Eyeshield 21: Volume 37: Ready Set Hut

by Riichiro Inagaki (story) and Yusuke Murata (art), 194 pages

The Devilbats conclude their championship game with the Americans and, regardless of the final score, everybody wins. Warm fuzzies and laughter wrap up this final volume in the series (and, one imagines, carry over into the lovable characters' happy, football-filled futures). :)

Pop on over to NoFlyingNoTights for a review of the full series.

Eyeshield 21: Volume 36: Sena Vs. Panther

by Riichiro Inagaki (story) and Yususke Murata (art), 190 pages

The game against the American's is underway. The Deimon boys have trained and pushed themselves physically and psychologically for this day, knowing their opponents to be the kings of the sport. Will the Devil Bats be able to surpass a team as talented and crafty as themselves?

How can there be only one of these left? *sigh* I fear this arc will be a little too compressed and the ending abrupt, given the more relaxed pace of the series up to now. Oh, well. I hope Inagaki and Murata took a nice break before starting on their next projects (I hope they have next projects, as I got so happily attached to this one). I want the boys to trounce those who need trouncing and then go celebrate shared awesomeness with those opponents who are truly worthy (which, given the happy sportsmanship vibe of the series, is most of them). :)

Eyeshield 21: Volume 35: The World Is Mine

by Riichiro Inagaki (story) and Yususke Murata (art), 213 pages

The Deimon boys haven't rocketed to the top without drawing some attention and so find themselves being recruited for Japan's team in the football World Cup. Sena and Monta join up with former rivals to scout around and build the best team possible in order to take on those most powerful of opponents and the inventors of the game--the Americans. But first they'll have to take on the international competition....

Part of me thinks this series should have wrapped up after the Christmas Bowl. And part of me loves the characters so much that I don't care, as long as I get the chance to watch them be their hilarious, inspiring, awesome selves just a little longer. Besides, seeing Agon the selfish jerk get his head shaved--and his sportsman's fire ignited--by a crazy Militarian kinda made my day. :P

Eyeshield 21: Volume 34: The Last of the Deimon Devil Bats

by Riichiro Inagaki (story) and Yususke Murata (art), 211 pages

Time is running out for the Christmas Bowl dream the boys have been chasing for the last year. The tense, all-out push-and-pull up and down the field has reached a fever pitch. With mere seconds on the clock, can the Devil Bats prove to themselves, as well as to every other witness on this snowy day, that they've earned their place on the turf?

With Eyeshield 21, it's not just about the win. (Although, as Hiruma and his arsenal will tell you, the win is very, very important.) It's about constantly re-evaluating yourself and the situation and striving to be the best you can possibly (or impossibly) be. Complacency will get you nowhere. And that's why, even in the face of imminent failure, the Devil Bats refuse to let their fire go out, choosing instead to learn from every play, redrawing their limits, and surprising the pants off the competition. Their faith in themselves, and in one another, is far too great to let a little thing like statistical probability get in their way.

While it's satisfying to finally arrive at the outcome of the Christmas Bowl, I'm also sad to see the Devil Bats family have to adapt to graduations and absences. Where will they all go now? With only three volumes remaining in the series, we'll hopefully get a little off-the-field time to wrap things up and say a proper farewell as they all fly off into their futures. But they'd better stay in touch!

Eyeshield 21: Volume 33: The Devil's Mistake

by Riichiro Inagaki (story) and Yususke Murata (art), 196 pages

The Christmas Bowl is well underway and the defending champs, just as their ace running back predicted, are trouncing the upstart competition. But the Devil Bats have a history of being comeback kings. With Hiruma's leadership and everyone pushing themselves to the limit, will the Deimon boys be able to make up the point-deficit in time?

Hiruma throws so many incomplete Hail Mary passes that the floating image of the Virgin Mother they generate over the field starts to look nervous and duck out of the ball's way. But when Monta, the Devil Bat's ace receiver and all around monkey, finally completes a super special sneaky long pass, he immediately terms it a "Hail Satan Laser" and finishes a play that leaves their rivals, and the stands, gaping in shock. The boys may take their time finding viable workarounds to get through the "impenetrable" opposing offense, but they're nothing if not determined.

Eyeshield 21: Volume 32: Christmas Bowl

by Riichiro Inagaki (story) and Yususke Murata (art), 189 pages

Three things to know here:

1. Eyeshield 21 is all about football.
2. Football bores me to no end. Its only role in my life is as background noise to food-induced comas on Turkey Day.
3. I wish I owned the entire run of Eyeshield 21.

That's the short version. Here's the long one (with apologies for unchecked squee):

Shorty Sena has lived his whole young life protected by his big-sisterly neighbor Mamori, but when he gets to high school he decides he needs to man up and make a fresh start. As he shops around for a suitable club to join, he attracts the attention of some bullies, a species with which he sadly has much experience, having run enough forced errands and run away from enough confrontations to have developed his natural instincts for speed and coordination--gifts he's only ever seen as bully buffers. But as fate should have it, his latest successful mad dash through a bustling crowd has been observed by one with a great appreciation for those "golden legs"...and who has no intention of letting them get away from him.

Senior quarterback Hiruma is a mad, crafty young man with a dream. He and his gentle giant of a lineman, fellow senior Kurita, want more than anything to get into the Christmas Bowl. But to do that, they need a proper team, and not just the usual substitutes Hiruma "recruits" (via blackmail and / or large automatic weapons) from other clubs for game days. What he needs is a secret weapon....

And so, poor Sena finds himself the third member of the Deimon Devil Bats. To keep his identity secret from any rival sports clubs that might try to steal him away (and from over-protective Mamori, who would make him quit if she knew), Hiruma has Sena just pretend to be the team manager but wear a tinted visor and go by the name "Eyeshield 21" whenever he takes the field as a running back, á la Clark Kent. Coins flip, whistles blow.

And that's it. The boys play football. Of course, it's football with no foul rules. And hyperbole manifests as reality on a regular basis. And time-clocks must run in an alternate dimension to accommodate all the analysis from the stands and internal monologues on the field. But it's all part of the fun. They play, they train, they win, they lose, they learn. They dodge bullets and hang out in their ever-expanding club room. New players, each with unique skills and a personality to match, are recruited. Teammates become friends, feared rivals become respected mentors, and the once insignificant underdogs become a force to be reckoned with.

By this volume, the Devil Bats have made it to the center stage they've striven toward for so long. Pairing up with their counterparts from past opposing teams, the boys train up to the last moment as Hiruma shouts from his duck-taped Segue / oxygen tank combo (he's trying to speed-heal a broken arm--don't ask). Then, before they know it, it's kickoff time.

Unpredictable. Laugh-out-loud hilarious. Embarrassingly moving (I once teared up in the middle of Good Year while waiting for them to replace a blow-out--me, trying not to cry, over a football manga, in the tire shop). And drawn with such finesse that the reader can identify individual lead characters from their hands alone.

Eyeshield 21 may not make me much more excited about real world football, but it has made me cackle at the television as I think how much more fun it would be if the Devil Bats were to take the field instead (I wouldn't want the RL players to stay--they'd only get hurt). What would Hiruma do?--I would give up pie to see that. Pie.