Days

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Days is among one of the best sports manga that have been published and I'll do my best to explain why. I am not a big football fan but I do know the game and I really enjoy related manga. Area no Kishi and Ao Ashi are also great reads.

This manga finished end of January. I read it mostly in Japanese since English chapters are slow to come. Intermediate level is enough to understand all dialogues.

The story starts without anything spectacular with the protagonist Tsukamoto Tsukushi, weak nice guy, no skills, nothing outstanding. In contrast, deuteragonist Kazama Jin (gotta have something to do with the ... author being a fan of the Iron Fist Tournament I presume) is a genius, good looking and talented at everything he does. The story starts nicely by introducing them and how they got to be great friends at Seiseki (their high school) and how a ghost like Tsukamoto started to change day by day, thanks to his friends and his "addiction" to football.

Now the art is rather good, mostly on the realistic side but sometimes it's not up to par. It seems more cartoonish in the beginning but then gets more detailed and despite the myriads of characters popping up, it is still possible to distinguish them without giving strange hair colour. And this is great in my book.

As for the characters, that's the soul of this manga. We have Tsukamoto the weak guy with a power boost cause it's a shonen manga but his evolution is nothing crazy like his father's genetics allow him to have superpowers on the field. No, the guy is definitely hardworking, faces many hurdles, becomes disheartened and then gets back up again cause that's how you move forward. Going the distance. Kazama on the other hand is a genius and have less issues on the skills side. But nobody's perfect. Like family. Then we have Mizuki, the good looking Seiseki football team captain. The guy is an idiot, can't speak for himself and only started playing football in high school as a sub. Turns out he's a beast, genetically gifted, a powerhouse on the field and already recruited by Kashima Antlers to join them after graduation. But that's not all, there are many beasts in Seiseki: Usui a center back genius who's the vice captain, Kimishita a midfielder with supreme accuracy for freekicks or even Inohara the fearless goalkeeper. But that's only for Seiseki. Then you have other schools, Saku High which is kind of a nemesis to Seiseki, Ryouzan, Seikan... and they all have at least one beast in their team, national level pro football beast. Can't have it too easy for Seiseki.

So why such enjoyment? Because it's not over the top as a football manga. Mizuki isn't crazy strong as to score by himself against any team. There's strategy in the story, and it's strategy developed by a girl, the manager Ubukata Chikako. She wanted to be a novelist and got criticised for her work, fell down and got right back up thanks to Tsukamoto's perseverance on the field. She's got real acumen for football and spends hours watching rival games to develop something for her team, unlike the real coach who's a bit useless on this front. So you have a fairly realistic story, a bit of drama but not too much, great characters and if you like football you will surely enjoy it. Another thing on Tsukamoto: the guy has no talent for shooting but somehow becomes a forward with his friend Kazama. Now that's interesting to me.

Thanks for reading.

Story. 7/10
From seeing the cover and reading the synopsis you can get what this story is about— a bullied boy(Tsukamoto) meets a talented footballer(Kazaa) who saves him from his bullies and introduces him to football.
That’s it— a simple common plot. And therein lies its virtue of simplicity. There is no complicated plot. Just a kid who wants to improve.
Tsukamoto Tsukushi is not especially talented and has no inherited “special skills” from his father. Thank God this is not that type of shonen. He is not like Naruto and Tanjiro. Tsukushi has to Actually work hard for his gains. And he even injures himself ... work hard. I liked that realistic aspect too. Can’t overtrain in real life.
It is a simple BINGEABLE highschool football manga. A good story, just see the Seiseki High football team play again and again, long matches. It is entertaining, even though it is nothing new.



Art. 8/10
I love the art here. Just like Giant Killing, we get to see the football move across the pages with clarity. We understand most of the plays, it’s like playing FIFA.
The characters have a unique look, which is an achievement when dealing with 30+ highschool boys. Out protagonist is the most childish. Lol.



Characters. 7/10
Not very unique. I like Tsukamoto, his character growth is great. Throughout the match the mangaka zooms in on almost all the guys playing, and I really like that. We get to see the motivation these guys have. Sadly, unlike Ao Ashi this manga doesn’t go into explaining deep tactics. It focuses more on the feelings, that’s fine with me.
The characters remind me of the famous Chinese war manga— Kingdom, because of how every chapter we learn the backstory of a new guy who shows a good skill, then another new guy shows up with even more tragic backstory and shows a greater skill.
It is good that the talent vs hardwork aspect is shown well. It is shown best in the manga Ping Pong(highly recommended).



Overall. 8/10
This manga was a fun read, 360chapters done in a few days. It is not a life changing manga. There is no blood, no romance, no deep philosophy.

It is a simple highschool football manga, with inspirational training arcs, entertaining matches and a protagonist who keeps doing his best, even at his weakest points. He keeps running.
Light manga, easy to get into and highly bingeable. Recommended for all football manga lovers.

Thank you for reading!

Now i know that 10/10 is a really high score, and I’m not very confident that I’d be able to provide a constructive review, but to anyone that’s come across this series, give it a chance. Even if sports isn’t your thing or if soccer just isn’t your sport, still, give it a chance. Because, at least for me, it did not disappoint,

So, starting with the story. It’s simple, there’s a fateful meeting between two people that were, in normal circumstances, unlikely to become friends. Because of Tsukushi’s honest and hard working personality, he kept his promise to a stranger, Kazama, that helped him ... from bullies. Through Kazama, he experienced soccer, the joy of running around and playing with everyone. Then coincidentally they end up being classmates at their first year of highschool, at a prestigious school that has a great soccer team, and things take off from there.

Well not quite as easily though. Tsukushi, unlike many other sports protagonists, doesn’t have any special innate ability. I guess, his hard work and dedication to play soccer with his friends can be seen as an ability. But physically he’s weak, unfit and not even fast. Yet through his sheer will to want to RUN, he somehow motivates everyone around him and overcomes everyone telling him to basically quit on the idea of playing soccer. His climb to greatness is in no way easy, it’s very slow and some readers might even find it frustrating. But, that’s where Days does it right. Tsukushi isn’t the only focus, his isn’t the only growth we see. We see him not only influencing those around him but being influenced by the others too.

In Days, we truly see Seiseki’s strength. The ones that play in the matches, their time to shine definitely comes. Another thing about days is that similar to some sports series, we follow a team that’s already strong. We don’t see a roughly assembled team winning through adversary, we see an already established team growing even stronger, and that is just amazing. It’s just unbelievable how awesome it felt to see everyone on the team come together and not only show their existing strength, which was already pretty high, but somehow get even stronger through the matches.

It’s not easy, and they face a lot of mental turmoil along the way. But seeing Seiseki come together as such a strong team, it’s just hard to not fall for their awesomeness. All the characters have their own strengths and are so much fun to watch. The opposing teams are also great, and getting invested in them is easy. Rather it’d be hard not to like them.

The art is great. The matches are generally easy to follow as well. Visually there isn’t any issues.

Overall, i would say this is a really genuine character driven series. When they win it doesn’t feel unbelievable. It was so easy to get very emotionally invested in the series, and there was one particular moment that made me cry like a f*ckn baby. I regret not reading this series earlier, but at the same time I’m glad I remembered about it even after so many years after first watching the anime back when it aired. Hands down, at least to me, one of the best sports series ever.