Manga: Happy!

[Munsu]

Well, if you don't know by now, Naoki Urasawa is my favorite mangaka. So far I had read Monster, 20th Century Boys, Pluto, and watched the anime Yawara!! all done by him. I've just spent the whole day reading this series by him, called Happy! and I found it to be really good.

The manga may be called Happy!, but this manga is everything but happy. The main character is thrown into alot of hopeless situations in the hopes of earning enough money to support her 3 sibblings. The manga features plenty of cool characters, and one of the biggest backstabbing bitches I've ever seen. She's not killing people, but she might just rival Johan from Monster and Friend from 20th Century Boys as far as evil scheming manipulating characters go.

Anyways, many cool character interactions and a cool story to read, and a bit of tennis thrown in for good measure.

So anyone here reads this? I sure hope so, would like to discuss it with someone.

Miyuki Umino was a senior in high-school. Although Miyuki, her two younger brothers and her younger sister were poor, they were happy living together. But, one day all of a sudden her older brother's debt of 250 million yen fell upon them. To pay back the debt Miyuki quit school. What was the incredible choice she took to do this?

http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=1191

So far 8 volumes have been released, you can get them from:
http://www.mangatraders.com/files/manga/happy

[Augury]

Actually, I also read volumes 1-8 of this just a few days ago. I also agree that the series is really good, and that the title is rather misleading. Happy! deals with a lot of misfortune and struggle... the title could be renamed to be "Are you Happy?"


--story stuff below (spoilers)--


Although I read the eight volumes that are released in one go, the abundance of evil bitches in the story became a bit of a turn-off in the later volumes. I haven't read Urasawa's other works, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are characters that are easy to hate in the other stories. After seeing Choko cook up her nasty schemes chapter after chapter I feel that the mangaka wants me to want her to get caught or beat up. She fits the villian role well... the extent to how far she goes to make life miserable for Miyuki is rather extreme.

The portrayal of the masses is also a bit depressing. On the one hand there are the women that are so easily fooled and manipulated by Choko. Some of them are just plain stupid and their patheticness rubs off against the reader. On the other hand, it seems like Urasawa is making a point about at least some portion of the Japanese public (a criticism?) by their expectations of how someone should act. Some instances that come to mind are the media being angry, suspension from matches for light arguing, middle aged men desiring a cute girl, or gamblers cursing the players instead of themselves when they lose.

I think Urasawa also has a pessimistic view on people's characters as well. All (nearly all?) of the characters have flaws that are made visible throughout the story. The coaches as minor characters stand out to me in particular. They are very selfish; all of their actions are motivated by personal gain. Even her new coach, who seems to be able to actually help Miyuki, is most interested in making money off of her. After reading this far the manga makes me feel sad for many of its characters, especially since (it seems to me) Urasawa appears to be hinting that this reflection of the general public is not too far off from reality.

In any case, despite that all of the material I've written is negative, I thought this has been one of the better stories I've read and I was rather disappointed when I realized I had caught up to the current releases. I think that Urasawa did present a feeling of hope throughout the story so far that is able to hook readers into wanting more.


--end story stuff(spoilers)--


On another note, I tried uploading volume 2 to mangatraders earlier...yesterday around noon. After waiting for 3 hours after step 1 (uploading?) I gave up. Does it normally take this long? The night before I was able to upload volume 4 in about 10-20 minutes.

I already took care of the other volumes, don't worry about it.
-Budweineken

[Death BOO Z]

I read it once, from v1-6, found it nice, then my computer crashed and i never cared enough to get it again...
since it's not being released on a weekly (/du-weekly/monthly) basis and nowhere near the end, i'm going to give this one up and check it once again when it's over...

[Munsu]

Just read Happy! volume 9 chapters 86-91 that were released a couple of months ago, during the summer:


Well there was some nice plot progression, and finally in chapter 91 we see the plan Choko was molding finally come into frutition. The scene with Keiichiro's mom were good too, with him standing up for himself finally and then kissing Umino; with the lesbian seeing it. I never liked him, but it was nice to see... but I've always liked the mob dude better, so I hope Umino ends up with him. Anyways, looking forward to seeing how this new plot development concludes, and I want to see the tournament get under way... seems like we are only a week away from it.