Dogsred vol. 4

Oinokami High’s hockey team is about to play their first game!  It’s in Sapporo against Sekka High School which is notorious for all of the white-tracksuited delinquents that attend it.  Before they get there, however, the team will have to deal with more training from their eccentric coach, angsting about what their future will bring, the affection of a Giant God Warrior with the most incredible thighs you’ll ever see, and the lingering specter of the end of their championship run.  That’s embodied by the return of former team captain Higuchi who’s living a much shadier life now after shouldering much of the blame for that loss.  He still can’t let it go, and wants to help out one of his former team members in a way that may do much more harm than good.

Four volumes in and while I like “Dogsred,” it hasn’t clicked in the same way that mangaka Satoru Noda’s previous series has.  I’ve got some thoughts about why that is and it’s all about the large cast this title has accumulated already.  “Golden Kamuy” had an absolutely massive cast by its end, but it never felt excessively large due to the fact that each character was given a proper introductory arc that clearly laid out their personality and motivation.  That a lot of them wound up dying before the end also helped keep things manageable.

“Dogsred” has started off with an entire hockey team’s worth of characters and while the likes of Rou and Keiichi were given proper introductions, a lot of the cast tends to blend together here.  Noda does make an attempt to try and give some of them more personality and drama here, but none of them make a bigger impression (figuratively and literally) than Wakami Isono does in the opening chapter.  While the humor and some of the drama does ensure that I’ll be sticking around – especially to see how the inevitably violent game against Sekka plays out – I think that I’m going to have to adjust my expectations that this title will stand a chance at ever being as good as its mangaka’s previous effort.