What is Harlem Beat ?

Harlem Beat" is manga life documentation of the juvenile Nate, whose previous life has revolved around giving up, through a lack of self-confidence, an inability to the maintain tenacity required in any sport, stemming from his limited natural talents. (shown right) His life has been directly influenced by viewing the pros of the sport games dominate in wild flashes of brilliance, these aforementioned images, Nate, and through viewing on impulse, takes up this sport, attempts it again. Momentarily, he fails and never has endeavoured to master the sport of basketball. He sucks, basically, and already begins to contemplate giving up, until he learns the story of the magnanimous "Shurman" who useless drop out to the Basketball League's MVP. Having practiced with him, Nate is left with the message of:

"What makes people try so hard?"

"Sink a shot and you'll understand."

With this mind Nate is sent on errand by his coach, to find some equipment. This is a defining moment in the whole manga, because this is where he meets the primary character, "Mizz" an extremely popular girl whom he had once known in his elementary school. She learns of his new commitment to basketball and invites to an area where there is the ultimate set of basketball players , 3 Slam. From this, the manga expands on Nate's interaction with new characters forming sense of his being, a new confident self, a self that will no longer give up in the face of adversity. Nate's learning of new skills could be likened to an individual's developments of new social standing and one's ability to gain prestige and status in wider society.

Why is Harlem Beat better than the rest?

I particularly enjoyed this Manga for many reasons, one of which was the art work which I will look at in a little detail, for it is very high quality and very refined little or none of it has sketch lines or anything that makes the characters unbeleivable, it intrigues the eye. Hair is drawn silkly and fine, you can almost see the individual stands of hair drawn into the characters. The style is unlike many other artist's who choose to either give a humouous or wide eyed look to there characters, Yuriko Nishiyama however tends to draw her characters realisticly and full of live and ephasis. She tends to keep screen tone down to a minimal level depending on other artist to ink her work to give it the natural look of manga.

Whilst drawing either her action panels or panels which include a large amout of emotion. in these panels rather than showing each individual action of the character she seems to add frames as though it is an anime or a console game. These appear to make the character look like he/she is in motion whilst it each panel/stript is still. When the characters are drawn in chibi style they often illustrate a very funny purpose without these the book would not be half as enjoyable to read. Even though there are very few colours it is great to see Nishiyama's work published, for she is a very well-established manga artist, complete with her own style of drawing. She is new to European/ American manga world and it would be great to see more of her work!

On another note the story is just as exceptional, portraying characters with the refinement and skill of a master novelist. This, obviously, is not an overly serious manga but this does not detract from the enjoyment you will experience reading this. Nate is the perfect anti-hero, not seeming like a complete goof but at the same time not aspiring to the same levels of conscience experienced in works such as Evangelion (I think he's a lot like Tenchi but that's just me). I have always been pleasantly surprised by Nate, I think the author is leading us to consider and reflect upon Nate's personification of the weakling side that is perpetually present in all of us, but he always seems to amalgamate his strength and surprise you (and himself) with the feats that he can perform. Mizz is the perfect balance to his weaknesses, being everything that he is and not, as often happens in japanese comics, being an air-headed, positive and irrelevant girl but an interesting character with hidden depths. She semingly is the ultimate friend, representing that special thing that was always present in our lives, commending us, helping us and finally showing us that we aren't as special as we think we are.

About the books

Harlem Beat is curruntly being translated by Mixx books a small company leading out from Tokyo pop magazine a monthly magzine by Viz. It is a long series of many books (at least 20!) They are very cheap and very well translated.At this time there are only the first 4 books that have been translated however there are many more to come in the UK.