Hand's: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes

Manga Details

• The apostrophe does not appear to serve any purpose

• Yuichi Itakura

  • Notable people they were an assistant for

    • Masashi Kishimoto (of Naruto and Samurai 8 fame)

    • Yusuke Murata (of Eyeshield 21 and One-Punch Man fame)

    • Takehiko Inoue's Real

    • Hideo Yamamoto's Ichi the Killer

  • Other works

    • Like literally one other one-shot that I can’t find enough reliable information on. Don’t worry about it. 

• Publishing

  • Run Dates: 

    • October 2nd, 2006 to December 4th, 2006

  • Series it replaced

• Nazo no Murasame-kun by Mikio Itou (3 vols, flop)

• Series that replaced it

  • Jyuki Ningen Jumbor by Hiroyuki Takei (of Shaman King and Butsu Zone fame) (1 volume, 10 chapter MEGA FLOP)

• Series that started at the same time as it

  • P2! ~let’s play pingpong~ by Tatsuma Ejiri (7 vols, did okay)

• Chapters/Volumes: 

  • 10 chapters/1 volume

About the Manga

• Plot

  • Tachibana Daigo has a gambling addict deadbeat father named Juuzou who steals his money to play pachinko in order to pay off his debt to the yakuza. He fails and sends Daigo to live with his friend Senchirou, a handball coach, and his daughter Mizuki. First though he has to deal with the dang Yakuza who want to take him hostage or kill him or something. Daigo runs away, seeing Mizuki and taking her hostage for some reason. He takes her to a bridge and she gets angry and talks about how she loves handball. He says handball is stupid so she throws a rock next to his head. The Yakuza then find Mizuki and take her hostage. Daigo says he wants to be a hero because one time a guy saved his life and jumped out of a building with him so he saves her. 

  • Daigo starts living with them and Senchirou wants him to play handball because apparently his dad was the best player ever. Daigo refuses cuz he hates his dad but changes his mind when Senchirou takes a bullet for him from the Yakuza. Senchirou stays in the hospital as Daigo goes with Mizuki to handball practice where finally, for the first time, we see some fucking handball in this handball manga. Since Senchirou is out, the evil coach, Chikako, shows up to make them all run laps and shit. Daigo has to stay to the side cuz he doesn’t know wtf handball is but jumps super high and it’s impressive. The team is split 6 on 6 but one side has Jin who’s the ace. 

  • Their first match is against Teisei who are coached by… DAIGO’S DAD???? WHAAAAAAT??? Apparently he has to win the championships to make enough money so the Yakuza don’t kill him. Just then Jin reveals that he’s betraying their team to go to Teisei. The team gets their asses kicked for a bit until Senchirou shows up, having snuck out of the hospital and rushed over. He then explains all of handball to Daigo in five seconds and sends him in to stop Jin. He manages to score a bit and then Senchirou exposition dumps about Daigo’s dad. Apparently he borrowed a lot of money to keep a handball team going which put him in debt to the yakuza. They kidnapped Daigo and he rescued him but jumped out a building and broke his legs in the process so he couldn’t play Handball anymore. Anyway they lose but Daigo made some cool plays. Flash forward 3 months and they’re in the finals but the manga is over.

• Characters

  • Tachibana Daigo

    • Mc

    • Good with handball

    • Scrappy

    • 11

    • Idiot

    • Can throw hands

    • Likes measuring things

  •  Nishioka Mizuki

    • Dads friends daughter

    • Pretty smart for a kiddo

  • Nishioka Senchirou “Uncle”

    • Forgot to get his name lmao

    • Really loves handball

    • Easily tricked

    • Really loves handball

    • Broken easily

Why it Failed - Crash

• How do you not have handball in the first chapter???

• They just keep talking about handball but not playing it

• Art is fine but the paneling feels lazy with just squares

• Seeing Daigo crossdress in underwear was…weird

• Bringing in actual guns was way too much a tone shift

What it Did Well - Jordan

• I can commend it being very character focused

• Art is good, some panels really show a nice sense of energy with the use of sketchy lines

• tone is goofy enough for what it is I lmao'd at RIP uncle at the kidnapping part

Where it Could Have Gone - Crash

• PLAY HANDBALL

• Really lean on how goofy it is, it should be more bumbling yakuza vs a kiddo

• I think this had the skeleton to be a silly gag manga about how ridiculous handball can be

Misc Thoughts

•  Man the yakuza really likes kidnaping friends of the MC don’t they

• Does the author know what Handball is?

• Why do people have giant ears?

• Fuck this would have been great to go to space as well imagine 0g handball

• If anyone wonders haiku came 6 years after this so the jumping thing isn’t a ripoff

• Maxy Bee thoughts:

  • HAND’S represents a minor shift in Weekly Shonen Jump. It had been almost three years since the last ten chapter cancellation (Haruto Umezawa’s LIVE!), and normally you’d get about two years between each cancellation that was brutal. ANYWAY, following Hand’s 10-chapter death, we got TWO MORE within a matter of weeks! A bloodlust was awoken in the Shonen Jump editorial that we could probably use again nowadays. 

  • Author Yuichi Itakura appears to have left the manga industry altogether, and now works for Dragon Entertainment, helping make TV shows

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary

  • Community

    • Tucker: Handball mostly irrelevant in handball manga | Why should we care about handball?

    • Maxybee: Apostrophe application unclear, possession or contraction?

    • AuraPaladin: Wait, this was a sports manga?

    • blahmoomoo: Heavy on violence, light on sports. | Throwing balls? More like throwing Hand's!

    • dackerson: Count the chapters on two hand's | Wins no trophy, only an apostrophe

    • Diego (The Phantom Seer): The Yakuza will never be ballin' | Yakuza has hands to ball tho

    • duderocks the earthchild stan: Half action, half sports, all mediocre

    • FunkyAct4: An offer you should definitely refuse

    • GreyPotter 👑 King of Questions: I gained negative knowledge about handball

    • Kpt.Kluless: Hand's hardly had (w)holly heartfelt hero

    • LordAnubis, #1RedHoodFan/Mourner: Damn, Jump's axe people got hands

    • Portal man: who knew handball was really violent | yakuza sports drama... that sounds nice.

    • Riel: Wannabe hero throws balls real good.

    • Riley: Why's handball in my yakuza manga?

    • Sbubby: I found Yoshikage Kira’s favorite manga

    • Spike: 🎵 said put your fucking Hands up...

    • The Wolf The Wood The Trafalgar: David, is this dog disguised Ravioli?

  • David: (Author voice) the Aura Borealis of sports manga | the manga hand balls are inert

  • Jordan: my superpower? Falling and hurting myself