Tsuyoshi promises to be seinen; instead it's a standard shonen battle manga.
It promises to be about a wimpy-looking strong man; instead it's about a revolving cast of martial artists.
It promises for Tsuyoshi to be the main character… instead, he's not.
Though filed under “seinen”, the seinen elements primarily amount to window dressing. Occasional cleavage; characters who take sexual pleasure in being beaten; innumerable strikes to the family jewels. There are also some truly uncomfortable Sniper Elite-style internal views of bones being crushed or organs being damaged. But those are all accoutrements: the nature of the story, rather, is that of a shonen battle manga: rather than focusing on what Tsuyoshi brings to the table, the story revolves around fighters who come from across the world, duel each other, and pit various countries' martial arts against one another. Though the title translates to “Tsuyoshi: No One Stands a Chance… Not Against HIM”, only a fraction of fights involves Tsuyoshi himself – perhaps precisely because no one stands a chance, and thus, any fight with him has a foregone conclusion. It's a shame, though: fights between increasingly strong combatants is something we've all seen a million times – and they're awfully drawn out, comprising the lion's share of the story – whereas Tsuyoshi's fights have a refreshing air of creativity and humor.
The tropes the story engages in also fall decidedly under the shonen umbrella. Defeated villains repent and become allies. Characters' big moments are invariably preceded by a flashback to a tragic backstory. Every human emits a “threat aura”, which can be felt and seen. As the story goes on, the fighting becomes more and more outlandish, with “chi blasts” funnily enough being introduced as a technique – this becomes somewhat less amusing when the author insists in an afterword that the series is still realistic, because “chi is real, can be seen with the naked eye, and can heal otherwise incurable illnesses”.
This isn't to say that there aren't moments of greatness! There are laughs to be had, especially for someone who enjoys slapstick or silly visual gags. One thing I found particularly notable was that in a spectacularly rare move, the story occasionally treads where other manga dare not, and touches on controversial political topics – Vladimir Putin; Tiananmen Square; the 1% – which lends some heft that impressed and engaged me. The moments where the title character is front and center are offbeat and gratifying – though those moments are oddly rare…
The story's perspective shifts between a number of challengers – whoever's closest to Tsuyoshi at the moment; a kind of audience proxy; and in the variation that offers, it lends novelty. For someone whose trope tolerance is higher than mine, the characters might be enjoyable. Regrettably, every female character is a walking trope – although they certainly have agency, they're also objectified and dripping with gender roles. The majority of the cast are either gratingly condescending or villainous – most everyone is a terrible person (played for laughs; your mileage may vary), including the eponymous Tsuyoshi. Though in his case, that turns out to be an entertaining, subversive trait!
In the story's generic swaths, which unfortunately comprise most of it, Tsuyoshi is relegated to the sidelines. When it's good, though… Tsuyoshi is an inexorable force of nature; a John Wick-like existence. Far from the meek youngling one might expect, Tsuyoshi is a revenge-driven, nigh-homicidal maniac when his “switch” is flipped: all “yan”; no “dere”. He's often – and hilariously – depicted as if it were a horror manga – less likely to say “please, I don't want to fight…”, and more likely to say “you lookin' to have your ears ripped off, huh?” One of the story's best parts, many volumes in, is told from the villains' perspective as Tsuyoshi enters an unbridled Alien vs. Predator mode – and he's both Alien and Predator. He's the Alien, stalking through corridors and incapacitating anyone in his way, and the Predator, using his supernatural chi sight to see people through walls and home in on weak spots. It takes circa 10 volumes, but eventually, these Tsuyoshi-focused moments grow in frequency as the focus shifts to revolve more around him personally, making the experience somewhat more unique.
Tsuyoshi is a manga with a captivating premise that it largely fails to execute on. It's peppered with laughs and glints of glory here and there – and for someone who enjoys a run-of-the-mill shonen story it would certainly be a different beast – but I found myself impatiently flipping through chapter after chapter to “get back to the good parts”. Distilled into a single phrase, I would describe this manga as “more average than it lets on”.
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