Continues the story beyond the end of the Eizouken anime!
Kanamori may love making money—but no matter the price, she’s not going to sell out Eizouken’s creative vision!
It was the trailer they made for Clutch That Machete With Strength! that convinced Sowande, the strong-willed secretary of the Student Council, to approve Eizouken as a campus club at Shibahama High. But Sowande has warned Eizouken all along that if they try to win an audience for their anime outside the school, they risk a collision between their creative freedom as amateur students, and the grown-up world of media and politicians.
Now that clash has finally come, as the committee of TV anime pros judging their full-length version of Clutch That Machete With Strength! want its length to be just a bit shorter…meaning, they want the blood cut out of the battle scenes. If their experienced elders in the industry are trapped in a cozy image of what young people’s anime should be, what can Eizouken do to free their minds? There’s more than the three million yen in prize money at stake for Eizouken—if nevertheless they persist, they may find their club disbanded!
Sumito Oowara was born in 1993 in Kanagawa prefecture in Japan. His father’s agricultural school background and involvement in Scouting gave him an interest in nature as a child. Oowara’s parents and older sister both drew, and encouraged his own drawing from an early age. As a young student he was bullied because of his learning difficulties in math and kanji, to the extent he avoided attending classes—until he decided to use his drawing skill as a “means of self-defense,” to assert a place for himself among his peers.
A member of his film club in high school, Oowara originally drew Eizouken as an amateur manga (doujinshi). Scouted by Japanese manga publisher Shogakukan at the self-publishing convention Comitia (also where Trigun’s Yasuhiro Nightow began his career), Oowara developed Eizouken into a full-length manga series, making his professional debut in Monthly Big Comic Spirits magazine in 2016.
“This is a manga I love because it just expresses the sheer joy of creativity.”—Brigid Alverson, School Library Journal
“The artwork is fantastic, from the facial expressions to the settings and backgrounds. The title’s biggest asset is its dialogue. The comedy is genuine, while the discourse exchanged among the protagonists regarding the creation of anime is both informational and enjoyable for readers all at once…One of the best titles from the last calendar year.”—Joe Pascullo, New York Public Library
“Playful. Sharp witted and funny, some ha ha funny and some groan along to familiar pain comedy. Nice to see something in a post-Satoshi Kon world that layers and shuffles what’s real so effortlessly, but also something with so much sunshine and earnest nerd passion…Oowara still packs a mighty wallop into a pocket read with Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!”—Arpad Okay, Comics Beat
Continues the story beyond the end of the Eizouken anime!
Kanamori may love making money—but no matter the price, she’s not going to sell out Eizouken’s creative vision!
It was the trailer they made for Clutch That Machete With Strength! that convinced Sowande, the strong-willed secretary of the Student Council, to approve Eizouken as a campus club at Shibahama High. But Sowande has warned Eizouken all along that if they try to win an audience for their anime outside the school, they risk a collision between their creative freedom as amateur students, and the grown-up world of media and politicians.
Now that clash has finally come, as the committee of TV anime pros judging their full-length version of Clutch That Machete With Strength! want its length to be just a bit shorter…meaning, they want the blood cut out of the battle scenes. If their experienced elders in the industry are trapped in a cozy image of what young people’s anime should be, what can Eizouken do to free their minds? There’s more than the three million yen in prize money at stake for Eizouken—if nevertheless they persist, they may find their club disbanded!
Creators
Sumito Oowara was born in 1993 in Kanagawa prefecture in Japan. His father’s agricultural school background and involvement in Scouting gave him an interest in nature as a child. Oowara’s parents and older sister both drew, and encouraged his own drawing from an early age. As a young student he was bullied because of his learning difficulties in math and kanji, to the extent he avoided attending classes—until he decided to use his drawing skill as a “means of self-defense,” to assert a place for himself among his peers.
A member of his film club in high school, Oowara originally drew Eizouken as an amateur manga (doujinshi). Scouted by Japanese manga publisher Shogakukan at the self-publishing convention Comitia (also where Trigun’s Yasuhiro Nightow began his career), Oowara developed Eizouken into a full-length manga series, making his professional debut in Monthly Big Comic Spirits magazine in 2016.
“This is a manga I love because it just expresses the sheer joy of creativity.”—Brigid Alverson, School Library Journal
“The artwork is fantastic, from the facial expressions to the settings and backgrounds. The title’s biggest asset is its dialogue. The comedy is genuine, while the discourse exchanged among the protagonists regarding the creation of anime is both informational and enjoyable for readers all at once…One of the best titles from the last calendar year.”—Joe Pascullo, New York Public Library
“Playful. Sharp witted and funny, some ha ha funny and some groan along to familiar pain comedy. Nice to see something in a post-Satoshi Kon world that layers and shuffles what’s real so effortlessly, but also something with so much sunshine and earnest nerd passion…Oowara still packs a mighty wallop into a pocket read with Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!”—Arpad Okay, Comics Beat
