Haikyu!! and Blue Lock: Sports Manga for People Who Do Not Watch Sport

Sports manga has a reputation problem among people who do not like sport, and it is entirely undeserved. The games are a container. What is actually being written about is obsession, hierarchy, and what people do when they are not the most talented person in the room.

Haikyu!! is about a team

Haruichi Furudate’s volleyball series runs 45 volumes and ends properly. A short boy wants to play a tall person’s sport. That is the whole premise, and it is enough, because the series is really about how a group of difficult people learn to work.

The volleyball is explained as it goes. You will understand a synchronised attack by volume six whether you intended to or not.

The Vol. 1–10 set at $75.38 covers the first arc and is the sensible way to find out if it lands. The complete 45-volume set is $311.99, about $6.93 a volume, and it is the cheapest route if you already know you want it.

Blue Lock is about the opposite

Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura took the team-sports formula and inverted it. Japan needs a striker, so three hundred teenagers are locked in a facility and told that only one of them will matter. Cooperation is punished. The series is openly, almost gleefully, about ego.

It is football, and it is not remotely realistic, and that is the point. Read it as a psychological thriller with a ball in it.

Astrozon lists several ranges: Vol. 7–12 at $63.86, Vol. 7–14 at $71.96, and the Vol. 12–24 collection at $108.69. The eight-book set works out cheaper per volume than the six.

Which one

A note on starting mid-series

Several Blue Lock sets begin at volume 7 or 12 rather than 1. That is not a problem if you have watched the anime, and a real problem if you have not. Check where the set starts against where you are before buying.

The rest of the shelf is on the Sports page.