#this one mostly ended up being me just gushing abt eyeshield but eh

[beansterpie]

ES21 japanese volumes part 2/??

< part 1 || part 3 >

Thanks for the warm reception on part 1! Honestly wasn't expecting anyone other than me and maybe a couple of friends to read, so it's nice to know that people enjoyed it! Also @blaka-smoko provided me with a link to scans of the VIS translation here-- it has up to volume 29 I believe for anyone interested (you'll have to make an account on the site to borrow the volumes though! but it's all free)

Now, to pick up where we left off--

Sena has just managed to escape the bullies, but they're in pursuit. He ends up running into a busy shopping street, where Hiruma, Sena's demonic upperclassman, happens to witness the following...

(First page -> Kuroki: "Alright! I caught...")

I love these pages sm, they're SO silly. This is the beginning of 'these kids might as well have superpowers', and I love that for them. And to be perfectly honest, I think the extra dramatic action scenes make for a really engaging sports manga, which is a genre where I tend get very bored of the whole, you know, Sports™ of it all. But ES21 always keeps me really engaged during the matches, and the super dynamic art is definitely one of the reasons.

Putting the rest under a cut!

I think I'm just gonna go ahead and post the next few pages because I love this bit lol

(Panel 3 -> Juumonji: "Shit-!" Kuroki: "I SAID MOVE!!!" Old Man: "That hurts you BRAT"

Panel 4 -> Hiruma: "That cut...." (note that the kanji here is 走り方 which is pronounced ha-shi-ri-ka-ta and means 'way of running' or 'running style', but the romaji says カット (ka-tto) which is just the English 'cut' as a loanword. I told you Hiruma does this a lot!))

Love how they somehow make Sena navigating a crowd really well into something so cool lol. But I love this entire segment.

(Panel 2 -> Togano: "Aaallright, now sto--"

Panel 4 -> Togano: "--p??"

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "Whoa, a spin!"

Panel 6 -> The Bullies: *sounds of struggle and pain*)

(Panel 1 -> Sena: "Hiieeee-- (this is just a sound of anxiety he makes a lot) It's no good--!!"

Panel 2 -> Hiruma: "No, you can make it"

Panel 4 -> Hiruma: "With your legs, you can make it!"

Panel 6 -> Hiruma: "FLY!" (also means 'jump', but fly feels more apt))

TOUCHDOWN!!! (of getting on the train yayyy!)

I just love this whole segment-- how good the art is, how intense and dynamic and fun they managed to make a simple chase scene, how it works so well with the football visuals that Hiruma is laying over Sena's movements in his mind, Hiruma's weird omniscient presence cementing itself into the narrative lol. Properly introducing the One Thing™ that Sena is crazy good at to the audience, and that is running (usually away from something lmao).

(Panel 2 -> Juumonji: "GUHO!?" (sound of surprised pain)

Panel 3 -> Hiruma: "Toooouchdooooown! Ya-ha--!")

I love him your honor.

ANYWAY onto the next day!

(Panel 1 & 2 -> Kurita: "Oh that's right! Yesterday, a new member joined the club!" Hiruma: "Ooohhh, I actually found someone too."

Panel 3 -> Hiruma: "Truly a golden-legged Running Back. He was so full of spirit that he approached me directly, saying that he wanted to join."

Panel 4 -> Kurita: "Wow-- amazing! Good job finding him, Hiruma!"

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "He should be here already"

Panel 6 -> Hiruma: "K, now fill out the application form~" Kurita: "S-SENA-KUN!!?")

The audacity of Hiruma casually and blatantly lying that Sena joined of his own volition lol. He just lies because it's fun, why not? 😂 Also, when Hiruma says 'running back', it just says "RB" with furigana that says ランニングバック, which is 'running back' as a loan word lol.

(2nd pic -> Kurita: "Whoa number 21! The eyeshield is so cool!" Hiruma: "If we don't hide his face like this during matches, it'll start an all-out-war among the other sports teams.")

