Happy
Author: urasawa naoki ( 浦澤直樹 )
Unlike the title, this manga is anything but happy, well maybe except for the end.
Miyuki Umino is just regular high school girl until her older brother owe a large sum of money (2.5 billion yen in fact) to the loan sharks, and ran off to Hokkaido. Two agents of the loan sharks appeared and demanded money from her, and to pay them back the money, she decided to go and win Winbolton and get the money instead of selling herself to a brothel. Oh, did I mention she was the national junior high tennis champion? Unlike Yawara, this manga is very pessimistic and moodly. Umino rarely win any games when she started. She encountered many incredible advesaries such as loan sharks and prejudice from her collegues. However, her naive goodness (seems to be common in Naoki's works) protected most of them from her. And what's a good sports manga without triangle love relations? She at first fell in love with the son of her rich sponsor. Who was her junior high classmate and tennis practice partner. Unlike in Yawara! the rich boy is actually a very good person. He decided he is too pampered at home, and decided to go and rent small place and live as a lowly cashier in a variety store. Later on, Umino fell
for one of the loan shark's agents, who was moved by her dedication, and helped her at every turn. (not to mention he looks exactly like the sports journalist in Yawara!). The manga's ending was a little strange, let's just say it resolved very little, aside from the fact that she returned the money.
Happy is much better than Yawara! in my opinion. First of all, you can clearly see the maturity of Naoki's drawing style, he have definitly found his own style. Second of all, it's much more emotional than Yawara!, and many of the seemingly bad or questionable characters showed their good side at some point in the story, which shows quite a bit of character depth. Happy is actually quite sad sometimes, although not extremely depressing, because you always feel a glimmer of hope for Umino. As you can see, the story is quite involving. It's a very moving manga, sometimes tears lingered in my eyes as I read it. If you have a chance, read it, I consider it one of the classics.
Other Happy! Resources:
Happy! Urasawa Manga ( Spanish )