Smoky B.B.: Unedited Audio and Recording Notes (Patreon)

Manga Details

• Writer: Komiyama Kenta
  • Other works
    • Kikai-banashi Hanasaka Ikkyu (2011, 15 chaps/2 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump) w/ Yuuya Kawada
      • A clever young monk engages in games of wits alongside the mysterious ayakashi Karma, at first to defeat him, and then to save him. A golden future cup-winning series that was serialised all on its own, giving us hope of a hit at the time. What fools we were.
• Artist: Yuuya Kawada
  • Notable people they had as assistants
    • Gen Oosuka (Golem Hearts, Doron Dororon)
    • Yusaku Shibata (ZIPMAN!, Yoakemono)
      • I think Shibata is officially our assistant MVP for this podcast. Man’s worked everywhere!
    • Atsushi Nakamura (AGRAVITY BOYS)
    • Kentaro Satou (Magical Girl Site)
    • Keisuke Gotou (One Operation Joker)
  • Other assistants that are notable but not really worth mentioning on the podcast:
    • Ryuusen Kumada (A Love That Begins After Stepping on a Mine, Missile Bird)
    • Hirokazu Yasuhara (Miss Healer is Acting a Little Strange)
    • Toshinori Yano (From Misunderstandings to Marriage)
    • Junichi Tarutani (Beast Saga)
    • Tatsuyuki Maeda (professional assistant with a youtube channel)
  • Other works
    • Kikai-banashi Hanasaka Ikkyu (2011, 15 chaps/2 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump) w/Kenta Komiyama
      • Hey, do you remember earlier, when you read about this Golden Future Cup-winning failure? This is still that.
• Publishing
  • Run Dates:
    • May 27, 2013 to September 09, 2013
  • Series it replaced
• Rookie Policewoman Kiruko by Masahiro Hirakata (3 vols, flop, SHONEN FLOP EPISODE 88)
• Series that replaced it
  • Hachi -Tokyo 23-ku- by Yoshiyuki Nishi (3 vols, flop)
• That's the Bokke-san author
• Series that started at the same time as it
  • Muto Black by Daijiro Nonoue (2 vols, flop)
    • That's The Last Saiyuki's author
• Chapters/Volumes:
  • 15 chapters/2 vols

About the Manga

• Plot
  • Some Yakuza show up to a baseball field only to find a guy sleeping on the mound. His name is Enjirou and while smoking a cigarette challenges them to a baseball game, saying that it will be both his last game and cigarette. Despite being an incredible middle school Pitcher, Enjirou must quit because his family is 100m yen in debt so he has to work to pay it off. However a girl named Kamado from Benten high school shows up to scout him. The school, which her family owns, is also in serious debt and must win the championship to save it. Enjirou at first declines but after striking out a yakuza guy with a tummy ache using his special “smoky” style of pitching, she offers to pay him 5 million yen per game until he gets enough to pay off his debt.
  • 
    
  • Enjirou agrees and is soon enrolled in Benten along with his best friend and catcher Kazami. Kamado tells Enjirou that they must win nationals in order to get the 400m prize, and then he meets the Director who tells him actually he’ll only get the money if he wins nationals before a baseball smashes through his window. It was hit by Kitazato, Benten’s ace pitcher who hates Enjirou for being paid to play and talks to an invisible snake ghost, as Kamado’s dad tells her that he wants to kill himself for fucking up the school so bad. Enjirou challenges the entire team to a game of 9out where if he wins they have to accept him and if he loses he has to quit. Enjirou successfully strikes most of the team out but while collecting a foul ball he meets Ikki, a second year player with fancy hair who isn’t participating cuz he thinks Kitazato is a dick. A guy hits one of Enjirou’s balls and Ikki catches is for him because he suddenly respects him for being a “baseball freak.” Enjirou then strikes Kitazato out even with his super power of hitting foul balls. Just then Toratani, the captain of the team with messy black hair as opposed to Enjirou’s wild black hair, shows up, slaps Enjirou’s ass, and steps up to bat. He hits Enjirou’s pitch but Kitazato catches the ball and throws him out because he suddenly respects Enjirou. Now the whole team respects him.
  • 
    
  • After completely destroying the first team in their tournament, their next round is against Hotei, a team that wrecked them last year and demoralized the shit out of them. The coach doesn’t want Enjirou to play because he doesn’t want his spirit to get crushed so he has Kitazato play in the first inning, who fucks it up and gives up 6 runs but calms his nerves. Enjirou gets the coach to put him in and the team does way better until Mikami, their ace shows up and hits a home run off Enjirou. Benten continues to do well, closing the gap admirably and Enjirou manages to strike mikami out by tripping and falling while pitching. Unfortunately they can’t overtake Hotei and lose because Kitazawa fucked up the first inning so bad. Then Kamado tells them that actually they have to win the national tournament because a dying billionaire said he’d give his fortune to whoever won. Sudden flash forward and it turns out they won nationals. Then there’s a mini chapter which is a prequel and a page of a beach episode.
  • 
    
