#TBT : Rookies

Baseball and thugs. With its ingredients, Rookies had everything to please the Japanese. But if this manga triumphed twenty-five years ago, it was for going beyond the expectations of the readership…

At a time, Futakotamagawa high school was famous for its baseball club. But that was before. Today, said club is frequented only by scum who like nothing more than to flirt with girls, smoke cigarettes and play knuckles. So much so that, following a general fight on the ground, it has just been dissolved. However, when Koichi Kawato, the new Japanese teacher modern arrives in the establishment, he is convinced that, thanks to sport, it is possible to put these young offenders back on the right track. His unwavering conviction, optimism and faith in human nature will eventually recognize that baseball is their main passion. But the road to winning the inter-high school national tournament is long and arduousespecially when the other teams are better trained…

When Masanori Morita starts Rookies, he faces monstrous pressure. Indeed, his previous series, Rokudenashi Blues (available from Pika editions) triumphed across Japan during the 1990s, to the point of selling its 42 volumes in more than 60 million copies. For his return, readers of Shônen Jump therefore expect to find a story of scum finding redemption through sport. Of course, that’s what Rookies will offer, but from a different angle, thanks to the personality of Koichi Kawato. Where previously young people were left to their own devices, they find in this adult figure of authority someone to lean on, ready to trust them. Morita highlights the humanism of his hero to the point of making him cry when he reads moving passages of Japanese literature, without taking away his virility. This approach is felt even in the drawing of the mangaka: his still detailed inkinginherited from the time when he was assisting Tetsuo Hara, is particularly bright on Rookies.

This change of direction delighted the Japanese. Upon leaving the first volume, June 4, 1998the series is a bestseller. Despite health concerns which will force Morita to pause repeatedly, the 24 volumes of Rookies will sell more than 20 million copies until its end in 2003. The impact is so strong on the Japanese public that, five years after the conclusionin 2008, a drama adaptation a hit in the ratings, the first and last episodes lasting two hours! A feature film was therefore released in theaters the following year, and pranced to the top of the box office in the first week. Surprisingly, the series will struggle to establish itself internationally. Many see it points in common with GTO (an atypical teacher cropping up delinquents) while the characters of Onizuka and Kawato are in no way alike! Thus the French edition published by Tonkam from 2000 will not have been successful. As the market has evolved, it would be good for a publisher to look again at this second chance manga !