Happy!
a review by saulgoodman
a review by saulgoodman
An underdog protagonist is by no means a scarcity in the sports genre. If anything, they're a tried-and-true character archetype that's almost ubiquitous to sports stories. Who doesn't love that rush of satisfaction, witnessing the voices of dissent and doubt against the struggling underdog steadily dissipate into cheers of support for the prevailing hero? However, Urasawa chuckled as he trashed this trope and crafted a capital U underdog story.
I recommend chanting religious sutras for 10 days and 10 nights in-between chapters. Those with impatient souls will need to invoke Buddha's compassion and patience for the entirety of Happy!; a story laced with many diabolus ex machina ensuring the constant demise of our severely underdog heroine.
Perhaps it was naïve of me plunging in, believing that I'd be enveloped in lukewarm drama that'd steadily boil to warm benevolence, from being coddled and conditioned from other sports series. Barring a few characters, Happy! is a story with no such compassionate development. For roughly the first half of the series, Urasawa relentlessly bullies Miyuki in practically every panel she's in. Her miserable situation worsens by the page, as the weight of her poverty, family situation and tennis increases tenfold in every passing chapter. Though incredibly frustrating it may be, I'd refuse to label Urasawa's writing as hot garbage.
Diving into the story, Miyuki is an immediately sympathetic character. The aforementioned poverty she's in and pressure from debt collector Sakurada pushes the angelic and naïve Miyuki into stumbling and tripping into the world of professional tennis. Accompanied and helped by no one but herself initially, it's all too easy to drop Happy! in a heartbeat. The first half of the story is a massive wall of frustration. Whiny siblings, a gruff debt collector, a man-child rich boy, a snobbish rich lady and, of course, She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. The first half is an absolute onslaught of forced drama. I begrudgingly have to confess, though; I eventually grew numb to the extravagancy of drama. Daresay, I came to enjoy it during the last sprint of the story's first half. The sheer amount and intensity of diabolus ex machina made this story nearly theatrical, as Urasawa slyly manages to worsen the situation of Miyuki and co. in a frustratingly enjoyable way. Nevertheless, those who manage to ball their fists and grit their teeth through it, are in for a marginally less painful later half.
While the first half is dedicated to Miyuki's jaw-slackened induction into professional tennis, the second half focuses on reinforcing and honing herself. This is where Happy! begins to reveal something else beneath its thick exterior of frustration, namely character development. The character development, for several characters, takes the forefront and compromises the anger-inducing plot points' monopoly of the narrative. Transfixed at center of it all and most impactful of the story's narrative, is Miyuki's growth.
First and foremost, those seeking intricately nuanced characters will be sorely disappointed. Urasawa employs the exaggerated characters of his cast to develop and progress the story, at the cost of his audience's patience. Miyuki is a prime instance of such. Her "nice, clumsy girl" nature dully veneers her character for the entire first half of the story, chucking in charcoals of frustration among the flames of sympathy we feel for her. However, the second half manages to salvage and even articulate on the dull traits I've just described. Though Happy! is certainly an infuriating underdog story, it's nevertheless one you can't help but root for.
Miyuki's burdens of family, debts and horrible publicity have weighed her down for a majority of the series. Our frustration continues garnering as much as the interest of her brother's debt, but it's paid back much later in the story. The infuriating waves of boos and snarky tennis fans are drowned out as Miyuki's focus on tennis is heightened. For the longest time, Miyuki's objective was simply to earn money to fulfill the debts. However, along the way, her burdens increased and weighed down her A-game. She only saw that her tennis negatively affected her family and friends, never sparing a moment's thought about herself and what she truly desired. Namely, enjoying tennis. The multitude of conflicts and turmoil she experiences steadily steer Miyuki back to her original reason for playing tennis; because she loved playing it as her father taught her to. In the last tournament of the story, the finale of Miyuki's growth is a serious pay off for our accumulated frustration. Miyuki's usual airheaded straightforwardness turns into burning transfixion on winning. Winning not for the money, but to reach the pinnacle.
The single thing that carrot-and-stick'd me through the first half of the story was Sakurada, the debt collector. The development that Urasawa hid many other characters from, he fed to the rough-spoken yakuza. Ironically, Sakurada was my most hated character initially. His smug mug, explicit demeanor and belittlement of Miyuki's situation and endeavor as a professional tennis player was distilled of any redeeming characteristic. I internally groaned whenever he appeared, halfheartedly expecting him to be a thorn-in-the-side gag character for the entirety of the story. To my utter delight, however, he became a strong driving force of enjoyment with his steady development and relationship with Miyuki. His unexpected soccer past empathetic to Miyuki's tennis struggle was a catalyst for growth early on. His one-dimensional roughness molded into projected bitterness over his regrets. Though he questioned and mocked Miyuki's endeavors, Sakurada's subtle support for her took ahold of his otherwise bland character early on; as he slowly changed from another mob hater into one of Miyuki's scarce supporters. Add in Sakurada's unchanging profane personality and banter, and his relationship with Miyuki also had an enjoyably amusing change of heart. Unlike Kaku and Keiichiro, who've always voiced cheerful support for Miyuki, Sakurada only emitted his support in the form of a silent fist-shake of joy or anger at her dissenters often mistook as his usual violent tendencies. In short, Sakurada grew into quite a knucklehead tsundere in the first half of the story.
