is a Japanese

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...

series written and illustrated by

Shinji Mizushima was a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for several baseball manga, such as ''Yakyū-kyō no Uta'', ''Dokaben'', and '' Abu-san''. He is a two-time recipient of the Shogakukan Manga Award. His works have been collected into more than 54 ...

. The original series was serialized in

Akita Shoten is a Japanese publishing company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. It was founded by Teio Akita on 10 August 1948. As of 2020, the company's president is Shigeru Higuchi. Magazines Male-oriented manga magazines ''Shōnen'' magazines * – Bimo ...

's ''shōnen'' manga magazine ''

Weekly Shōnen Champion is a Japanese ''shōnen'' manga magazine published by Akita Shoten. History ''Shōnen Champion'' was first published on July 15, 1969. It has had numerous popular series by manga artists such as Osamu Tezuka, Go Nagai, Shinji Mizushima, Masa ...

'' from April 24, 1972 to March 27, 1981, but it was followed by several sequel series running until 2018. Chapters of the series were published into 205 ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...

'' volumes in total, making it the series with the second highest number of volumes. It was also made into an

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

by the same name. It was immensely popular in Japan during its original release, and is one of the most popular sports manga of all time.

Outline

''Dokaben'' is centered on Taro Yamada and his teammates Iwaki, Tonoma, and Satonaka and was focused mainly on their activity as a

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

team. At first, it focused on Yamada, Iwaki, and Sachiko and was set in Takaoka Middle School. But in Volume 8 the team is transferred to Meikun High School for their baseball skills. The story of ''Dokaben'' continues in ''Dai Kōshien'', ''Dokaben Pro Baseball Story'', and ''Dokaben SuperStars Story''.

Characters

Meikun High School baseball team

Yamada generation

; : :''Position'':

Catcher Catcher is a position in baseball and softball. When a batter takes their turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the ( home) umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. In addition to this primary duty, the cat ...

; : :''Position'':

Third baseman A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the scoring system u ...

; : :''Position'': Second baseman ; : :''Position'':

Pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or dr ...

; : :''Position'':

Left fielder In baseball, a left fielder, abbreviated LF, is an outfielder who plays defense in left field. Left field is the area of the outfield to the left of a person standing at home plate and facing towards the pitcher's mound. In the numbering sys ...

Senior / Younger student

; : :''Position'':

First baseman A first baseman, abbreviated 1B, is the player on a baseball or softball team who fields the area nearest first base, the first of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. The first baseman is responsible for the majori ...

; : :''Position'':

Center fielder A center fielder, abbreviated CF, is the outfielder in baseball who plays defense in center field – the baseball and softball fielding position between left field and right field. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the ...

; : :''Position'':

Right fielder A right fielder, abbreviated RF, is the outfielder in baseball or softball who plays defense in right field. Right field is the area of the outfield to the right of a person standing at home plate and facing towards the pitcher's mound. In ...

; : :''Position'':

Shortstop Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball or softball fielding position between second and third base, which is considered to be among the most demanding defensive positions. Historically the position was assigned to defensive specialists wh ...

; : :''Position'':

, Second baseman

Manager

; : :Manager of Meikun High School baseball team

Yamada family

; : :Taro's 9-year-old little sister ; : :Taro's grandfather :"Ji-chan" means grandpa in English

Rivals

Kanagawa

; : ; : ; : ; : ; : ; :

Kantō

; : ; : →

Michihiro Ikemizu is a Japanese actor, voice actor and narrator from Kanagawa Prefecture and a graduate of Waseda University who works for Aoni Production. Among his other roles, he has performed the characters Hot Springs Emblem (''Urusei Yatsura''), Isao Ohta ...

(ep. 82) ; : ; : ; : → Takashi Tanaka

Whole Japan

; : ; : ; : ; : ; : ; : ; :

Others

; : :Iwaki's girlfriend ; : :Shinji Kobayashi's little sister

Manga

When Takehiko Inoue (author of

Slam Dunk A slam dunk, also simply known as dunk, is a type of basketball shot that is performed when a player jumps in the air, controls the ball above the horizontal plane of the rim, and scores by shoving the ball directly through the basket with one ...

and Vagabond) was young, he drew a lot of spectacular scene from Dokaben, the first manga he paid. Thursday, 22 December 2022

Cultural references

*In the " Simpsons Comics internationale" in issue #132, the Japanese supplement (Too crazy, Juvenile Prankster, BARTOMU! (serialized in "Laughing Laughing everyone is laughing")) opens as a parody of Dokaben, with Bartomu playing for the "

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...

Li'l Ninjas", and an art style heavily based on Dokaben's highly recognised style of art.

Art style

The art style of Dokaben is very rubbery and motional, with surprisingly dynamic use of

speed lines In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quantit ...

, with a heavy use of black and very straightforward body construction. The motion and Dynamics are highly retained even in reprints. In his book Reinventing Comics,

Scott McCloud Scott McCloud (born Scott McLeod; June 10, 1960) is an American cartoonist and comics theorist. He is best known for his non-fiction books about comics: ''Understanding Comics'' (1993), '' Reinventing Comics'' (2000), and ''Making Comics'' (200 ...

mentions it as the example of the sports genre, drawing high recognition to the style.

Notes

References

External links

Official Nippon Animation Dokaben introduction page
* {{Nippon Animation 1972 manga 1976 anime television series debuts 1983 manga 1995 manga 2004 manga Akita Shoten manga Baseball in anime and manga Fuji TV original programming Nippon Animation School life in anime and manga Shōnen manga