An underdog protagonist is by no means a scarcity in the sports genre. If anything theyre a triedandtrue character archetype thats almost ubiquitous to sports stories. Who doesnt love that rush of satisfaction witnessing the voices of dissent and doubt against the struggling underdog steadily dissipate into cheers of support for the prevailing hero? However Urasawa chuckled as he trashed this trope and crafted a capital U underdog story. Spoilers ahead Skip to the end for a short spoilerfree review 420https://i.ur.com/zLkEUvm.png Im seeing a Whole Lotta Red I recommend chanting religious sutras for 10 days and 10 nights inbetween chapters. Those with impatient souls will need to invoke Buddhas compassion and patience for the entirety of Happy a story laced with many diabolus ex machina ensuring the constant demise of our severely underdog heroine. Perhaps it was nave of me plunging in believing that Id be enveloped in lukewarm drama thatd steadily boil to warm benevolence from being coddled and conditioned from other sports series. Barring a few characters Happy is a story with no such compassionate development. For roughly the first half of the series Urasawa relentlessly bullies Miyuki in practically every panel shes in. Her miserable situation worsens by the page as the weight of her poverty family situation and tennis increases tenfold in every passing chapter. Though incredibly frustrating it may be Id refuse to label Urasawas writing as hot garbage. Diving into the story Miyuki is an immediately sympathetic character. The aforementioned poverty shes in and pressure from debt collector Sakurada pushes the angelic and nave Miyuki into stumbling and tripping into the world of professional tennis. Accompanied and helped by no one but herself initially its all too easy to drop Happy in a heartbeat. The first half of the story is a massive wall of frustration. Whiny siblings a gruff debt collector a manchild rich boy a snobbish rich lady and of course SheWhoShallNotBeNamedhttps://pbs.tw.com/media/DaUjBJSUQAIB83m.jpg. The first half is an absolute onslaught of forced drama. I begrudgingly have to confess though I eventually grew numb to the extravagancy of drama. Daresay I came to enjoy it during the last sprint of the storys first half. The sheer amount and intensity of diabolus ex machina made this story nearly theatrical as Urasawa slyly manages to worsen the situation of Miyuki and co. in a frustratingly enjoyable way. Nevertheless those who manage to ball their fists and grit their teeth through it are in for a marginally less painful later half. While the first half is dedicated to Miyukis jawslackened induction into professional tennis the second half focuses on reinforcing and honing herself. This is where Happy begins to reveal something else beneath its thick exterior of frustration namely character development. The character development for several characters takes the forefront and compromises the angerinducing plot points monopoly of the narrative. Transfixed at center of it all and most impactful of the storys narrative is Miyukis growth. 420https://i.ur.com/pgBvguA.png The Payoff First and foremost those seeking intricately nuanced characters will be sorely disappointed. Urasawa employs the exaggerated characters of his cast to develop and progress the story at the cost of his audiences patience. Miyuki is a prime instance of such. Her nice clumsy girl nature dully veneers her character for the entire first half of the story chucking in charcoals of frustration among the flames of sympathy we feel for her. However the second half manages to salvage and even articulate on the dull traits Ive just described. Though Happy is certainly an infuriating underdog story its nevertheless one you cant help but root for. Miyukis burdens of family debts and horrible publicity have weighed her down for a majority of the series. Our frustration continues garnering as much as the interest of her brothers debt but its paid back much later in the story. The infuriating waves of boos and snarky tennis fans are drowned out as Miyukis focus on tennis is heightened. For the longest time Miyukis objective was simply to earn money to fulfill the debts. However along the way her burdens increased and weighed down her Agame. She only saw that her tennis negatively affected her family and friends never sparing a moments thought about herself and what she truly desired. Namely enjoying tennis. The multitude of conflicts and turmoil she experiences steadily steer Miyuki back to her original reason for playing tennis because she loved playing it as her father taught her to. In the last tournament of the story the finale of Miyukis growth is a serious pay off for our accumulated frustration. Miyukis usual airheaded straightforwardness turns into burning transfixion on winning. Winning not for the money but to reach the pinnacle. The single thing that carrotandstickd me through the first half of the story was Sakurada the debt collector. The development that Urasawa hid many other characters from he fed to the roughspoken yakuza. Ironically Sakurada was my most hated character initially. His smug mug explicit demeanor and belittlement of Miyukis situation and endeavor as a professional tennis player was distilled of any redeeming characteristic. I internally groaned whenever he appeared halfheartedly expecting him to be a thornintheside gag character for the entirety of the story. To my utter delight however he became a strong driving force of enjoyment with his steady development and relationship with Miyuki. His unexpected soccer past empathetic to Miyukis tennis struggle was a catalyst for growth early on. His onedimensional roughness molded into projected bitterness over his regrets. Though he questioned and mocked Miyukis endeavors Sakuradas subtle support for her took ahold of his otherwise bland character early on as he slowly changed from another mob hater into one of Miyukis scarce supporters. Add in Sakuradas unchanging profane personality and banter and his relationship with Miyuki also had an enjoyably amusing change of heart. Unlike Kaku and Keiichiro whove always voiced cheerful support for Miyuki Sakurada only emitted his support in the form of a silent fistshake of joy or anger at her dissenters often mistook as his usual violent tendencies. In short Sakurada grew into quite a knucklehead tsundere in the first half of the story. Into the second half though Sakuradas development truly began to take afoot. His subtle support turned much more explicit and his thoughts about Miyuki drastically changed. He let Miyuki and her siblings to live in his house after they were kicked out of their own he yells encouraging words for her in games they eat her homemade