After the loss of his leg, Kikuzato’s dream of becoming a soccer ace comes to an end. But with use of a prosthetic leg, he finds a new goal— to become a track star and win gold at the Tokyo Paralympics! [Yen Press]
5 Volumes (Complete)



I'm normally not a fan of sports manga, but this one intrigued me as it was different. There aren't many stories out there about those dealing with disabilities and then to add the Paralympics goals made the story stand out.
Though I could tell that there was a shift at the end of volume 2 with the inclusion of Covid. I really think the goal was to have this underdog sports story of a teenage boy working his way up with the goal of Paralympics running in the end. Volume 3-4 were still good, and even the author admits in the notes in the back that they had to change the tagline of the story from sports focus to life focus. Which again, aren't bad but definitely it changed the direction of the story originally. I would love to pick the author's brain to see what they thought of the change if it was their intent or more of the publisher's intent.
pros:
cons:
When Kikuzato even confronts his friend, he does it in a way that is very realistic way which makes the situation kind of silly. But then again, they're teenagers, so I'll give a pass.
Overall a good solid story. I wouldn't mind seeing an anime of it if they ever decided to go down that track. A spin off regarding the Paris Olympics could also be interesting, but we'll see. For now it's a solid 5 volumes that you can read in a day or two 🙂
It's a neat story with lots of research done into Paralympics and prosthetics and all the science and fine tuning associated with that.
The Paralympics got kinda mushed to the side because of a funny worldwide event that happened around the time of the second or third volume. Thus, the story switches to more of a "living in this era with in spite of additional challenges". There's lots of characters that really don't get touched on much, Kikuzato has a "rival" that we see at the end of the first volume and last volume with like a panel showing he's also been affected by global events.
The track and field club also gets showcased a bit but there's just a lot of minor characters and not enough time to get to know who and why these people are here. But perhaps we don't need to know their lives?
I kinda left the final chapter feeling like there was a lot left unfinished with the other track and fielders and Kikuzato's friend Take who plays soccer for the high school.