Product Description

Crimson Hero takes volleyball and bents it like Beckham in a story that pits traditional values against the love of the game. All that matters to 15 year old Nobara Sumiyoshi is volleyball; she is an awesome volleyball player with big time ambitions. But sometimes it seems like a girl just can not get a break in the competitive world of high school volleyball.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #352920 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781421501406
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Date of Birth: May 27

Blood Type: A

Major Works: Tenshi no Poketto (Angels Pocket), Ohisama no Hana (The Flower of the Sun), Bikou Ruuto (Delicate Subtle), and Akuma de Sourou (Devil Does Exist)

At age 17, Mitsuba Takanashi debuted her first short story Mou Koi Nante Shinai (Never Fall in Love Again) in 1992 in Bessatsu Margaret magazine and now has several major titles under her belt.

Born in the Shimane Prefecture of Japan, Mitsuba Takanashi now lives in Tokyo, where she enjoys taking walks, watching videos, shopping, and going to the hair salon. Her penchant for all things fashionable can be seen in her characters hip, unconventional outfits, as well as their crazy hairstyles (note the do on Crimson Hero star Nobara!). Takanashi has a soft spot for the Japanese pop acts Yellow Monkey and Hide, and is good at playing ping pong.

Customer Reviews

Try it
Okay, so the way I read this manga is I read it in Shojo Beat, a magazine of manga being published in America. At first I refused to read it because I thought, "Ew, volleyball? A sports story? No way, Jose!" But then I was bored one day and decided to check it out and it was actually good! (One of the main reasons I refused to read it was because I thought the main character was too guy-like. Turns out, the person I thought was too guy-like WAS a guy... Hmmm...) But no, the main character is actually a girl and despite it being about volleyball, this is still shojo and doesn't absolutely FOCUS on volleyball action like you'd expect it to if it were shonen. The characters are still nice and the only reason I'm only giving it four stars is because the artwork is a little dodgy when it comes to faces and three-quarter profiles. But it IS a good story!

Crimson Hero
I absolutly love this this manga. It is the best one that I have ever read. I first read it in the magazine ShojoBeat that a frind of mine ownes. Out of all the different types of manga's in the intire magazine, Crimson Hero is my absolute favorite one. I can't wait till I get the rest of the series.
Thank you.

Don't Be Scared Off By the Volleyball Focus--This Is a Solid Shoujo Series
All tomboy Nobara Sumiyoshi wants to do is play volleyball. All her mother wants her to do is take her responsibility as eldest daughter seriously and put her dedication into taking over the family ryotei (a high class Japanese dining establishment). When Nobara discovers that the high school she entered has eliminated the girl's volleyball team due to low participation, she is upset. When she learns it was her own mother who suggested the girl's volleyball team wouldn't be missed and urged the school to disband it, Nobara is furious. She runs away from home and with the help of her Aunt Momoko (the school nurse) she ends up working for her room and board as dorm mother for the dorm where the volleyball recruits live--and since the only volleyball team still around is for guys, the dorm is all-male. Although she must deal with rude dorm members such as the brash Yushin Kumagai and the lack of enthusiasm among her classmates when she tries to restart the girl's volleyball team, Nobara refuses to give up until she succeeds at her dream of playing volleyball.

I have no real interest in volleyball in real life or on the page and I don't like sports manga in general (who wants to read five pages of a character hitting a ball?) so I was a bit wary of picking up CRIMSON HERO. I decided to try it because I have in general been satisfied with the Shoujo Beat line and I'm glad I decided to give this series a shot! While it is about volleyball--because that's what heroine Nobara is obsessed with--it's more about the typical shoujo manga theme of relationships (including not one but two romantic interests for Nobara). The art is also really good, although sometimes the guys look like girls (I honestly thought that Yushin was a girl the first time I saw him, and was wondering why he was in a guy's uniform). Nobara also has a habit of looking like a feminine guy with her short hair and often baggy clothes (refusing to wear her school's sailor uniform doesn't help). However, once I adjusted myself to the fact that it is often distinguish the males from the females it didn't bother me.

I've read several subsequent volumes of this series and have remained quite satisfied. This is a good shoujo series and even those not interested in sports manga should enjoy it (because in the end it really is more shoujo than sports oriented).