is a 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 and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa

Naoki Urasawa

is a Japanese manga artist.-Early life:He graduated from Meisei University with a degree in economics. In 2008, Urasawa had a guest teaching post at Nagoya Zokei University, where he taught classes on manga.-Manga career:...

. It was published in Big Comic Spirits

Big Comic Spirits

is a weekly Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Shogakukan and aimed at males 20–25 years old. It originally launched on October 14, 1980. The culture of food, sports, love relationships, and business provide the themes for its featured series, which often question conventional values...

 from 1993 till 1999.
The story is about a teenage heroine who embarks on a career as a professional tennis

Tennis

Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...

 player to repay an enormous debt incurred by her brother to Yakuza

Yakuza

, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...

 loan shark

Loan shark

A loan shark is a person or body that offers unsecured loans at illegally high interest rates to individuals, often enforcing repayment by blackmail or threats of violence....

s, with the threat that if she fails, they will force her into a life of prostitution at a soapland

Soapland

A ' is a Japanglish and indicates a paradise for men in Japanese. It is said, since in Japan prostitution is officially prohibited by the government, that it is a type of brothel in Japan where male clients can engage in sexual activity with female prostitutes, although officially the clubs do...

.

Characters

The heroine of the story, Miyuki is a tennis prodigy, capable of beating one of the top tennis players in Japan even while when out of practice. She has a pure heart and is devoted to her family above all else, but her desperation and the schemes of those around her quickly give her a terrible reputation as a "bad girl of tennis".

Miyuki's brother disappears right after the start of the manga but his ill-considered business schemes, are what create the huge debt that Miyuki must pay off. He feels guilty about causing the deaths of their parents and his get-rich-quick scheme

Get-rich-quick scheme

A get-rich-quick scheme is a plan to acquire high rates of return for a small investment. The term "get rich quick" has been used to describe shady investments since at least the early 1900s....

s are an attempt to make up for the poverty he inflicted on his siblings.

The Yakuza

Yakuza

, also known as , are members of traditional organized crime syndicates in Japan. The Japanese police, and media by request of the police, call them bōryokudan , literally "violence group", while the yakuza call themselves "ninkyō dantai" , "chivalrous organizations". The yakuza are notoriously...

debt collector who shadows Miyuki and her career was himself once an aspiring athlete and is alternately threatening, supportive and discouraging. He hopes she can succeed and drags his feet when his superiors pressure him not to give her a chance, but he regularly points out the almost certain futility of what she's doing.

A promising young tennis star who is Miyuki's first opponent and becomes a fervent advocate of the prodigy after losing to her. Kaku is a lesbian who is at least somewhat in love with Miyuki and this is used to spread malicious rumours that Miyuki has seduced Kaku.

The son of one of the grande dames of Japanese tennis, he went to school with Miyuki and she turns to him for assistance getting her tennis career started. He is thoroughly under the thumb of his tyrannical mother however and this limits the assistance he will give her. He is a good tennis player but his mother decides he lacks the potential to be the best and forbids him to pursue a professional career in tennis.

Keiichiro's mother, she was once the champion of Japan. She is rich, vain, callous and vengeful, hating Miyuki for being the daughter of the man she couldn't get. However she agrees to sponsor and train Miyuki in order to use her to embarrass the rival Ryugasaki family. Miyuki's bad reputation starts with Utako's teaching Miyuki a very unsportsmanlike maneuver on the tennis courts and insisting that Miyuki use it to humiliate her opponent.

The daughter of Hanae Ryugasaki, Utako's rival from Kyoto, Choko is also Miyuki's unscrupulous arch-rival who delights in sabotaging Miyuki with cruel practical jokes and scurrilous rumours. She portrays herself as a cute and innocent victim of Miyuki's wickedness.

Volume list