Bingo Row 4 – Border
Dogsred by Satoru Noda is kind of the only other work from the man who did Golden Kamuy, my absolute favorite manga and anime and possibly my favorite series, book, story, and thing that another human created. I say kinda because Dogsred is a re-do of Noda’s first published series – Supinamarada!
But Golden Kamuy is the sort of thing I gravitate towards with a mix of history, adventure, human rights, and wackiness. Dogsred – a series about high school hockey – is exactly the sort of thing I wouldn’t notice if I was looking right at it.
But I loved Dogsred anyway.
The first thing I noticed is that the creator has a lot of facial diversity in his series, but not out of them. Meaning the very distinctive faces of Golden Kamuy show up again. Instead of middle aged criminally insane treasure hunters, they’re high school students who look like middle aged criminally insane treasure hunters. And with that, I’ll shut up about Golden Kamuy.
Rou Shirakawa wins a figure skating championship after his mother dies. Presumably from grief, he snaps and starts throwing and breaking things, getting banned from figure skating. He and his sister move in with their grandfather in Hokkaido (which I hope they’d have done anyway as children without parents).
In Hokkaido, Rou pivots his skating skills into hockey. His sister, Haruna, copes with losing figure skating – something she loved, but didn’t have her brother’s skills. Her skating life was abandoned by their mother who seemed fixated on getting a kid into the Olympics. Grandpa – who was in the Olympics as a hockey player – is happy that Rou is interested in the sport. I think. It’s kinda hard to tell what Grandpa’s thinking.
And Rou’s high school hockey experience starts with weighted penises, waterboarding, and bear attacks. There’s hockey too.
From the first three volumes, Rou is on the edge of a lot of things. Or border, if you will. He goes from one sport for another. He’s on the “edge of civilization,” as he calls probably anywhere that isn’t a major metropolitan area. His relationship with his sister will hopefully change since she can’t live vicariously through him anymore. And most of all, he’s going to be a teammate instead of competing solo. It’s a very ‘one thing has to end for another to begin’ kinda story. And I look forward to seeing where it goes.