Kishimoto's One Shot "Bench"
 

I read it and I liked it, even trough I don't watch/play baseball. It was interesting but considering that this is 'One Shot' it probably wont continue. Kishi definitely has talent writing manga i would liked to see more from him. The characters are nice and i think there is good potential in this story (lets's hope Kishi changes his mind and maybe after he finish Naruto he can continue to wright this). The thing I don't like is that many characters were introduced and only some had purpose at least in my opinion (trough the characters were good as i said above). The art is good, not on Naruto's level but it was still great.

Found it meh, partly because baseball bores me to hell. Also find the art unsettling. I realize it's Kishimoto, I guess I only like his style in Naruto.

Hmmm... well... i spend a lot of time trying to understand what is thinking Kishi because Naruto, so i have some thoughts:

Plot too much related to Naruto:
1. elite vs. underdog
2. Haxor techniques
3. Friendship no jutsu
4. Secret Past

etc...

so... you can disguise this one shot based in baseball, football, basketball, martial arts, etc, but in the end, you have same things who involves Naruto. Which makes me wonder how much non-important plots Naruto has.... it's a +500ch's Manga after all :heh: I think that at least the half of that ch are just extra-material put in there by WSJ's editors :(

I didn't vote because i think that i would vote something between good! and boring!

^ I don't think it's fair to say that it's a rip-off of Naruto. After all, the elements you mentioned exist in a LOT of shounen-type stories, many of which preclude Naruto.

As me, I might have liked it if I were a bit younger and more inexperienced, but now... I just can't help but compare it to Cross Game and H2. I know it's an unfair comparison to make, but my impression of baseball manga has long been tainted by Adachi.

Oh yeah, there are loads of characters, and none of them seem to stand out.
The whole thing is just too typical, it's as if no effort was put into thinking of something unique.

Yes, you're correct about that those elements are present in most of Shounen, but this manga is written by the same author, it's different when you are talking about those elements in stories of different authors, Oda, Mashima, etc, wrote about the same, but their own point of view.

To me, Rumiko Takahashi wrote only Urusei-Yatsura.... being Ranma 1/2 UY partII and Inuyasha, UY part III... On the other hand, Inoue's Slam Dunk, has NOTHING in common with Vagabond. I am not saying that is bad or wrong, just look at Leiji Matsumoto's work.


That's what i meant to say, just too typical and i got the same feeling of lack of effort.

This was pretty standard of a 'sports ragtag underdogs' story, and personally, I found it very well-written. It's simplistic, basic but doesn't overextend the gimmicks and storytelling approaches. I found the little touches like Darth Vader and Astro Boy nice.

To make a comparison, (L)Right Wing ( a new soccer manga in Jump ) was personally, a piece of shit compared to this.


This is generalising it way too much.

99% of all sports shonen are elite vs underdog. We're supposed to root for the main team, the weaker team to triumph against the elites.

Haxor techniques ( if you want to call it that, I'd hardly call left-handed pitching and being a good batter who sucks at everything else haxor ) and Secret Past are always interlinked in all sports shonen as well, especially when the weaker guy can beat the stronger guy in chapter 1. Call it a special pitch, a superior batting talent, or whatever. The whole point is maintaining a basic realistic stance to it. Sena being able to run extremely fast in Eyeshield 21 or Sakuragi managing to have monstrous stamina and jump high in Slam Dunk didn't ruin the story.

And friendship no jutsu... find me one sports shonen that don't have this. Any respectable sports shonen series, no matter how un-cliche it tries to be, falls back to the good and tried method of 'team friendship dynamic' which is the bread and butter of every sports series.

I thought it was pretty bad, though that may be because i'm not all that into sport mangas. The thing that got to me most had to be the art, it was so poorly drawn, and it didn't seem like it's suited for sports manga at all. I thought that the quality of art would be better than naruto's, seeing as Kishi took a break and all.

Story was so so, but didn't care for the art at all. At least that soccer one's art wasn't horrid. Maybe they should exchange things and it be a winner...

That's why i put it in first place :heh:


I always had the feeling about Captain Tsubasa as an example of poor frienship no jutsu (yeah, you have some, but that wasn't the focus).

Well, those are just my impressions, i am not saying that are the ultimate analysis :D

Got around to reading this. Can't say that I was very impressed though. The story doesn't feel very... engaging, if that's the word. And what's worse, the art used is below Kishi's usual standard, making even more meh.

Overall, can't say that this encourages me to try out whatever Kishi's going to make after Naruto is finished...

Good... Nothing more to say... Not great, not bad, just good.

Maybe it's because I'm comparing it with Naruto, but...

Seems like Kishi is obsessed with the rival archtype.