After an pleasant experience watching Yawara! for 124 episodes. I wanted more. So I picked up Happy! which is another story made by the same authour that centers around sports. Little did I know this was far from the same experience that I got watching Yawara!.

Naoki Urasawa is not really the best visual artist, his art is pretty good, uniquely distinct in the way he draw characters. But for something like sports where motion and action is a huge part of the appeal, he falls short. It is still not bad tho, but in comparison to absolutely amazing sports art like Slam Dunk and Teppuu he really cannot compare. Again, not saying its bad tho, it is just really mediocre. This weakness extends to his poor incorporation of sports in a sports manga which is either because he choose not to or he is weak at it I really do not know. But judging from his later works which does not contain sports at all, my guess is that is realized he does not really know how to actually incorporate the sports in a sports fiction and moved on from that direction.

What Naoki Urasawa excels in at least in my experience watching Yawara! is his story and character writing. In both Yawara! and Happy! we are introduced to a girl that is struggling with her pursuit of a hobby that she once enjoyed only to be faced with several obstacles either from people or otherwise. In both Yawara! and Happy! there are 'villains' with not so redeemable qualities that stands in Yawara's pursuit of her own happiness. The only difference is that in Yawara! even if those characters are assholes they are at the very least funny and entertaining. The major contempt I have for his writing decisions in Happy! is that the asshole characters that is standing in poor Miyuki Umino's way are literally just unredeemable dirt bags that I want to personally strangle. Naoki Urasawa is incorporating a writing technique known as kicking the dog; a common method to have the audience garner sympathy and root for a character that is being mistreated hence the term 'kicking the dog'. Inokuma Yawara from... Yawara! definitely had the kick the dog treatment time after time but at the very least we are rewarded with heartwarming moments that give feel good vibes. But in the misleadingly titled Happy! really ramped up the dog kicking to a unberable absurd. Literally half of the chapters are just dedicated to freaking dog kicking and there so much nasty stuff that I am not surprised this never got a anime adaptation. There is just so much dog kicking that one person can take before it just becomes a negative experience and that was why I really did not enjoy most of the chapters in Happy!.

Naoki Urasawa probably wanted to emulate and repeat the success of his previous work Yawara! by making another 'sports focused' story about a girl struggling with her passions and pursuits of tennis. In this alternate iteration, instead of a genius Judo practitioner it is a genius tennis player but with more gripping stakes. In hindsight I can see why he wanted to change things up because seriously repeating the same story and feel is just a recipe for stagnation and he probably wanted to try new things and introduce them to fans that probably already watched and enjoyed Yawara!. While I did not like Happy! as much as I absolutely adore Yawara!, it was a decision that I understand and stand by because in the field of creative work I always want artists and creators to introduce new things on the table instead of the same done and dusted tropes.

In conclusion, a pretty weak but bold attempt to emulate his success from Yawara! but just falls flat due to the excessive dog kicking and lack of emphasis on creating a work that is enjoyable to be consumed. Definitely not his best work but an interesting work to compare and understand Naoki's growth as a writer.