• Characters
  • Haimura Enjirou
    • Plays baseball to stop smoking
    • Super pitcher
    • Vanishing pitch
    • Actually a huge chad yea so what I get paid to play baseball
  • Kazami Hayata
    • Mellow guy
    • Kinda timid
    • Doesn’t really do anything
  • Kuhou Komado
    • Hot headed talent scout
    • Very protective of her team
    • Daughter of the school director
  • Kitazato Ayumu
    • Vice captain
    • Kinda an asshole but fair?
    • He’s nuts talks to a snake spirit that no one can see
    • The vegeta of the series?

Why it Failed

• This translation
• Def is trying super hard
• This starts really slowly, it’s what 20 pages in without anything really happening
• How the fuck is a baseball torunament 400m
• When the fuck are they going to play baseball they just keep talking about it
• So much reaction faces and stalling, they are shocked about 9 out for like 6 pages, which just shows how this series constantly is stalling because it really didn’t know what to do
• The series really puts little effort into showing the other team members
• It’s kinda boring the MC only has one technique

What it Did Well

• Art is solid
• I appreciate the MC being like fuck it I like money lets do it
• The MC is actually very reasonable and forthcoming about why he needs to be paid to play baseball
• I like how the team slowly joins the side of the MC in the 9out, which shows a growing relationship
• I like they lost the first game, showed even with the ACE baseball is still a team game

Where it Could Have Gone

• Legit be supernatural yo
• Be kinda fun to have a baseball manga from the management perspective, like manga moneyball where how do you handle all these wild people and can have a strong female cast
• Make it not 1 million fucking dollars, something like 30k would have been reasonable and still difficult
• Get rid of the school bankrupt plot it’s super weird and doesn’t explain how they can pay so much to the MC
• What if the MC still had to do yakuza shit and had to balance being a baseball player and this badass
• I think the 9out chapter could have been fun if it wasn’t so antagonistic with the MC, like this could have shown all the personalities and skills of the team in a single chapter. It’s kinda like how WW did it with the flying chapter

Misc Thoughts

• The school chairman looks just like the chairman from prison school
• Lmao Mikami Shun flex is how many times he’s made the school get sued
• Who is that other female character I legit don’t know who she is
• Maxy Bee thoughts:
  • I (that is to say, Maxy Bee, researcher and trivia monkey) once wrote a multi-part history of baseball in Weekly Shonen Jump, declaring this the beacon of hope for the genre moving forward. DIDN'T WORK OUT THOUGH, DID IT?
  • There is so little information out there about these creators, who’ve basically disappeared since, that it’s actually a bit sad. Thankfully, friend of the show and former guest Andy’s Islands of Patch Café, Mankin-trad, and (most relevant to this) Manga Properties pulled through MAJORLY for me with a collection of author comments from the magazine run of this series. I’ve linked it here but among other things we learn:
    • Yuuya Kawada’s grandparents gave him some locally made juice during a visit
    • Kenta Komiyama has muscle pain
    • Kenta Komiyama enjoyed Masato Sakai’s performance in the TV drama Legal High
    • One of Yuuya Kawada’s friends got married during this serialisation
    • Kenta Komiyama thinks baby geckos are cute

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary
  • Community
    • Tucker: Rub a mom, manga will bomb
    • Maxybee: A headfirst slide into second cancellation
    • Andy's Islands: Only you can prevent cancelations -Smokey🐻
    • ChemyChems: So not the Burt Reynolds movie?
    • Chickenwarlord: Yubitsume aternative for the modern gangster
    • dackerson: Yakuza Baseball?!?! Nevermind, High School Baseball...
    • duderocks the earthchild stan: N.D.B.P (nine dragons ball parade)is looking pretty good now
    • Glornak Ironspawn: Struck out! Kneecaped by the Yakuza.
    • Kpt.Kluless: Listen to smoking out the window
    • LordAnubis, #1RedHoodFan/Mourner: True Art's incomprehensible, this isn't though...
    • Portal man: Sega's Yakuza rip-off ain't worth it. | I want ten cent beer night!
    • Riley: Smoking causes cancer, stroke, bad manga
    • Sbubby: Just like Haimura's pitches, nothing hit
    • Spiffy: Thought baseball was boring, Still do.
    • Spike: You don't always die from tobacco... 🎵
    • The Wolf The Wood The Trafalgar: Winning the Worst Translation Award already
  • David: walked plot aint a grand slam
  • Jordan: wait how is this gonna work?
  • Guest:
• Flop or not
  • David: Ah the first flop of the season! Fuck it go watch Dungeon Meshi it just started and it’s great