Lol I love how shrimpy Sena is <3 In the fan-scans, the idea that the other sports clubs would try to get at Sena wasn't really mentioned until the Cupids match, so I figured I'd include it. Also Hiruma looks SO NORMAL in the first couple of chapters lol, he just increasingly gets more spiky and demonic as the story progresses, and I love that for him, but seeing little babyfaced Hiruma is fun too.

(Panel 1 -> Sena: "But I'm the manager~~!!" Hiruma: "Then, player-and-manager. do both"

Panel 2 -> the posters say: "Stay away from him -- Or the mosaic comes off")

Mosaic meaning the blurred out bits, obv. I feel like there's certain lines from Hiruma where the translation doens't quite capture the like... cavalier command with implicit threat he has in Japanese lol.

Also I get this slight vibe from his Japanese dialogue that Hiruma is like, funny lol. There's more of a deliberate sense of set up and pay off when he talks, which I get a kick out of.

Finally, end of chapter one 😂 the fuck is brevity?

Bit of an aside, but something I never noticed before about this pic of Sena's room is that he seems to collect figures of some kind? And he has a lot of games (or possibly anime) in the tv cabinet. I know in the pilot chapter (which I might post about separately sometime), Sena was characterized as A Gamer™, but that seems to have largely been abandoned in the actual series. It's fun to see the lingering remnants of that aspect of Past-Sena lol.

Moving on to chapter 2!

(Mamori: "The American Football Club!?")

(Panel 1 -> Mamori: "But American Football is... You shouldn't pick something so dangerous!")

Regarding panel 2, there isn't a mistranslation really, but I wanted to point out-- because it's fucking hilarious-- that Mamori uses four separate words that all essentially mean weak and feeble to describe Sena 😭 She's like "--because Sena is (physically) weak, insubstantial, fragile, and The Weakest™!"

Sena: "Y, you don't have to go that far...."

She really didn't 😔 how's a bitch supposed to come back from that...

Then of course Sena reassures her that he's just the shumu/manager (whatever), and won't actually be playing in matches, which she is very relieved to hear.

(Mamori: "Huh? But then why are you here so early in the morning?

Sena: "A meeting about club management!!")

Oh Sena :')

Cut to:

(Hiruma: "Come now, it's morning practice!!!"

Sena: "ALL LIES~~!!")

Soon, soon Sena, you will learn. But man look at the unbridled joy on our demon spawn captain's face <3 we love a chaotic gremlin.

Just wanted to gush a little about how much I love Murata's establishing shots, especially this one. Gives such an excellent vibe of early morning at a school before most students are present-- plus over the course of the series you end up getting such a good sense of the overall layout of the school!

(Panel 1 -> Kurita: "Well-- you know how we haven't had three people since the formation of the club? I was just so happy that I had to wake up early"

Panel 2 -> Kurita: "I was so amped up that I've been at it since 2am!" Hiruma: "An idiot, there's an idiot here.")

All told basically the same as the fan-scans, but I think the Japanese version slyly implies the existence of Musashi a little better. I always wonder with these things just how much of the back stories were hashed out-- like was Musashi's design already established? When we see him for the first time later (unbeknownst to us) did the creators already know That Guy was Musashi? Questions, questions...

(Panel 1 -> Sena: "That was close! I was about to join in on practice without realizing!" Hiruma: "Right, guess we should go through everything once, starting with the ladder."

Panel 2 -> Hiruma: "Since we've got newbies present and all." Sena: "Hiiieeeee!" (he's like a small dog, he whimpers when he's scared)

Panel 3 -> Kurita: "Ah wait. Actually my neck kind of hurts. I think I might call it quits after doing a 40 yard dash or something."

Panel 4 -> Hiruma: "40 yard dash, huh? It's been a while. Alright, let's measure our times.")

K-Kurita.... your head looks like it's gonna pop off.....

(Panel 2 -> Hiruma: "Time?"

Panel 3 -> "Kurita Ryokan: 40 yard run: 6.5 seconds"

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "This fucking fatty!! What morning practice, you've gotten slower than before!!" Kurita: "I can't help it, I'm already tired--!!")

