Manga Review: Ninja Baseball Kyuma! Volume One

[Jason]

Title: Ninja Baseball Kyuma!
Volume: 1
Mangaka: Shunshin Maeda
Originally Serialized in: (Poplar Publishing Co., Ltd.)
Genre: Kodomo, Sports
Licensed by: UDON Entertainment
Price: $7.99/US

Kaoru’s baseball team is in need of a miracle. They’re facing a rematch with a tough group of sixth graders, and if they don’t win this time, then they’ll forfeit their right to the practice field. Luckily, teammate Yohko’s crystal ball shows them that their savoir lives in the mountains that surround their town. When Kaoru makes the journey to the mountains, he discovers a young ninja named Kyuma, who lives alone and trains with his ninja dog, Inui. With Kyuma’s skills, the team might have a chance to win, but only if Kaoru can teach Kyuma the basics of baseball, and fast!

UDON Entertainment, previously known for their Street Fighter titles and Korean girls’ comics, is launching a new line of manga for kids. Ninja Baseball Kyuma! is one of the first two titles in that line, aimed at elementary school readers. It’s rated for ages 7+, but shouldn’t be too babyish even for readers up to about age 11. Maeda’s sports title, like many sports manga, focuses mainly on the game, but this first volume offers enough hints that future volumes will expand upon some of the characters and their lives.


Maeda’s characters are mostly of the scrappy, plucky character type, but since that’s the type which best fits both a sports title and a ninja title, it works perfectly here. There’s a lot of discussion of honor and sportsmanship, but it manages to keep from being too preachy, mainly through the use of humor. Kyuma might be an outstanding ninja, but his grasp of baseball is nonexistent and his misunderstandings on the rules, and even the point, of the game are funny even to readers who think they don’t know much about sports.

The art is younger and slightly more old fashioned, but not terribly so, and readers who have enjoyed other manga titles for young boy readers will also like this one. Maeda likes to make use of full-page spreads, which helps highlight the dramatic portions of the game. UDON opted to completely translate the smaller sound effects, but keep the larger ones intact with an accompanying translation. They do this by overlaying the translation over part of the sound effect, which might annoy purists, but it does make the reading and the art flow much more smoothly. I reviewed this title from an advance reader copy, so I cannot speak about trim size or paper/printing quality. Having seen other titles from UDON, though, I can’t imagine that the bindings will be sub par.

I’m excited that there are now going to be more choices for kids who want manga, but who aren’t quite ready to move up to the titles their older brothers and sisters are reading. Ninja Baseball Kyuma! is a nice option for a young boy or girl wanting to read an exciting title about a sport they love, but the characters and the plot are interesting enough that even non-sports fans should enjoy it.

Reviewer: Snow Wildsmith
Proofed and Edited By Lissa Pattillo