Abu-san あぶさん

Abu-san Review (Rating: 5/5)

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Overview

Abu-san is a Japanese baseball manga written and illustrated by Shinji Mizushima. It began serialization in 1973 and continued until 2014, making it a work that spans more than forty years.
Set in the world of professional baseball, the series is notable for depicting real teams, real players, and actual seasons as they happened, blending fiction with historical reality in a way that is almost unprecedented.

An English overview can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu-san

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Synopsis

The story centers on Yasatake Kageura, a professional baseball player for the Nankai Hawks (later the Daiei Hawks and SoftBank Hawks), better known by his nickname, “Abu-san.”
He is neither a superstar slugger nor a legendary ace pitcher. Instead, he spends most of his career as a pinch hitter, entrusted with only a few crucial at-bats each game.

Rather than building toward a single dramatic climax, Abu-san quietly follows Kageura’s daily life as a professional player: his appearances at the plate, his time on the bench, and the gradual changes in his role as the seasons pass. The manga portrays what it means to continue playing, year after year, in a world where results are everything.

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Characters

• Yasatake Kageura (Abu-san)
  The protagonist of the series. A long-serving professional baseball player who specializes as a pinch hitter. He is portrayed as bold and free-spirited, yet deeply serious about the moment he steps into the batter’s box.
  Through his perspective, the reader experiences not only games but also the passage of time, changes in the team, and shifts in the baseball world as a whole.

• And many others
  While the story is firmly centered on Kageura, numerous teammates, opponents, and real-life professional players appear throughout the series, reflecting the era in which each episode is set.

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Story Structure

Abu-san is primarily composed of self-contained episodes. Each chapter focuses on a single game, a specific at-bat, or a brief moment in a season.
What makes this structure unique is that real professional baseball players appear under their real names, and real historical seasons unfold alongside the story. As a result, the manga functions not only as fiction, but also as a kind of chronicle of Japanese professional baseball.

Instead of emphasizing dramatic twists, the narrative allows meaning to emerge through accumulation. The reader gradually becomes aware of time passing, players aging, and circumstances changing.

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Distinctive Features of the Manga

The most striking feature of Abu-san is that it follows the same protagonist for more than four decades without replacing him. From his younger days to his veteran years and beyond, Kageura’s entire career—and life—unfolds continuously before the reader.
Very few manga, sports-related or otherwise, attempt such a long-term depiction of a single character’s life.

Another defining aspect is the use of real players and real teams. This approach, made possible by the era and Mizushima’s unique position as an author, would be extremely difficult to replicate today.
Visually, the artwork carries weight and intensity. The swing of a bat, the trajectory of a ball, and the atmosphere of a stadium are rendered with a sense of physical presence rather than flashy spectacle.

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My Thoughts

Because Abu-san is a work that continued for such an extraordinarily long time, it is difficult to evaluate it with a single, simple standard. I have read the entire series, and across those volumes, the era, the teams, and even the surrounding social environment change dramatically. The fact that the manga maintained serialization through all of this is, in itself, remarkable.

What is even more impressive is that it remains genuinely entertaining throughout. Although the series is mostly episodic, each chapter contains drama, human relationships, humor, and moments of quiet emotion.
The use of real players appearing as themselves is another element that sets Abu-san apart. Among long-running works that lasted until relatively recent years, it is hard to think of another example that could sustain such an approach.

Equally important is that the protagonist never changes. Because of this, the reader is able to follow Kageura from his early days through his veteran years and into the final stages of his career. In that sense, the manga can be said to depict an entire life.
The author’s skill is overwhelming. The strength of the storytelling, the depth of the characters, and the power of the artwork all justify the highest possible rating.

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Conclusion

Abu-san is a baseball manga, but it is also a record of time and a portrait of a life spent in professional sports. It avoids flashy drama and instead builds meaning through steady accumulation.
For readers interested in Japanese baseball culture, as well as those who want to experience a long-form depiction of one person’s life, this work stands as an undeniable masterpiece.