Into the second half, though, Sakurada's development truly began to take afoot. His subtle support turned much more explicit and his thoughts about Miyuki drastically changed. He let Miyuki and her siblings to live in his house after they were kicked out of their own, he yells encouraging words for her in games, they eat her homemade curry together, they fight and show concern for each other right after. The sneers of mockery at Miyuki's plight were replaced by unwavering encouragement and an anger directed at the entire world who shunned her. His roughness mitigated Miyuki's blinding sweetness, his shady career as a debt collector offset Miyuki's naïve trust in everything and yet they both grew to care about each other. Sakurada and Miyuki's relationship has won its place as the highlight of Happy! by a landslide and a half. Though the ending was a kick in the nuts....
Moving on, then there's also Keiichiro. Whew. A snail-paced development if I've ever saw one. Keiichiro's candle-burning growth is a prime example of what defines Happy!. Slow-churning and frustratingly dramatic. And I reluctantly loved every moment of it and his facepalming moments of idiocy. He goes through several arcs and mood swings, consisting of his rebellion against his coddling mother, adaptation to a meager runaway lifestyle, reluctance with his planned marriage, his hesitance and struggle to return to tennis as a professional, etc. Nearly every panel of Keiichiro's panel time garners a sigh of frustrated pity, yet enjoyably disbelieving enough to continue witnessing just how much worse his plight grows. Again, I warn those severely afflicted with impatience. His cycles of development and regression may cause you to see red, but I found them extremely investing.
Urasawa has a knack for infuriating rich female characters. From Eva in Monster to Audrey Culkin in Billy Bat, I wouldn't have fathomed that Urasawa could top himself in writing a more dully annoying pest of a character. Well, slap my neck and spin me around 6 times on the head. Choko is, simply put, a villain among villains. Rather than infuriation, I was in utter disbelief by her zero-dimensionality. Was this thing truly created by the same master craftsman who birthed Monster?
However, I'm reluctant to say that Choko complements Urasawa's playful side of writing. I could practically hear Urasawa cackling along with Choko's bursts of "kyahahaha". Urasawa also possesses a magical knack for incredibly intelligent mastermind antagonists. Where we have Monster's Johan and 20th Century Boys' Friend on the spectrum, Choko somehow fits in there, as well. Contrary to her tame ditzy and childish personality, Choko has a surprising mastery over controlling and swaying public opinion, media, people and miniscule details that enthralled me into reading her next move. As hard as it may be, if one is able to see past the obvious infuriating nature of Choko's entire character, you'll come to begrudgingly relish in her shitty farces. The single issue I had, though, is that Urasawa sprinkled in some hints of genuineness in Choko towards the end of the series. I certainly wouldn't go as far as saying it was a flailing, last minute attempt to redeem and develop Choko but I would've preferred if Urasawa had simply kept Choko as the one trick pony villainous he had maintained her as for the entire series.
Admittedly, one of the strongest reasons that lured me into Happy!'s grasps was Urasawa's charismatic art-style. Popping with diverse character designs and animated facial expressions, Urasawa's art is such an enjoyable experience, even if it's standalone. Happy!'s comparatively lighthearted tone to Urasawa's usual hard-hitting mysteries dresses up the playful art-style all the more lively and complementary.
Divorcing the art from character designs, there's not much to comment on. Simplistic and undetailed, it very much complements the slice-of-life nature of this series. From a sports/action perspective, there wasn't any difficulty in following the natural flow of panels during the intense games. The constant commentary dialogue in the very same panels did border on cluttering, but by no means did it make it tedious to read and follow.
Though tennis jargon is thrown around occasionally and a large part of the story is about the sport, the game is secondary to the slice-of-life aspect of Happy!. It's very much an accessory for the characters' development, moreso than an honest-to-god sports story detailing the mechanics of the game. You won't be hard-pressed to learn the technicalities about tennis, instead zero in on what it does for our characters.
Frustratingly enjoyable, Happy! is ill-suited for anyone with impatience and distaste for irrational characters. Beneath the mask, however, Urasawa facilitated a great underdog story, albeit extremely slow-burning. Featuring a cast chalk full of illogical and often infuriating characters, you'll either come to love or hate them for it. If you're able to trudge past the first half of the story, the latter half may be a cool compress of relief for the severe burns of annoyance. A few important characters finally get their past-due development, all varying in degrees of enjoyment, that may not fully diminish the severe anguish felt at the first half, but were nonetheless a great improvement in narrative. With severely post-phoned payoff and a slightly disappointing ending, it's difficult to recommend this emotionally vexing series to anyone but those patient enough to withstand irrational and immortal drama. If you're a masochist like myself, however, you'll revel in the utter, stinking cesspool of near-theatrical conflicts and slow development, though some developments you may also find inexcusable.
Extremely heavy on exaggerated drama, you'll either drop the story or become accustomed to the persisting predicaments that batter our innocent heroine at every corner and turn. There's no steady uplift, either. No gradual gain of public support or opponent recognition that's often found in other sports series exists in this story.
Whether you're a veteran or new to Urasawa, his art-style will instill great enjoyment. His character designs pop with life and playfulness. Simple, diverse and humorous; the characters are visually appealing and humorous. Regarding its existence as a sports series, Happy! does a manageable job depicting the intensity of the games with generally smooth and easy-to-follow paneling.
Contrary to my summary, Happy! is everything INCLUDING happy. Eating curry with her siblings and being beaten down by the entire world, Miyuki still salvages happiness within the deepest sewages with her naïve, persevering character. Exaggerated as Happy! may have depicted it, life is a persistent and viscous cycle of ups and downs. When it comes down to it, it's ultimately you who can realize where your happiness lies and bring it to actuality.
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