@blaka-smoko mentioned this in their reblog on the last post, but Hiruma preludes all his nicknames with 糞 (ku-so) which means like, shitty, but the furigana says ファッキン which is just "fucking" as a loan word lol. So all his nicknames canonically and literally start with the English word "fucking". Fucking chibi, Fucking monkey, Fucking manager, etc, etc. The official VIS version changed this to 'damn', which is nothing but a damn shame lol. Let Hiruma say fuck!! He's literally already saying it!!

(Panel 1 -> Hiruma: "Alright, watch how it's done!" Sena: "!? So fast!!"

Panel 4 -> "Hiruma Yoichi: 40 yard run: 5.1 seconds"

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "Ya-ha-! That's my best time!!" Sena & Kurita: "Whoa--!!")

He's so fucking spiky!! And I love how expressive their physical movements are, like Hiruma's little twist in the last panel is so fun.

The first three panels are basically accurate, (though in panel two, Hiruma is like "What's that? You want to run so bad you can barely contain it?" which made me chuckle) but panels 4 & 5 are different.

(Panel 4 -> Kurita: "But, isn't it weird? If he's that fast (and he uses 爆速 (ba-ku-so-ku) which means like, explosive speed) I think he would have been famous in middle school."

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "Hmm... now that you mention it.... Well, we'll know for sure once we measure his time.")

I like that Kurita points out something to Hiruma that he didn't consider! These early chapters gives a bit more of a feel of Hiruma and Kurita's friendship imo, before there's more characters that the story needs to focus on, and the two of them solidly enter the Senpai™ realm among their teammates.

Of course, then Sena runs and gets 5.0 seconds, which is already fastest on their little team! But Hiruma isn't satisfied with that....

The fan-scans are aaaalmost right? But confused. It makes it sound like Hiruma is quoting something Sena said/wrote down in the past (that he somehow aquired as Hiruma is wont to do), and then the line in panel 3 just doesn't make sense. In Japanese, it comes across more as like, Hiruma looks up some records of Sena on his laptop, and the rest is him putting together an analysis based off of that.

(Panel 1 -> Hiruma: "In Kobayakawa Sena's middle school physical endurance records-- he came first only in Repetitive Sideways Hopping."

Panel 2 -> Hiruma: "Must be due to the explosive power that you built through your gopher-ing... which is how you have that rocket-start. But you immediately lose speed, which is why you never make any records in a footrace.

Panel 3 -> Hiruma: "So all we have to do is make sure you don't lose speed."

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "CERBERUS!!!")

BEST BOY BEST BOY BEST BOY!!!

This is basically correct, so I used the scans for visual clarity because taking good pics of a double page spread is hard :')

anyway RUN BOY RUN!! Also love Hiruma's little fist pump in the last panel. Murata being awesome with gestures as usual.

(Panel 1 -> Hiruma: "This is beyond high school records! It's the top speed in the NFL! Nobody can stop this!"

Panel 2 -> "The Golden Legs!!")

I don't know if it's true that 4.2 sec is the NFL record (at least at the time) or not, and frankly I don't care. Within the context of this series, 4.2 secs is the speed of light, and Sena's got it!

I've always liked that Sena's got this glass canon thing going on-- OP in terms of speed only, extremely weak in every other regard. It's funny and unexpected in a shounen protagonist, and it makes for a very satifying arc, even if there aren't any surprises. I actually in part got into B.N.H.A . waaay back in 2014 because Deku reminded me of Sena (well, I got into it because I'd read the artist's previous manga and was curious, but Deku reminding me of Sena is what made me stay (well, until I left again a couple years later lol)). Point is, I'm very fond of Sena, I think he's fun!

Oof I wanted to squeeze in one more pic but I'm at the limit already lol. But chapter 2 ends with excitement all around-- and Hiruma says that they'll be winning the Spring Tournament. (Sena imagines himself as the manager and boy, after all that you still think you're just gonna be the manager? 😭)

Of course this is when Hiruma informs them that the first match is tomorrow lol. A team with 3 players. Good luck!

That's all for part 2-- hope y'all enjoy my ramblings!

#eyeshield 21 #es21 #eyeshield 21 japanese readalong #this one mostly ended up being me just gushing abt eyeshield but eh #that's how it is sometimes!! sometimes I don't have intelligent thoughts only !!! wow!!! this is so great!!! wow!!!!