undoubtedly it's GIANT KILLING volume 1.

everything about the composition and color balancing is seriously weird but it all flows so well. it's honestly impressive that you can put such an odd mix of colors together and still have it work.

there are essentially two inverted triangles, main (red/green/teal) and secondary (purple/orange/yellow), with the latter being solid/flat to haze out details that would distract from the main image. using different colors from the main set helps emphasize said set's inverted triangle composition, highlighting tatsumi more than his scale already demands (interestingly, it's a triangle composition where one character takes up two points, and so while tatsumi is clearly the focus character, tsubaki also gets a good amount of focus by virtue of being the odd point out). the choice to use a set of colors instead of one is also an oddity in of itself.

it's just very whimsical and charming! GIANT KILLING is a soccer manga about a genius coach that comes back from england to lead a japanese football team. and so its covers tend to tap into british pop art in a way no other manga does. (the back covers are more based on british punk.)

but while the latter volumes still have interesting compositions, the colored background really ruins it. when the rest of the color scheme is so discordant, it's basic white that pulls it all together. latter volumes also rely too much on patterned backgrounds to fill in space. it's especially egregious as the lighting on the figures becomes more intense and 'realistic'. the earlier, flatter tones worked well with the pop art style without looking boring—as a result of the analog drawing process creating slight modulations in tone—but now its all harsh coloring and shading that looks like it's ripped outta dragon ball Z.

i say latter volumes but this change starts as early as volume 7 and there are practically no covers i like after 13. mind you this manga has 70 volumes.

but back to volume 1: i love the charming little details like the scribbly crown, harkening back to british royalty and tatsumi's position as the leader of his team. the tiny soccer legs on the creators names! the way their names are a little bit wavy as if tasumi is shouting them out. the fact that tatsumi isn't even looking at the camera—not unusual in covers that portray a 'scene', but definitely odd in covers that are more 'arranged'. the tiny hand-drawn details of emblems and logos like the adidas teamgeist 2006 FIFA world cup soccer ball. minaturizing the main setting of the story—the soccer field—so that it fits into the cover like it's just another character. what other cover has even done something like this!

the original identity of the manga shines through in the english version too. so often manga with more basic fonts and logos will get localized with a corny vtuberesque logo, but here the english version is practically the same with only a slightly altered font. although it does remove the katakana title beneath the blue GIANT KILLING, which leads to a bit of imbalance with the blue soccer ball on the left.

i love the art in GIANT KILLING. it's not necessarily good anatomically or linewise but i think the best parts of the cover are all accentuated by the flexibility of its style. forreal, you can't get such a glorious inverted triangle comp without the willingness to draw your main character as a triangle on the first cover.

after writing that longass post about how lion's den was ending fale brought it back and i was like man fuck this shit i never gonna talk about him or his promotion again. well now i've added a new section to my site specifically for short posts under 500 words so i can talk about the recent mayhem event.

on-stage

• kam ahhing v kane harris: two new guys. i thought there was an unusual amount of people when i went in... half of them were just kane's family. literally no one else bought special price tickets (those seats are worse anyway). both of them had title cards, despite this being their first (?) match. even though i've watched wrestling for so long, i don't know what good wrestling actually is. whether or not a match feels good is kinda just driven by mass hysteria, so this guy's whole family being there made it feel exciting.
• zac kelly & fiti levi v horus & graham hughes: horus is always fighting in those damn skinny jeans. i was sure he was gonna beat up graham too.
• thor keith & sean tohi v don fale & maximillion: probably my favorite from the night. thor keith improved so much since i first saw him and he was seriously impressive. the jumping necklock was insane—i guess that's the power of the only pro athlete in fale dojo. he's the first international student in a long time, so i'm curious about why he decided to to switch from actual wrestling to this. fale's movements are really slow and luggish it's fun. he moves like a video game big boss fr. maximillion's outfit was perfect!

• generation iron v jl gold & matty short: the australian guy who makes everyone bark like a dog is back. matty short is such classic physical comedy, him being used as a gattling gun was fantastic.
• kurt brown v darryl voll: surprisingly my second favorite match of the night. my notes say it had a very fun cadence but i'm not sure what that's about. the double disqualification/draw was funnn!
• toothless nico bell v johnny recon: nico beating the ref was very funny. i fucking love this dude.
• pretty boys v the ungrateful 1s: at this point going to nj tamashii events is like traveling 1 hour to watch a pair of white boys get sexually harassed every 2 months. but while i do not care for the gimmick of the pretty boys, the ungrateful 1s are seriously the best opponents for them in their self-seriousness. trent hooper has reactions like a cartoon character.

off-stage

• nj tamashii is CINEMATIC! mangere performing arts centre is the only pro wrestling venue in auckland that actually has a full-size projector screen and it looks better than any other when they got the lights prepped too. but even in the one instance where they held a show in central, it was at the TAPAC, another performing arts venue instead of a community hall. maybe that's why i'm paying $30 a ticket each time.
• selling vintage t-shirts for $50 is so funny bro those shirts are like three years old.
• liger was in the audience as the green party's new MP candidate for mangere! kinda iconic to see him talking with fale after the show. they're both relatively old community leader types and the only NZ wrestlers who have a large audience outside of wrestling (fale is truly a full-on instagram reels creator now with a management team and everything). liger is the most woke man i know (in a good way) so if he's chill with fale i'll be too.
• tyler ernst was also there was an assistant. hi
• i haven't shared my blog on my IRL instagram because some wrestlers follow me and i honestly sound very delusional and can't stop bringing up my personal issues 90% of the time. but i do genuinely think maximillion, at least, is trying to raise pro wrestling's profile as a big thing for south auckland what with him constantly holding talks at schools and all. how he has time to do this as a literal lawyer i have no idea.
• couple months back, jake sheehan did a livestream ranking NZ wrestlers based on their in-ring skill and character presentation. these guys love getting messy in public despite the fact that there's only 50 people in the industry. fale was at the top of the top; nico scored high at S; pretty richie and magic mark at A; bruno astro, cian devin, johnny recon, and maximillion at B. so i have to wonder if the dojo training is actually... good...? after all...
• my highlight of the night was probably when a little baby turned around and i entertained her with the teddy bear i had on hand. and her mom gave me candy

why did that end up being 800 words. i'm sick of this damn promotion