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NBA Story Vol. ５ Japanese Publisher: Jump Comics Based on: The 1993-1994 season of the Phoenix Suns basketball franchise. |
Media | Manga | NBA Story Vol. 5
Posted by Lumber Baron | February 1, 2008
Manga-Pippen will haunt your dreams
You know that part in every manga-is-catching-on-in-the-US magazine feature where it says "And Japanese comics aren't just about superheroes! They can cover topics ranging from teen pregnancy to the underground Yugoslav synthpop scene to the Treaty of Westphalia!"? Of course, we know they're sorta bullshitting us. Obviously they cherry-pick the more outlandish examples, and you'd find American comics with plotlines just as divergent. Manga, like all media, has well-worn genres creators, publishers, and customers feel comfortable returning to time and again. Still, Japanese comics at least draw from a larger stable of mainstream genres, which makes titles that fall outside these conventions even more anomalous.
It's hard to figure out who exactly the target audience for NBA Story is. Basketball may not be fantastically popular in Japan, but it was the setting for Slam Dunk? one of the most popular series of all time, and manga has focused on sports far more esoteric. Sports are a familiar genre in manga, but the resulting works all seem to focus on rag-tag high-school students aspiring to represent their schools at Kōshien. Even series that feature actual professional teams (Dokaben?, Star of the Giants?) populate their rosters with fictional characters. It's easier to create sympathetic characters from scratch than to adapt a actual person into a narrative, especially since people tend to get picky when it comes to how you portray them. It's hard to say why a publisher would expect the manga-reading public to sympathize with a bunch of black American millionaires instead of a gaggle of teenagers from Niigata, but what do we know?
Holy crap, Patrick Ewing!
NBA Story's first chapter is a short addendum to previous installments as Michael Jordan finishes off the Lakers in the 1991 finals, wins two additional titles via montage, and has a chat with the ghost of his dad. (Uh, are we sure the players authorized these?) But the bulk of the volume is devoted to the Phoenix Suns' '93-'94 season. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the details, but just in case: Charles Barkley, fresh off a finals loss to the Bulls, has high hopes for the upcoming season, which get even better once best bud Jordan retires to slum around in baseball's minor leagues. Sure, a debilitating back injury keeps him benched for a while, but they do just fine without him, especially with the acquisition of A.C. Green, NBA record-holder for consecutive games played (1,192) and years as a virgin (38). The two clash on account Barkley's brashness, foul mouth, and tendency to incite bench-clearing brawls, but after seeing how good he is with the kids and how much pain he's playing through Green comes around just in time for the team to lose to Houston in seven. Barkley comes home to receive a cardboard replica of the championship trophy from his young daughter and learns the the true meaning of love while they hug in front of one of those manga backgrounds made out of lens-flares and flowers. Curtain.
From the onset, it's clear the creators are intimately familiar with their subject. Contributor Yoko Umeda is a journalist who covers the US sports beat, and details gleaned from her firsthand knowledge rings true to an American sports fan. The comic demonstrates an appreciation for the game and carries a confidence in the material developed by a close relationship with the world depicted. Even tiny details demonstrate how at ease the authors are with the setting. The pious Green is shown in church, Suns players ride in a bus operated by Tempe, Arizona-based America West Airlines, and even the omnipresence of Circle-K convenience stores in Phoenix is accounted for. It makes slip-ups -- Barkley's daughter begs him to play a game clearly labeled as for the Super Famicom -- slightly more glaring, but the attention to detail and the refusal to settle for Japan-centric assumptions is refreshing.
Paul Westphal's chin looks on in admiration
Despite this, it's clear the authors don't expect their audience to appreciate any of this. Players and teams are accompanied by short introductory paragraphs detailing their significance. Sure, a minor star like Dan Marleje could use an introduction, but when the author has to explain who Larry Bird is you can tell he doesn't have much confidence in the reader's basketball knowledge. When a Stay in School event is used as the backdrop for a pivotal scene, a full third of a page is used to explain what the hell Stay in School even is. Though to be fair, the idea of a promotional program to convince children not to drop out of school might be so unfathomable to the average Japanese citizen that a little hand-holding is in order.
But maybe it all works in the authors' favor. Reality did all the heavy lifting in creating the characters and plot, and the audience doesn't know the event in question well enough to skip the manga on account of already knowing how it ends. Sure, the events are depicted as they transpired, but you'll notice they chose not to represent the season's champion. The Suns may have made a second-round exit in the playoffs, but they're a hell of a lot more interesting than the eventual champion Rockets. Barkley, with his swagger, his career-threatening injury, and his close personal relationship with Jordan, makes for a great (i.e. familiar) comic protagonist. The rest of the Suns' roster fills out a generic sports team rather nicely: straight man Green, crafty veteran Danny Ainge, mediating court-general Kevin Johnson, and overeating comic relief Oliver Miller fit snugly into familiar archetypes. Takaiwa even lets reality dictate the illustrations, some of which are lifted directly from news photographs. Though considering sometimes his humans can be off -- like in the "chromosomal abnormality" way -- maybe it's best when he's tracing over Rueters photos.
Come on people, spell check
So are Takaiwa and Umeda just hacks repackaging an existing product for their countrymen? Well, as said before, at least one of them is clearly enthusiastic about the material. If they're guilty of anything, it's writing for the wrong audience; NBA Story is really something of a vanity project. Without an appreciation for the fidelity of the representation and the players involved, the manga isn't much more than a sports comic with a bizarre setting and an Ameriphilic slant. In fact, probably the best way to appreciate the comic is as an American basketball fan who knows enough Japanese to pick up the gist of the dialog. Seeing mid-nineties NBA icons depicted in manga surrounded by speed lines and swearing in katakana is so bizarrely incongruous it's fascinating. The bizarre licensing agreements that must have taken place alone are intriguing. It's essentially a curio, but it's a sincere one and oh my GOD are you still reading this article!? Really? You couldn't fill a Volkswagon with the amount of people who would be interested in this comic. I thought I lost everyone around paragraph three. Yikes, you must be really intent on contributing to the issue's discussion thread. Okay, fine, I'll read your article too, we'll call it even. Geez.