Creative Staff:
Story/Art: Hiroki Endo
Translation: Adam Hirsch
Lettering: Daniel Park
Editing: Sarah Tilson
What They Say:
High schooler and budding Shooto mixed martial arts fighter, Meguru Takayanagi, reunites with his old friend from grade school, Takashi Segawa, in the ring for the first time in seven years. However, while the two used to be good friends, due to the difference in their upbringings, Takashi now sees Meguru as an enemy. Without a moment of joy to commemorate their reunion, the old friends’ match begins… Eden’s own Hiroki Endo brings you a new tale of Shooto, MMA, and youth!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I’ll begin by saying that sports anime (and, by extension, sports manga) tend to start fairly slowly. Both main characters, the titular Meguru and his best friend from childhood, Takashi, seemingly have their goals set as of the end of this volume, but not much is being acted upon that as of yet. In another manga, I might be frustrated knowing it hasn’t gone very far from its beginning, and even wasted an opening chapter on largely monologuing, but knowing this is sports, I give it lenience.
All-Rounder Meguru seemed to be off to a very rough start at its beginning, with a talk-y first chapter. I didn’t know what to expect from the manga from the start, having never heard of it before Kodansha’s announcement. Its first chapter did not instill confidence in me either… It’s overly monologue-y, telling us Meguru and Takashi’s entire backstory instead of showing us through a few chapters more.
Its next seven chapters (the rest of the volume) square things nicely with me. It mostly focuses on Meguru and his introduction into the world of Shooto. His introduction is largely accidental, mostly the result of his own competitiveness with a fellow classmate in the general MMA class that occurs before the pro one he attends. But he’s growing into this role as someone who might want to venture into this professionally. This is where I’m talking about it being slow…that’s about as far as the manga gets in terms of character intent for Meguru. He might want to do MMA professionally, and also he wants to connect back with Takashi, who is being tsundere toward Meguru.
Takashi, on the other hand, wants only revenge for his father, which is learned really late into the volume (no complaints here about that placement, though; it worked out really well considering he’s a secondary character right now). The twist is that he learned the man he wants to take revenge on has already been killed in jail, which is where the first volume ends. He’s lost the purpose he had, now not knowing what he should do next.
The art for this manga isn’t spectacular, but it is pretty good. There’s A LOT of line work in this, both to convey motion and shadows. It gives the manga, which depends on the reader’s perception of motion, a good movement about it.
I’m not too big of a fan of the price tag, which is the same as if it were a physical book. Even a buck or two off the cover price would make it a bit more tolerable since it is digital, but I won’t complain too much since sports manga is being published at all.
In Summary:
This is a solid first volume for All-Rounder Meguru. The problem with sports manga is mostly that I want to hardline the entire series, and I just can’t because it’s not all out (in English) yet! (The manga ran from 2008 through 2016 in Japan and, based off my Amazon Japan-ing, has 19 volumes total.) I hope Kodansha continues with at least these digital versions, but I’ll always be clamoring for a physical version.
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: Kodansha Comics via Comixology
Release Date: March 7, 2017
MSRP: $10.99