Rebound Harlem Beat vol

Rebound Harlem Beat vol

Sapporo has become overrun with thousands of student athletes all thirsting for the chance to come out victorious in Japan's National Basketball Championships. Representing Tokyo in the competition, The Jonan High School varsity basketball team has beat the odds in getting there and won't leave without the pennant. But they'll soon learn that playing against the kids in their neighborhood pales in comparison to the kind of game the thugs and pros at the championships will give them. Right off the plane, they find themselves staring down the nostrils of the Kyan Marine Industry team, a burly collection of tanned rough necks who plan on knocking off any team that stands in their way. But Jonan has heart, they have determination and, with a little luck, this team might just do Tokyo proud . as long as they don't get distracted by the tourists spots, the shopping and the girls schools!

The ReviewThe cover artwork is an original one done by Tokyopop which is a collage of artwork from the manga of 4 characters in the midst of playing basketball. It definitely advertises the sport but it feels cheaply pieced together, which is too bad since the original Harlem Beat release carried over the original Japanese covers. The English logo is across the top in blue letters and a highly stylized font that looks like graffiti artwork. The Tokyopop stripe is long the right side. The stripe and the spine have a background of the texture of a basketball. It evident that Tokyopop was trying to make this title seem more hip and basketball focused, but I would have really liked to see the original color character cover art.

There is a page in the beginning that summarizes what happened in the previous volumes of Harlem Beat. It pretty lengthy and offers a good summary of first 12 volumes of Harlem Beat for those who did not read them. The chapter headers are present with Nishiyama artwork and funny commentary, but the Harlem Beat logo has been replaced by the new Rebound version. There is an array of different designs and personalities present and are done with nice detail. The boys are muscular and good looking, with some getting close to the bishounen line but not quite going over, and the girls are cute and curvy. It pretty evident that Nishiyama loves drawing her characters which is something I always enjoy seeing. The basketball action during the slam dunk contest was also done in a way that made that whole sequence quite exciting and fun to read.

There is also a lot of use of the simple superdeformed designs for a lot of characters that, while added a bit a of humor and cuteness, sort of take away from Nishiyama strength in character art and I found it to be more of a distraction. It unfortunate, but Tokyopop had to keep it consistent. The new characters that are introduced in this volume do retain their Japanese names. While this does sort of clash a bit with the other characters whose names are changed to be more American, at least it feels like no more changes are being made.

The dialogue has a lot of American basketball slang that sometimes just really stands out and feels awkward. One of the characters who has sort of an Ivy League look and is supposed to be a basketball genius and speaks very intelligently uses the term hops which just really stands out and didn fit his personality.

SFX are left untouched and not translated. I think not doing a retouch was the right decision here as Nishiyama tends to go a bit overboard with SFX and sprinkles them all over her panels. A retouch would have been a daunting task and would have required quite a bit of artwork to be retouched.

One thing that was a nice touch by Tokyopop is that they added small notes in the margins to help explain some characters or scenarios that would have felt awkward without reading the Harlem Beat release. This helps the reader enjoy everything that is going on in Rebound without feeling puzzled about the missing background story.

Contents (Watch out spoilers ahead):

Rebound is the to Tokyopop release of Harlem Beat, which was stopped at volume 9 and then skipped volumes 10 and 11 to be later retooled and rereleased as Rebound. So essentially, this volume of Rebound is volume 12 of Harlem Beat.

We pick up the action as the Johnan high school basketball team makes their way to Nationals at Sapporo. As they arrive they have a run in with Kynan Marine Industry, a team from Okinawa that are a bunch of selfprofessed punks with a nice tan. They look quite intimidating and Johnan finds out that they are to be their first opponents in the tournament! However, while out enjoying the sights and sounds of Johnan, Nate, Shurman, and their old street ball gang run into the Kynan punks and they decided to have a slam dunk contest in front of the crowd of spectators at the outdoor street courts.

While the slam dunk contest is pretty unrealistic (a 760behindtheback dunk!?!?!), I still had a lot of fun reading this bit of the story. The dunks are pretty exciting and the characters really get into it. The dunk contest really serves as a way to introduce the reader to the members of Kynan and helps build out their personalities, because as we all know a dunk is form of artistic expression that defines ones personality! The Kynan punks really end up being a nice bunch of guys that like all the others have something they want to prove to all of Japan here at the Nationals. For those who haven read Harlem Beat it also offers a great way to get introduced to Nate street ball team from the earlier volumes.

After the dunk contest, it time for Johnan and Kynan to begin their match. Kynan comes out very physical right out of the gates and tries to intimidate Johnan and get them off their rhythm. The basketball is definitely oversimplified but so far it not too unrealistic, unlike the slam dunk contest. It definitely explores the more strategic and high level themes of the game and sort of skips over a lot of the details. The portrayal of the sport is average compared to most of the sports manga out there. The changed title, names, and use of basketball slang might turn them off. While we get a unflipped release, it unfortunate that 2 volumes of Harlem Beat had to be skipped in order for Tokyopop to reimage and remarket this title. Again, this isn a to Harlem Beat. This IS Harlem Beat starting at volume 12.

For those wondering if Rebound could be enjoyed without reading the original Harlem Beat release, I would say the answer is yes. I have not read Tokyopop Harlem Beat and while there are a few growing pains, these pains are alleviated with the help of a summary page and some nice margin notes to help the reader. I also found myself already feeling pretty familiar with the large cast by the end of the volume. I definitely am missing some of the background info to help with making the characters feel more than twodimensional, but their personalities are pretty strong which makes it enjoyable.

In sports manga, the sport is really just a vehicle to help drive a lot of character drama. In this first volume of Rebound, there a myriad of different personalities with the large amount characters, and while there isn really too much drama, it fun to watch them interact with each other. There definitely a lot more attention given to the sport in this volume with the slam dunk contest and the opening game. There does seem to be a love interest in the bloom as Nate stumbles across a girl, who is a clutz in the park, who turns out to be a stellar basketball player. Nishiyama balances out the sport action with plenty of humor from her characters and superdeformed artwork. So far I am finding Rebound to be an average sports manga that is filled with a lot of fun characters.