Bat Kid by Inoue Kazuo (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Bat Kid by Inoue Kazuo Germeen Tanas Inoue Kazuo. Bat Kid Translated by Ryan Holmberg. Richmond, VA: Bubbles Zine Publications, 2021. 104 pp. Paperback, $14.99. When first opening Bat Kid, readers will immediately be captivated by the drawing on the first page. Nagai Batto jumps off the page and holds hands with two kids who look just as animated as he appears. Above this sketch is a note from the original author, Inoue Kazuo, declaring that he has "put [his] heart and soul into drawing the manga you hold in your hands" and he hopes that "you and bat kid become the best of friends!" (1). Via this playful, vibrant, and lighthearted manga, Kazuo brings to life Batto's short yet positively delightful story, and it's indeed difficult not to get invested in his journey. Although the story is focused on the bat kid's growth as a baseball player, the manga is a great learning experience for baseball fans and curious people alike. However, it's Ryan Holmberg's attached essay that gives this baseball story value to the layperson. In a little over forty-five pages, Holmberg, an historian and the book's translator, offers indispensable historical context on the origins, impact, and development of the Japanese baseball manga as well as extensively describes Inoue Kazuo's career and character. Holmberg's version of the manga is translated and condensed from the original, which was published in the monthly Manga Shonen in January 1948. It's important to keep in mind that Holmberg's translation only offers a segment of the original manga, with the original totaling "fifteen chapters and nearly seventy pages" (xxxvi). The manga itself indeed holds allegiance to Japanese traditions of "yoiko" ("good kid"). Yoiko comics were "good-natured," conservative, and fun stories which were precisely what parents and teachers thought should be administered to little kids. The bat kid is a middle school student who is obedient to his parents, hardworking, and learns to rely on himself rather than the power he thought he received from a red bat. On page fifty-eight, Nagai says to his bat, "I'm countin' on you, red," but eventually he finds solace in his own capability [End Page 146] and earns himself a spot on the team. In another instance, when Nagai encounters a thief, the thief asks why Nagai doesn't turn him in to the police. The bat kid replies, "Why would I? You're just a kid" (23). As the plot develops, Nagai develops this same empathy and compassion for himself. However, according to Holmberg, Bat Kid's success is surprising from a historical perspective because it reaffirmed ideas from the Imperial past and celebrated an American sport, yet somehow captured the imagination of children who had suffered from the chaos of World War II. Set in the early post World War II era, Bat Kid gives readers a rare opportunity to learn about the effects of WWII on Japanese baseball and the game's reconciliatory power during a very sundering time. Holmberg describes Bat Kid as a testament to how baseball held "the prewar past and postwar present together" (v). Because baseball originated as America's pastime, Kazuo's use of the enemy's sport in his genre of literature could lead people to perceive him as a traitor. Yet, his manga didn't divide the Japanese; rather, it brought them together—so much so that historian Sayuri Guthrie-Shimizu calls baseball a "national iconography of peace, democracy, and freedom" during that era (xxxiii). Holmberg goes on to discuss the cultural legitimacy of baseball as an American sport celebrated in Japan. According to evidence dating back to the 1920s, Holmberg asserts that while Bat Kid was not the very first baseball manga, it pioneered postwar baseball manga as a sustainable genre and influentially paved the way for artists like cartoonist Terada Hiroo, Japan's renowned graphic designer; Yokoo Tadanori; animator Fukui Eiichi; and manga artist Takisawa Michiko. Kazuo's art was not limited to panels, but he also concluded his chapters of Bat Kid with beautifully illustrated picture games and riddles. In Bat Kid, Kazuo illustrates "A Celebration of...