Giant Killing

A manga about a former ace soccer player, Takeshi Tatsumi, who becomes the coach at his the club he once abandoned, East Tokyo United. ETU is one of the weakest teams in the league but Tatsumi takes out stronger opponents with his “giant killing”.

When I discovered this manga I immediately checked to see if giant killing was real. After learning that it is I dove into this series and found it really engaging. It was exciting to see the usual dramatic approaches to sports applied to professional adult players. There’s a great adversarial dynamic between Tatsumi, his players, and even the local fans. Everything builds up but gets resolved nicely.

Giant Killing is well written underdog story by Masaya Tsunamoto and Tsujitomo has really distinct looking characters that look great. It’s a long running series but definitely worth checking out. Available in English from Kodansha Comics.

~dakazu