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What happened last week: Misora manages to somehow get past Namine despite her lousy knee, but Namine ends up stopping her. That represented the last gasp for Misora, and for Fujioka, as they lose to Choran 6-1, and cry about it afterwards.
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Summary of the Final Chapter: A summer has gone by before Fujioka participates in the High School Lacrosse Autumn Tournament, with the core of the team undergoing rigorous training under Sakurai (and Ryo for a few days). They arrive in the finals, this time to once again face Choran, though this time sans Namine, who graduated. Before they head their separate ways, Namine asks Sakurai if he’s enjoying herself. That answer is left to the reader to figure out as it cuts to shots of the team, Sakurai’s room, and a picture of the cast of characters in Cross Manage.
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My Final Take: So did it end with Sakurai enjoying herself? Enjoying his life? Man, I’m not sure if there was anything to prove he came close to not finding enjoyment. Nothing in the final chapter proves this, and I wouldn’t expect it to be the case. What really should have happened was if someone asked Namine if she was enjoying herself, and is she enjoying her life. The fact that she asked the question I believe infers that the final match definitely changed her mindset…as if her being with the team (Not sure if she’s now a coach on Choran or just a regular supporter) wasn’t already a sign. Remember, she just played lacrosse just cause she was good at it. Would someone like that want to go back to a school that they just played lacrosse on? Probably not.
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As for this chapter, it turned out to be about as romance laden as I said it would last week. Except I mostly expected it to be between Misora and Namine attempting to duel to the death to get Sakurai, but instead it paraded the minor characters (including that scumbag Toriumi — hey don’t forget about him!) and showed their romantic affairs, for reasons I don’t want to know. All I know is that it was a final chapter, and it had to end with some hijinks and less about anything to understand and more about concluding the story. I think.
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Oh, and apparently Kaito really wanted to make Misora look different with that hair pin, like she had changed or something. Man…
Final Concluding Thoughts of Cross Manage: So, aside from one extra chapter of Cross Manage that’s supposed to appear sometime in the Fall, this series is over. What does that mean? I’m no longer covering this manga! Yayyyy!!!
…Ok, that may seem kind of harsh. But I say this in a manner that reflects what I hoped this series could have been, and not as this manga is awful and I can’t believe I wrote about it for so many months. Cross Manage should have been better than what it was. It presented the idea of lacrosse and didn’t add any special moves or something crazy like an Eyeshield 21. The art is gorgeous, and managed to get way better as the series went on. And that’s saying something since aside from the joke panels that I complained about early on in the series, the art was pretty good as it was. Kaito definitely is a good talent for Jump, and I look forward to his next work, whatever it is. Also, an ending that was actually good. I don’t think I need to tell you that it’s kind of rare sometimes in manga. Overall, this was something I didn’t mind reading week to week.
Ultimately though, it’s problems early on in the series pretty much hamstrung it towards the end. It’s first issue relates to the very question everyone had on their mind when the series started: how will Kaito manage to infuse lacrosse, a not so popular sport, in a shounen manga? I’d say not well. It didn’t really explain the mechanics and rules of the game in the beginning of the series, and when it did, it brought in soccer talk. Now the soccer bit was important because Sakurai played soccer in the past, but then when you substitute more soccer bits instead of lacrosse, you’re fighting a battle that’s going to end with a loser, and that loser is lacrosse. It’d be one thing if both of those sports were popular, but as far as I can tell, I think soccer resonates with more people than lacrosse does. And then when we finally get an explanation of the rules of girls lacrosse, it happens in the match against Choran. You know, that match started in Chapter 30. So we ended up going that long without a natural integration of lacrosse.
This effectively lessened the series. Instead of actually getting into lacrosse, I’m not sure I even wanted to know the rules of it by the end. But there were plenty of opportunities to make lacrosse the real focal point of the series, but instead, it stalled. It stalled by forcing a minor character to out Sakurai’s involvement in soccer. It stalled by introducing Chiumi, and her silly reasons for coaxing Sakurai back to soccer. And it stalled by having Ryu and Sakurai facing each other in a lacrosse match, for reasons that don’t make sense. You then combine this fact with the development of the characters — or lack thereof development of the characters aside from Sachi — then you realize somewhere along the way this series killed itself.
You then start to ask questions, from minor to major. What happened to Sakurai being afraid of girls? What about bringing forth rival schools earlier? Why didn’t the lacrosse matter in the beginning of this series? What about the romance between Misora and Sakurai? We had an eclectic cast of characters appear in the series, why didn’t we learn more about them? Why did we devote a chapter to characters who said they didn’t like practice to them practicing? And the more thought on the whys and the what’s of certain chapters and overall the series, and then you realize this manga could have been a really solid title in Jump. If it was smart on a few things and managed to focus on the lacrosse part, it would have stood a chance. But it didn’t, and now it’s over.
So how will I remember Cross Manage? Well, I’ll remember it as a series that should have done more. I’ll also remember it as a fairly ok, nothing too special series. I’ll also remember it as Kaito’s first foray into serialized manga, and the potential he has as a Jump artist. (I really believe he has the chops to create a fun shounen work) And I’ll finally remember it as that oddball sports series that tried to stay in Jump, and did a commendable job running so long. Since I like sports, it does help to bring up questions about playing sports, winning and losing, effort and practice, etc. That aided my overall impressions of this series, and that’s why I’ll keep it in my mind, for good or bad.
So anyways, for those who did read Cross Manage, feel free to share your thoughts below, and your likes and dislikes if you want!
’til we meet again boys and girls..