Girl Got Game

 

By Shizuru Seino (TokyoPop)
ISBN 1-59182-696-9

This bizarrely engaging cross-dressing sports comedy is an examination of pushy parenthood gone wild. Kyo Aizawa’s father was good enough to play basketball for the majors of the NBA, but an injury destroyed his career forever. Kyo has the potential to be an even greater player, and dear old dad will let nothing thwart this second chance for fame and family glory. He enrols Kyo at the legendary Seisyu High School, home of the greatest Boys Basketball team in Japan. Not even the fact that Kyo is a girl will stop him from having a Basketball star in the family!

Blending genuine pathos with the slap-stick and teen angst comedy-of-embarrassment, Shizuru Seino examines the need to fulfil family obligations battling the growth to independence, and the first inklings of adult desire within the trite framework of an ostensibly hackneyed and moribund theme. There are school hi-jinks aplenty, with Kyo, a double outsider, striving to excel, trying to remain undiscovered, and fighting off the growing feeling she is developing for her team mates. There are even a few bona fide laughs along the way.

Faithful to the manga style, Girl Got Game still manages to provide a few entertaining surprises for the general reader. You don’t even need to love sports or be a girl…

© 2000 Shizuru Seino. All Rights Reserved.
English text © 2003 TOKYOPOP Inc.