Loving A Vampire Hunter

godammit dorian no i didnt mean MURDER THEM

Maybe it's MTL?

your writing is captivating

I know next to nothing about cycling, and I'm not sure what made me want to read this manga, but I'm very glad that I gave it a try. Over Drive is an under-rated sports manga that is refreshingly pragmatic.  

The story follows a fairly standard formula for a sports manga. The protagonist is an immature high-school boy who isn't very good at anything until he discovers his love for cycling. Along the way to the top, he makes his first true friends and gets closer to the girl he likes, among other things. While it's nothing spectacular, Over Drive avoids the stereotypical "here comes a new challenger! Defeat him and move on!" cycle that so many other sports manga fall victim to. The pacing of the story feels natural. Races take several chapters, and everything else is pretty much exclusively cycling-based (practice, training), with some focus on character backgrounds. Romance and drama are minimal outside of the first few chapters, which I see as a plus.  

Shinozaki, our protagonist, is portrayed in a realistic light. It’s clear from the beginning that he has a lot of potential, but he is still an amateur and continues to struggle. This is not a character who immediately becomes the best. The same applies to the other characters. Although each cyclist has a “specialty,” there are no over-powered moves, and there are legitimate rivals who aren’t just there to help the protagonists level up. Over Drive creates a realistic world of high-school and professional cyclists who use realistic skills.  

Yasuda’s art is also rather realistic, and the manga contains a plethora of double-paged spreads. Backgrounds are fully drawn and shaded. I like that the characters are mostly proportionately drawn without comical, over-the-top attributes. (There are exceptions.) The one problem I have is that (once you get to around chapter 65 and the other rival schools are introduced) some characters look very similar to each other, and I mix them up. Also, some of the paneling is hard to follow.  

I enjoy complicated characters. Over Drive isn’t philosophical, but the characters are given enough background to make their motivations distinct from others. The dynamic between the main cyclists is comfortable but not boring. The characters are consistent and easy to empathize with. There are also two female characters who tag along with our four main cyclists. Though they take a secondary role to the males, they are integral to the story and are given distinct motivations and personalities.  

If you’re looking for a story that doesn’t require a lot of suspension of disbelief and is reasonable with its setting and characters, Over Drive might be the one for you.  

A warning though: as of now, only 72/145 chapters have been translated into English. I believe there is one group still translating it (Shoujo Sense), but their releases have become very sporadic, and there’s speculation that the title has been dropped. The anime has good reviews too, so if you can’t read Japanese, you might save yourself the trouble and start with the show.

Highly recommended 🫶