Major

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The story of Major follows the life of Goro Honda, from kindergarten to being a professional baseball player, seeking and overcoming tremendous challenges.
As far as i know this might probably be the only or one of the very few manga that you can actually follow a character from 5 years old to high school to adulthood to the Major League(as you could see by the manga name) he becomes in the end a man with his own family and children, the way we follow Goro was truly a one of a kind experience, in the end it feels like you gained friends someone you will ... never forget at least that's how it was for me, one if not the best sports manga out there.

I'm a slow reader, i'm lazy when it's about reading something but i finished the manga in 12 days which for me is truly fast, even after watching the anime 2 times i still got addicted to the manga to the point i didn't want to stop reading, the drama of real life tragedies, the willpower to keep going, the amazing battles between athletes, despair, happiness, you get everything you can think of in this manga so as you can see the story is just amazingly perfect.

The Art is very solid and pleasing to see, does get a little sloppy in the first volumes at certain times, however, it is well done during important parts, especially during games with amazing detail that you can even see the bat pieces when it breaks, and in the last volumes the art is just perfect, characters are also very well draw.

Characters, the character development that Major has is a lot of focus on developing relationships within the team, is family and how problems arise and are solved among them. The characters are all very likable, developed with past, present and future and its fun to watch them interact with each other, there are also a few issues which come up within Goro's family and it shows how he as a child, handles them. I found certain scenes to be quite touching and others to be abuse and bulling of Goro, for real the poor guy can't catch a break.

So Overall I enjoyed this so much, it's my favorite sports manga and anime and everything that may become in the future, i'm a FANBOY :P, i totally recommend this, or better saying i totally recommend people to force everyone else to read/watch this one way or another, this is definitely that one manga everyone should read.

I was shocked to see that this gem only has 1 review.This manga has 747 chapters and it was one hell of a ride. I am a massive fan of Cross game and if you are too, definitely give this one a try. This is also not your generic sports manga.

The main character's name is Honda Goro. He's born with the talent to pitch and he's pitching will definitely make you want to see more and more of it.

The character development is probably one of the best part of this manga. As you go more into the manga, you will be able to see how ... much he has grown and how badass he becomes. He destroys his opponents and shocks them one by one. You will feel sad, happy and all kinds of emotions. The romance is pretty alright.

That's about it and remember I read this manga after watching the anime and I still enjoyed it. Sure, I enjoyed Cross game more but Cross game is a masterpiece in my opinion so yeah. If you don't wanna read the manga, go for the anime.

Hello MAL, Is moOnday here and Welcome to my first ever review.
I'll do my very best to try to breakdown all the aspects I've gathered from this manga, in a very unbiased and easy to follow fashion. It might be a little bit sloppy, but as mentioned earlier on. This is my first time so be gentle with me.

Might be the wrong approach, but I'll put this manga in contrast with Ashita no Joe since I feel this manga took Major inspirations from it.

Story/Plot
With Major we have a sports manga based around Baseball. We follow the journey of Honda/Shigeno Gorou. A baseball "prodigy" who ... eats, sleeps, breaths and craps Baseball through and through.
There's nothing much to it, is really as straightforward and simple as that.
My biggest problem with the Manga is that it's too shounen. Way too much.
I'll try to explain further in the character analysis section.

Art
A positive aspect in the series, and probably my favorite. Throughout the manga we have decent to average panels. Not that many details, yet the panels are filled with some clean and easy to the eyes drawings and very little blank spaces.
The highlights are on the action sequences if we can call it that. The level and amount of effects put into the sequence of pitches, running, batting along with the angles presented, it makes up for a very enjoyable and entertaining reading experience.

Character
Earlier I stated that the series is too Shounen. It could be a problem/influence of it's time since it came out around mid 90's, however around the same period there were mangakas that tried to deviate from this pattern. So, I can't really tell if it's the time period influence or just the mangaka storytelling/cup of tea. So it is what it is.

Our MC Honda Gorou who later on became Shigeno Gorou is your typical OP shounen protagonist. He has a high on challenge so his Baseball journey resolves around him challenging stronger and stronger opponents as the story proceeds. Also known as the "static character"
Nothing wrong with that. However, my biggest problem with this is that every single character is completely useless and nonexistent next to him. The manga tries to throw in a few faints here and there about companionship and teamwork, but is only to show how better our MC is compared to the rest of the cast. I mean, Baseball is a team sport therefore he needs teammates right, too bad those teammates are simply NPC and the MC does everything by himself.

He looks, poses, acts just like Yabuki Joe from Ashita no Joe and is just as cocky. Gorou is very arrogant, egocentric, bad mouthed, and stupid for no reason. Although not my go to type of character traits, is not enough to stop me from enjoying a story.
Just like Joe himself, Gorou has an unbending iron will and does what he wants. He goes on to challenge stronger opponents to feed his massive ego (played as testing his abilities ) , does not care about being in the spotlight, and always, I mean ALWAYS gets his way. Even though the said opponents are far more experienced than him, but due to his "hard work" and his "ability to evolve fast" he ends up clearing every challenge just as he intended to.

SPOILERS ZONE
He got into Baseball from a very young age thanks to his father a pro Baseball player. At age 5 he already was something to lookout for.
Around 9 he did pretty good against grown ups. Like, guys that looked they were around 20's or even much older. Not sure if it was a drawing mistakes, but some of those guys had mustache and beards. So I dunno.

The only stable character in the story was his said rival but not so rival Toshiya Sato. Someone he dragged into baseball when he was 5 cause he did not wanted to play catch alone.
SPOILER ZONE

Enjoyment
At first I was bothered by how fast paced the story progressed. But later on it became a positive aspect to me, cause the story had not much to offer so it made for an easy and not so stressful reading.
There no stakes at all, at least from my point of view. I mean, we usually have an idea that the MC will take the win at the end and then move along to the next phase. However, this manga did not even try to make things hard so it ends up being a very boring and unclimactic experience.

Overall
This was pretty okay. I've read up to 300 chapters or so which is about half of it. I actually considered dropping it much earlier, but I stuck trough it cause I was hoping for a change of pace since I was told on twitter that is actually a good manga, and since I loved Daiya no Ace I had to be a bit more patient with it. But I've seen more than enough. I can see why some people like it, but is not what I look for and want to see from a story.

Is just your typical sports manga. Very baseball centered, there's some comedy here and there. No romance involved, it tries to add in some drama here and there but nothing really too serious.
I could be wrong here since I did not finished it and there's even a part 2 lol, but this Major manga is basically Gorou vs The World, and following the pattern of the 300 something chapters I've read, is not hard to guess who'll come on top.

Thanks for reading and hoping it was somewhat usefull.