Review of "Steady Beat"

YamPuff's Rating: 2 of 5

I was intriuged by the rave reviews. I was more intruiged when I heard what it was about. Instead of presenting us with the obligatory 'gay friend' we often find in movies and manga, here was a story that would actually present us actual people, their reactions, their feelings, etc. It would discuss it, not simply present it. But I felt it was a disappointment.

Firstly, there's the preaching. One has the sense of Rivkah standing over your shoulder with the Moral Mallot, whacking you as you go along. "It's okay *WHACK* to be gay *WHACK* and you must accept people for who they are *WHACK*" The story lacks heart. It is so wrapped up in telling us what and how to think, providing us with the perfect role-model heroie that it forgets that the point of a story is to entertain, is to give us great characters and maybe something to think about along the way.

But the story, unlike the toned drawings, has no shades of grey. Its purely black and white.

The storyline is laughably bad; girl finds out ister may be gay, gets threatening message, gets harassed by a hobo, nearly run over by a car, ends up in the house of a gay couple and their cute son. She won't be -learning- anything from her encounter with the incredibly wonderful, loveable and romantic couple, will she?? And while interesting characters can make up for a bad storyline, there aren't many interesting characters to be found. The main conflict was not particularly convincing either. And if you took away the gay sister there really is nothing left to the story of any substance. It constantly flips between what tries very hard but fails to be funny and moments of quiet thoughtfullness. The characters keep flipping out and its hard to really believe them or take them seriously.

The tagline of the manga is 'soccer, sisterhood and secrets' but a more apt one would have been 'girl discovers sister is gay, angsts over it'. Leah is annoyingly shallow. She considers revealing her sister's secret and decides not to so as not to end up alone with her 'crazy' mother. She punches the boy who's trying to carry her into the hospital (for no apparant reason) because she may have a concussion. Her character profile was so typical of the 'perfect tomboy stereotype' I could have filled it in with my eyes closed; hates pink, like beating up boys. Conveniantly dislikes religion and politics, both of which things her mother believes in strongly. Which brings the question of why she really cares if her sister is gay when she neither prejudiced nor particularly religious.

The artwork has its ups and downs. It ranges between stunningly beautiful (the hair in particular) to sub-par (some expressions were just bad). The first chapter is extremely confusing and to this day I still have trouble deciphering it; the girls look very much alike and in one part one of them removes her ponytail and then I got even more confused. But other than that its very pretty, if not my particular style.

The bottom line is, it isn't a bad manga, but isn't exactly a good one either. It wasn't my thing but it could be yours. It sure pleased the critics anyway.

1 of 1 users found this review helpful