Shakariki!

Masahito Soda, writer/artist

Published by Akita Shoten

18 volumes from 1992-1995. This big one probably includes 3 or 4 regular volumes.

458 pages, 950 yen

This is a very big manga book, and it’s part of a serial about bike racing, and it’s got lots of very tight drawings of bikes and bike parts (wow), but it’s also not too tight, so the characters are cartoony and the action is fluid. It’s a cool biking story. What’s really cool about this volume is that just about the whole thing is one big long race that’s about as, uh, tiring to read as it would be to ride. I mean that in a good way.

There are absurdly many emotional peaks in this book, as one character sees another one ahead (!!), starts to catch up (!!!), gets spotted (!!!!), pulls ahead of him (!!!!!), everyone is shocked at the new lead (!!!!!!!)… you get the idea. But, hey, the story unfolds and it’s not too hard to catch the meaning through the pictures and enjoy it.

This book reminds me of something Paul Pope wrote on his blog a while ago, The extended cinematic sequence is one of the best gifts we’ve inherited from manga. Hm, yeah? I don’t know, sure. This is a good example of that. I definitely think it’s really cool that someone drew such a long, intense event as this and filled it so high with action and story and motion lines and enough variation that it doesn’t get monotonous or dull. To me, this book is weird and cool, and only recommended if you just love seeing stuff happen in comics. Read this when you need a break from comics about boring guys walking their dogs or jerking off in their apartment. Vavoom, whooshhhhh!!

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