Quite a few spoilers within this review. Do take care if youre worried about that. 300https://i.ur.com/dZB14Cm.png One of the highlights of reading this year for me 100. I always found myself reading more and more for so many hours. Maruo Eiichiro routinely loses matches. A lot. He is not an infallible protagonist. Seeing him try so desperately to hang onto a match not knowing if hell actually win or lose until the moment its decided is something that is surprisingly rare in sports manga. And its this level of genuine human behavior that drives the story forward. When both players on the court have strengths and weaknesses and can evolve based on each other you get truly satisfying matches. Some of my favorite moments are just pages and pages of backandforth dialogue during a match dissecting each persons playstyle and poking holes into the fiber of their very being. Then when they evolve right back to overcome that threat where do we go from there? What does our protagonist do when hes faced with an insurmountable wall? Time and time again he has to square up against an opponent that simply outclasses him. How as an author can you keep that interesting? And for that matter how many elements of a sport can you include without it becoming pure nuance or getting bogged down in uninteresting detail? As it turns out you can include a fucking LOT. And thats the key. Hikaru Katsuki does a fantastic job at pacing throughout the major story beats and gameplay elements. Basically every game set and match matters in some way. There is zero filler and every story beat that veers off to the side for even a moment is carefully brought back into the main plotline in some way. It all culminates into my two favorite arcs the AllJapan Junior and the AllJapan Championship. 220https://i.ur.com/YXJPmba.jpeg 220https://i.ur.com/JOnA0vq.jpeg Here we get to see everyone come together personal motivations playstyles circumstances and all. Araya Ide Okada Nabae Kanda Ike Takuma Natsu and even Aki. These tournaments where all these young talents and professionals get to come together and bring everything they have to the table is genuinely some of the best payoff Ive seen in sports manga. Every character starts somewhere and is grounded in the universe has enticing backgrounds and compelling gameplay strategies and grows from facing each other over and over again. And our protagonist Eiichiro is just the catalyst for it all. Using him and his growth as a player as a lens we get to see it all unfold spectacularly. ...However tying things together like this takes a long time. After these tournaments and all the payoff from them we essentially get to see This arc itself is great foundation for the next 400 chapters to come but the story ends much sooner than that by this point weve got only around 100 or so chapters left until the story gets axed due to complications with the publisher. Truly I wish this series could go on forever. I could talk about a specific plotline that I didnt think paid off well: Or how in the latter half of the story I wasnt always happy with how new elements of his gameplay were integrated: But honestly Baby Steps has given me a ton of interesting things to think about. Why would I waste time complaining about such minor details when Ive been generously given so much more? Its given me a world of characters and all their hopes and dreams. I got to see them all grow up and train hard facing the harsh realities of the professional sports world. And along the way Ive seen firsthand how they overcome so SO many forms of adversity. I have so much appreciation for Hikaru Katsuki and the world shes crafted. I just wish it got a proper ending some 300 chapters later than it did. Id be lying if I said this was manga was perfect but it handles every fundamental so well over 10 years without missing a beat. The world of Baby Steps is carefully drawn and written in such a way that you almost forget its fiction. And for that and all the lessons Ive been grateful to take away from it I can only hope you give it a chance.