'Crimson Hero' #1 Review

This manga was a very pleasant surprise! This is pretty much what I was looking for when I picked up Red River the other day; a good shoujo! I love sports manga and this is a good example why. The first thing I noticed about this series is the art is pretty great! I can't stand when shoujo manga ka create a series that looks exactly like every other shoujo. Crimson Hero's art is a lot better than most shoujo series out there, especially the faces and clothes. There's still a heavy use of screen tone, like all shoujo, but not so much that it bothered me while reading it.

Plot Summary

The lead character Nobara Sumiyoshi is a tomboy with serious love for volleyball. Her family owns an old fashion japanese resteraunt (ryotei) and Nobara's mother wants her to become the next hostess. She attends a new high school purely on the fact that it has a popular volleyball team but soon learns that it's the boy's team that's popular and the girl's team has been shut down this year. After being sick of all the crap her mom is giving her, she decides to move out and goes to her aunt's (who is also the school nurse) for help. Her cold but caring aunt sets Nobara up at a boy's volleyball team dorm working as their dorm mother. Now we've got a good shoujo setting: girl surrounded by lots of hot guys.

We've got the asshole hot guy and the quiet hot guy in the main cast so I'm sure there'll be a love triangle happening between them. There wasn't a lot of sports action going on in volume one but I can tell there's going to be a lot coming up. Volume one is all pure set up for the series and I think volume two onward will start to have the plot actually moving forward. There are obviously still a lot of main characters that havn't even come into play yet. This series reminds me of Hikaru no Go in a lot of ways and I'm actually excited to read more! I'm glad I found a shoujo sports manga, I honestly didn't know those existed. I think this is a great series for guys who love sports manga and are intested in shoujo and girls who love shoujo and are interested in sports. IT'S A FUSION. I'm surprised to read that this series is still running and is twenty volumes strong. I'll definitely pick up volume two and read it if I can find it!

Crimson Hero #1 - 8.3/10