshinori / Sera Kyohei / Akasaki Ryo / Tatsumi Takeshi / Luigi Yoshida / Ishigami Tatsuo / Tanba Satoshi / Tsubaki Daisuke / Gotou Kousei /
“GIANT KILLING ”, commonly called in Japan as ‘Jaikili’ is a work that everyone (even those who are not fans of soccer!) can get excited. The meaning of title “GIANT KILLING” is ‘a surprise’ ‘defeating a superior opponent’. In a sports competition, it implies to the victory of lower-ranked person/team against higher-ranked opponents despite of differences of ability and expectation of audiences. There is a famous saying “the sports are dramas without the outline!”. It means that you can never know the results until the very end(＠_＠;) Just like the sports in reality, ‘Jaikili’ develops such an exciting games that you cannot take your eyes off()/
The story is centered around the main character Takeshi Tatsumi, who was hired to professional soccer club, ETU (East Tokyo United), as a manager. He was a former star player of ETU, and showed his ability as a manager at amateur club (level 5) in England. At the FA cup, he brought up his team to the level which they can aim at victory from premier league club. However, his old home ETU became such a small and weak team that they have dropped to level 2 league. In the present circumstances, local fans are leaving and not supporting ETU anymore, and some of them do not like Tatsumi because he left the team when he was a major player. Thus, Tatsumi has a lot of problems that he has to face. Can he possibly create the “”GIANT KILLING” and bring back glory days to ETU!?
If I am to bring up three interesting point of this comic, first one is that the main character is a manager. This does not happen a lot in sports comics. Tatsumi is always easy going, and at a glance he is quite irresponsible and often says unprecedented things. Moreover, he is introduced as “ditzy manager” on series magazine, ‘Morning’ (^_^;). Nevertheless, when it comes to soccer, he is totally a different person. He is stoic that he analyzes and researches the opponent until late night. He has a good insight into the core of game and humanity. He is a pungent strategist. Moreover, he is very charismatic that he can lead his team by a single word. This gap of Tatsumi’s characters is so irresistible!! I just get too excited when his plan has fit in and the team win a game after defeat seems so certain (#^.^#).
Other interesting point of this comic is that there are many unique characters. For example, there is ‘Murakoshi’ who is like a mainstay of the team, ‘Oji’ who is free and narcissist, ‘Pakka’ who is a mascot character of ETU, and so on. There are so many charming characters. Among them, my favorite character is Daisuke Tsubaki, MF of ETU. He easily feels pressured and his conditions changes intensely. When he is on a good condition, you will be enchanted by his speed and his power to breakthrough. He purely loves and enjoys soccer, and that makes you feel so refreshed (*^_^*) He was undependable at first, but I was so touched to see him grow up step by step… I guess I was unnoticeably watching over him like I have a parental affection for him (/_;)
Last interesting point of this comic is that the story is written from various people’s points of view. For instance, the competition between team members for its position, the confrontation between local supporters and management stuff of club, being at cross purposes among local fans, and so on. You cannot take your eyes off from deeply described pattern of human relationships.
Of course, there are more and more interesting points that I cannot write all. I can just say that this is a work that is recommend for everyone, including fans and no fans of soccer (*)v I think you will certainly fall into its enjoyment of “Jaikili”♪
