is a shōnen

Shonen

The term refers to manga marketed to a male audience aged roughly 10 and up. The Kanji characters literally mean "few" and "year", respectively, where the characters generally mean "comic"...

 sports manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 written by Shinji Morisue

Shinji Morisue

is a Japanese gymnast and Olympic champion. He hails from Okayama City.-Olympics:He received a gold medal in horizontal bar, a silver medal in vault, and a bronze medal in team combined exercises at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles....

 and illustrated by Hiroyuki Kikuta. It is about high school gymnast

Gymnastics

Gymnastics is a sport involving performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, and balance. Internationally, all of the gymnastic sports are governed by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique with each country having its own national governing body...

 Shun Fujimaki as he pursues his goal of competing in the 2000 Olympic Games

Olympic Games

The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

, and is in part based on Morisue's experiences as an Olympic champion. The series was published by Shogakukan

Shogakukan

is a Japanese publisher of dictionaries, literature, manga, non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan.Shogakukan founded Shueisha which founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hitotsubashi Group, one of the largest publishing groups in Japan...

 in Shōnen Sunday

Shonen Sunday

, first published on March 17, 1959, is a weekly shōnen manga magazine published in Japan by Shogakukan. Contrary to its title, Weekly Shōnen Sunday issues are released on Wednesdays.- History :...

from 1994 to 2000 and collected in 34 bound volumes

Tankobon

, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...

. It received the 1998 Shogakukan Manga Award

Shogakukan Manga Award

The is one of Japan's major manga awards, sponsored by Shogakukan Publishing. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga since 1955 and features candidates from a number of publishers.The current award categories are:...

 for shōnen.

The series was adapted as a 30-episode anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 television series called produced by Sunrise

Sunrise (company)

is a Japanese animation studio and production enterprise. It is a subsidiary of Namco Bandai Holdings. Its former name was Nippon Sunrise, and prior to that, Sunrise Studios...

. It was broadcast on Yomiuri TV from 1 July 1996 to 10 March 1997.