Happy! Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links   sh6q

Happy! is a classic old-school manga, let us be honest with ourselves. Drawings are very exaggerated even if the tennis are good ones.
Urasawa gives us here a strong lesson about life being a nightmare, whether you want it or not, despite the fact that Chouko plans ALWAYS works and people are dumb to fall for it. But in the end, that's partially intended.
The goal is to us slice of life with a bit of romance and action. The scenario is well-balanced and captures some true things about sports : focus is 80% of the job in ranked matches.
The character I like the most is the ... freaking Sakurada, which is perfect !

I'll will give it a 7 since we could have had a better variety with Chouko success and failure in trying to ruin Miyuki. But I'm glad I read it !

Can Umino Miyuki get HAPPY? Probably not. I began reading without any context as my first Urusawa work. I saw a YT video thumbnail saying it was his "Most Depressing" work, and decided to read it on a whim to surprise myself. It's hard for me to say that this manga was really "good" or "bad" because it's both incredibly frustrating but also fairly rewarding. The story starts off with an interesting premise, and immediately heaps misfortune upon the main character, Umino Miyuki. Almost everything she tries (with the exception of plot points required for the story to progress) goes wrong, and in almost every ... case, it's out of her control. This is the formula for the entire 254 chapter manga.

However, this constant misfortune is an excellent plot driver, as Umino must dig in her heels more and more to press beyond the struggle between her and her goals. However, after about 70 chapters, I will it that I was more upset with the manga than anything else. But because you get so upset at everything going wrong, when things eventually go right, it feels like a much greater payoff. However, the ratio of negative-to-positive is around 60-40, with more frustration than payout, especially in the middle. I don't know if I should think it's brilliant or just dumb to write in a style that punishes the reader for liking the characters, all with the intent of making the rewards seem bigger. It's a really weird development style, and I would compare it to "Stockholm syndrome," a condition where a victim develops sympathy or emotional attachment to the person who harmed them or kept them captive over time (I was kept captive by the story, too).

In of the ending, this manga has one of those "one chapter" endings. Yay, everyone can be "HAPPY!" Except for the reader. Well... Maybe not. At the end, the story still seemed unresolved in a few places. What were Sabrina Nicolic's (the undisputed champion of women's tennis) true motives for playing tennis? Was she HAPPY with her tennis? What about Hina and Thunder Ushiyama? Were they able to get HAPPY? diD uMInO mIYUkI gET HApPy!? A lot of the characters were developed well, but at the end were unfortunately forgotten about (this may have been purposely). In this case, I don't believe one chapter was enough to round-off the story and make up for the parts that made the manga really frustrating to read.

It's well-written, and I must it it was hard to put down, but also felt like a constant grind to get through. Pretty much anything bad that can happen will happen in this manga, in a Oliver Twist sort of way. Misunderstandings and heartless villains without a shred of humanity trying to either use or destroy Umino are stacked against her. And how heartless the villains are! But she continues to fight! She must! For the sake of her family. For the sake of her brothers and sisters. No one else can do it; she's the only one! And because she is the only one, a lot can (and does) go wrong for her her and everyone who is sympathetic to her cause. The main problem I have with this is that it's a very one-dimensional writing approach. The villains are evil, and the main character is pure. We have extremely defined "good" and "bad" roles. Her friends REALLY want to help her (but they can't)! The characters are treated too much like characters, and not enough like people, if that makes sense. And I'm over here wondering, "Why is the villain evil? Does she even think she's a good person?" Most people IRL, no matter how evil, think in some they way they are a good person. This isn't a complex work. It's a simple sports story that follows all the main tenets of a simple sports story. So is it bad? No. But is it good? Depends on how much you can tolerate Umino vs. the world. In of pure enjoyment, it was... eh. When you write a story that really leads the reader on, it's all about suspending their disbelief, like "wow, this could happen." This manga does that pretty well, but it gets to a point where it's like, "This again? Oh, another bad thing is gonna happen. Oh! There it is." For this reason, I don't say Happy! is written "poorly" but I don't think it's written as well as it could be.

I actually don't like Urusawa's art, and this was compounded by the fact that the villains look SO annoying. You'd hate them even without knowing how disgusting they act. But I should praise Urusawa for making such despicable villains. As expected of the creator of the highly-acclaimed "Monster." Despite my opinions, the manga is well-drawn (objectively). The action is easy to follow, the ing is pretty much never confusing, and there aren't too many really annoying two-page giant scenes that are hard to parse. Urusawa is incredibly good at conveying emotions through his art, and the dynamic flow of the action is decent.

Overall, I don't think this is a "bad" read, or it's terrible or anything, but if you decide to read it, you should know what you're going to get. It's emotionally unforgiving with a fairly one-dimensional plot and characters, but if you can get past that, it's a decent story about grit and dedication to a cause, and how ion, virtue, and hard work are all rewarded in the end.

Absolutely terrible Manga. After 110 chapters of annoyance, sexism and repulsiveness the MC finally gets to have a moment of triumph only for it to be undercut IN THE SAME FKIN CHAPTER by, you guessed it, comically evil villain Choko. The only thing this manga has going for it besides its artwork which is even at best a 7/10 is its underdog storyline but it being undercut EVERY SINGLE FKIN TIME is honestly just mind-numbing. By the end I was so tired that I didn’t even leave satisfied or annoyed. I was just glad it was finally over.

Characters bar the MC are either comically evil, ... sexist beyond reason or capable of either breathing or moving, separately.
Story is as formulaic and barebones as they come in of sports underdog stories.
The artwork is nice but nothing too outstanding. flow is mediocre at best and it heavily relies on speed lines of arms or legs to create a feeling of pace and motion, instead of creative layout and composition.

Probably one of the worst manga in of enjoyment I have ever had the displeasure of completing. So bad it made me write my first and hopefully last review ever.
This manga is pure frustration, annoyance and repulsiveness.