According to a translation site, the header above (pronounced “fushigina hōkō e korogaru”) is the Japanese equivalent of “down the rabbit hole,” which is where I fell after finding a story about Shinji Mizushima, “author of the popular Japanese ‘Dokaben‘ baseball manga series, [who] decided to end his career as a manga artist Tuesday, his talent agency said.”
Now I am no aficionado of manga by any means, but I have seen a few animated Japanese cartoons and found them to be interesting and bizarre at the same time. I think you can follow some of the stories without dubbing or subtitles (although this fellow would disagree). The artwork may be a bit “crude,” especially when you consider that the 81-year-old Mizushima began his work before some of you readers were born. But for me, that’s part of the charm, akin to the numerous non-traditional versions — by American standards — of Japanese baseball cards.
So you see the progression: Mizushima, followed by a google search of Dokaben, followed by a youtube search (for examples of the animation), followed by my interview with Robert Fitts on his new book about some of those baseball cards. And needless to say, Dokaben is just one of many baseball manga, so I could have gone on and on, but it’s almost time for dinner.
Oh, all right, one more: A list of the top ten baseball anime, as per Honeysanime.com in June 2018.
is available on Amazon.com,
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