Real: Volume 6

by Takehiko Inoue, 212 pages

Tomomi inspires his detached coworkers to appreciate and live in the now. And when he's not working, he's hanging out with Togawa and the Tigers, making noise on the bench and shooting layups while they take breathers as they prepare for the preliminaries for the Tokyo Regional Tournament.

Takahashi, however, is having a hard time moving forward at all. When the hospital calls in his long-absent father to take him out for a few days, the reunion is painful and awkward. Father and son will have to work through a lot of past baggage and present uncertainties if their relationship is going to find any measure of healing.

Tomomi serves both as a well-defined character in himself and as an "in" for the uninitiated reader as he makes Togawa and the guys explain the points system in wheelchair basketball. I like that he is neither their mascot nor their coach. He's just a friend and a fan and sees no difference between them and himself, except that maybe they have a little clearer vision of where their path is heading--in this case, the tournament. And they quickly learn to see him with the same clarity.

In contrast, Takahashi can't accept Tomomi's criticism yet without feeling the gap in their circumstances, but at the same time he needs people who won't let him off the hook. When he's a jerk, he needs to be told. When he's giving up, he needs a slap upside the head. And when he's breaking down in tears as he is in the last chapter, he needs someone to listen to and acknowledge and cry along with him. I hope when the next volume comes, we'll see that his father, who obviously loves him despite having once walked away from the family, has learned a few hard-won lessons in the intervening years and is able to do all those things for his son...and for himself.

So good, so good, so good.