A wonderful ambassador of jazz, Blue Giant is a great success in Japan and France, where the first volume has been published in 2018 by Glénat. It’s really very long and delicate, so it also allowed us to keep control over the quality of the image. Blue Giant has become something of a jazz emissary in Japan, with its manga releases coming tied to music lesson promotions, a compilation CD of jazz greats picked out by the artist Ishizuka, and even a tie-up with Brooks Brothers, based on one of Dai’s most famous quotes: “A white shirt is proof you’re a jazz man! He has no skills, no formal training, and no idea what he's up against, but his obsession drives him to play that instrument day after day.

Phenomenal story, plot progression, and characters as the high school protagonist makes discoveries and mistakes in his quest to explore the Jazz idiom on tenor saxophone. In North America, the manga has been licensed for English release by Seven Seas Entertainment, which is publishing it in a two-in-one omnibus edition, and the first volume was released in November 2020. A high school 3rd year student, Miyamoto Dai, whose heart was touched by Jazz, continued to play the Saxophone alone in Kawahara, rain or shine, day or night, for many years.The art is above average, the character designs are non-inspiring, and the story is just a cliche came-of-age tale.

If you are as lost as I am, not knowing what the goal of your life is and living the same minimal routine. This award-winning manga from Shinichi Ishizuka, compiled into five omnibus volumes for its English debut, is a pitch-perfect drama about the power of music. It’s this that throws him into the company of Yukinori (Shotaro Mamiya) a former piano prodigy old before his time, prickly with those less talented or privileged than himself, and almost ready to give up the jazz game entirely.With all that said, blue giant still does a terrific job at depicting jazz music, it often spends pages or even an entire chapter depicting a performance. Blue Giant Supreme won the Mandō Kobayashi Manga Grand Prix 2018, created by comedian and manga enthusiast Kendo Kobayashi. It is directed by Yuzuru Tachikawa, based on a screenplay by Number 8, with character design by Yūichi Takahashi (who also served as director of animation) and original music and soundtrack by Hiromi Uehara. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.

Dai decides to move to Tokyo after graduating from high school to become a saxophone player, and invites the patrons of the jazz bar who yelled at him on the first stage before coming to Tokyo to listen to his current performance. Then blue giant might be the manga that reminds you what putting your blood, sweat, and tears into something was like. A second series, titled Blue Giant Supreme, was serialized in Big Comic from September 10, 2016, [9] to April 25, 2020.

It takes many chapters before he graduates from his hometown and sets off to find his fortune in Tokyo, although the manga continues beyond the events of this film, catapulting Dai out of Japan and off to the United States, where he finds a whole new set of adventures at the prestigious real-world Berklee College of Music. The Japan Society hosted the premiere in New York on October 6, 2023, in advance of screenings at North American theaters on October 8 and 9. I used to play the violin back in high school, I was in advanced orchestra even though I barely knew how to read music sheets!

A mi me enganchó desde la primera página y tuve que leerlo del tirón; instantáneamente me sentí identificado con los personajes, y me ha hecho conectar con recuerdos y sentimientos de una manera que no esperaba que un manga fuera capaz de hacer.Jazz musicians, however, seem unanimous, even down to the use of performance capture from well-known players – the saxophone pieces in the film were all based off recordings from professional musician Tomoaki Baba, who claimed the hardest part for him was investing his music with the character of Dai, as he knew him from the manga, rather than his own musical personality. The anime version, in the meantime, focusses on a liminal moment that the manga left behind many years ago – the day when Dai made the first big leap into a jazz career, and was stuck sofa-surfing around Tokyo while he hustled for a big break that actually paid money.