curry together they fight and show concern for each other right after. The sneers of mockery at Miyukis plight were replaced by unwavering encouragement and an anger directed at the entire world who shunned her. His roughness mitigated Miyukis blinding sweetness his shady career as a debt collector offset Miyukis nave trust in everything and yet they both grew to care about each other. Sakurada and Miyukis relationship has won its place as the highlight of Happy by a landslide and a half. Though the ending was a kick in the nuts...https://i.ur.com/r6qZ5cv.png. Moving on then theres also Keiichiro. Whew. A snailpaced development if Ive ever saw one. Keiichiros candleburning growth is a prime example of what defines Happy. Slowchurning and frustratingly dramatic. And I reluctantly loved every moment of it and his facepalming moments of idiocy. He goes through several arcs and mood swings consisting of his rebellion against his coddling mother adaptation to a meager runaway lifestyle reluctance with his planned marriage his hesitance and struggle to return to tennis as a professional etc. Nearly every panel of Keiichiros panel time garners a sigh of frustrated pity yet enjoyably disbelieving enough to continue witnessing just how much worse his plight grows. Again I warn those severely afflicted with impatience. His cycles of development and regression may cause you to see red but I found them extremely investing. 420https://i.ur.com/GwbJdSq.jpg SheWhoShallNotBeNamed Urasawa has a knack for infuriating rich female characters. From Eva in Monster to Audrey Culkin in Billy Bat I wouldnt have fathomed that Urasawa could top himself in writing a more dully annoying pest of a character. Well slap my neck and spin me around 6 times on the head. Choko is simply put a villain among villains. Rather than infuriation I was in utter disbelief by her zerodimensionality. Was this thing truly created by the same master craftsman who birthed Monster? However Im reluctant to say that Choko complements Urasawas playful side of writing. I could practically hear Urasawa cackling along with Chokos bursts of kyahahaha. Urasawa also possesses a magical knack for incredibly intelligent mastermind antagonists. Where we have Monsters Johan and 20th Century Boys Friend on the spectrum Choko somehow fits in there as well. Contrary to her tame ditzy and childish personality Choko has a surprising mastery over controlling and swaying public opinion media people and miniscule details that enthralled me into reading her next move. As hard as it may be if one is able to see past the obvious infuriating nature of Chokos entire character youll come to begrudgingly relish in her shitty farces. The single issue I had though is that Urasawa sprinkled in some hints of genuineness in Choko towards the end of the series. I certainly wouldnt go as far as saying it was a flailing last minute attempt to redeem and develop Choko but I wouldve preferred if Urasawa had simply kept Choko as the one trick pony villainous he had maintained her as for the entire series. 420https://i.ur.com/nzQ2kEg.jpg Bande Dessine Admittedly one of the strongest reasons that lured me into Happys grasps was Urasawas charismatic artstyle. Popping with diverse character designs and animated facial expressions Urasawas art is such an enjoyable experience even if its standalone. Happys comparatively lighthearted tone to Urasawas usual hardhitting mysteries dresses up the playful artstyle all the more lively and complementary. Divorcing the art from character designs theres not much to comment on. Simplistic and undetailed it very much complements the sliceoflife nature of this series. From a sports/action perspective there wasnt any difficulty in following the natural flow of panels during the intense games. The constant commentary dialogue in the very same panels did border on cluttering but by no means did it make it tedious to read and follow. 420https://i.ur.com/CcyTzv6.png Yeah I love sportsball Though tennis jargon is thrown around occasionally and a large part of the story is about the sport the game is secondary to the sliceoflife aspect of Happy. Its very much an accessory for the characters development moreso than an honesttogod sports story detailing the mechanics of the game. You wont be hardpressed to learn the technicalities about tennis instead zero in on what it does for our characters. 420https://i.ur.com/sCdnIsO.jpg Conclusion Frustratingly enjoyable Happy is illsuited for anyone with impatience and distaste for irrational characters. Beneath the mask however Urasawa facilitated a great underdog story albeit extremely slowburning. Featuring a cast chalk full of illogical and often infuriating characters youll either come to love or hate them for it. If youre able to trudge past the first half of the story the latter half may be a cool compress of relief for the severe burns of annoyance. A few important characters finally get their pastdue development all varying in degrees of enjoyment that may not fully diminish the severe anguish felt at the first half but were nonetheless a great improvement in narrative. With severely postphoned payoff and a slightly disappointing ending its difficult to recommend this emotionally vexing series to anyone but those patient enough to withstand irrational and immortal drama. If youre a masochist like myself however youll revel in the utter stinking cesspool of neartheatrical conflicts and slow development though some developments you may also find inexcusable. Extremely heavy on exaggerated drama youll either drop the story or become accustomed to the persisting predicaments that batter our innocent heroine at every corner and turn. Theres no steady uplift either. No gradual gain of public support or opponent recognition thats often found in other sports series exists in this story. Whether youre a veteran or new to Urasawa his artstyle will instill great enjoyment. His character designs pop with life and playfulness. Simple diverse and humorous the characters are visually appealing and humorous. Regarding its existence as a sports series Happy does a manageable job depicting the intensity of the games with generally smooth and easytofollow paneling. Contrary to my summary Happy is everything INCLUDING happy. Eating curry with her siblings and being beaten down by the entire world Miyuki still salvages happiness within the deepest sewages with her nave persevering character. Exaggerated as Happy may have depicted it life is a persistent and viscous cycle of ups and downs. When it comes down to it its ultimately you who can realize where your happiness lies and bring it to actuality. 520https://i.ur.com/4dvdnOB.jpg Thanks for reading Feedback is greatly appreciated