With Run On Your New Legs, mangaka Wataru Midori has written a sports manga that focuses on disability, not in a way that keeps you from being an athlete but rather how it can make you one. The series is published and localized in English by Yen Press, translated by Caleb Cook, and lettered by Abigail Blackman. Additionally, Wataru credits disabled athletes Atsuhi Yamamoto, Junta Kosuda, Mikio Ikeda, and Tomoki Yoshida as consultants on the manga with industry professionals and companies Otto Bock Japan, Okino Sports Prosthetics & Orthotics (Atsuo Okino), D’Action (Shuji Miyake), and Naoto Yoshida. Run On Your New Legs Volume 2 continues Shouta Kikuzato’s story as he joins the track & field team and gets back to being an athlete.
In volume one, readers were introduced to Kikuzato, a teenager whose talent on the soccer field got him admitted to a prestigious school just for its athletics. But we don’t meet Kikuzato as a soccer star, we meet him at a point in his life where he’s given up on the thought of being an athlete altogether. He’s frustrated and sad, so much so he wakes up from dreams of playing soccer, reminded that his leg is gone. But he meets Chidori, a passing prosthetist, who offers him a blade, a prosthetic leg built for running and brings him to his first race.
Now in Run On Your New Legs Volume 2, Kikuzato has a new joy. Despite falling at the race in Shibuya, Kikuzato is excited about capturing that feeling of moving through the air, succeeding, and training. But, it will take more than a new leg for him to truly be a contender the next time he races. Kikuzato needs to learn how to run, and Usami is only too happy to give him some pointers after school at track and field club. The training isn’t going to be the easiest with club members hesitant at allowing a disabled runner into the group. Not to mention Kikuzato’s mom isn’t thrilled about allowing her son back into sports and risk injury again.
Run On Your New Legs Volume 2 tackles a lot of issues in Kikuzato’s life. It explores the want to run and the obstacles that get in your way that are beyond your control. Kikuzato is facing discrimination from his club, and thankfully Usami and a new friend shut down. But that isn’t the only issue.
The leg Chidori lent him is pinching his skin and tearing up his stump because it wasn’t made specifically for his body, which is making it hard to progress. In order to get a new prosthetic blade though, he has to get his mom’s permission, and well she took his last blade to keep him from using it. A heavy story under the surface, Run On Your New Legs Volume 2 always manages to capture the joy as much as the difficulty.
We see what reality looks like for Kikuzato and sure that has hardships, but it also has happiness that we get to see clearly illustrated on his face when he runs. In one sequence we see a side-by-side of Kikuzato when he first had a mold made of his stump for his prosthetic. In the past he’s sullen, his hair in front of his face, his posture shrinking towards the wall. But in the present, he’s talking, he’s smiling, he’s making the choice and it’s beautiful to see. Beyond that, in this volume Kikuzako gets the chance to see adults like him, and kids like him, to just feel at home with other disabled athletes. And more than anything, he can see the path forward for his dreams.
Run On Your New Legs Volume 2 remains a fantastic series and one I hope desperately gets adapted into an anime so that an even larger audience can fall in love with Kikuzako’s story.
Run On Your New Legs Volume 2
TL;DR
Run On Your New Legs Volume 2 remains a fantastic series and one I hope desperately gets adapted into an anime so that an even larger audience can fall in love with Kikuzako’s story.
