Line #81 Manga/BeachStars


1	[[quoteright:225:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Beach_Stars_209.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:225:Our heroine, Nanase Iruka.]]
3
4	''Beach Stars'' is a sports manga written and drawn by Morio Masahiro, focusing around a [[{{Joshikousei}} high school girl]] named Nanase Iruka. She is hopeful for the new school year, with the knowledge that she will be able to play volleyball with all of her friends. Unfortunately, due to lack of membership, the volleyball club is closing down, and all of her other friends go off to do other things. However, when things look bleakest, she is taken down to the beach by her friends, where she meets the up-and-coming beach volleyball star Hayakawa Sanae, and her life changes forever...
5
6	The manga began serialization in ''Weekly Young Sunday'' in 2007, briefly going on hiatus in July 2008 due to the magazine ceasing publication. It later moved to ''YS Special'', where it ran from 2008 to 2009. A sequel manga, ''The!! Beach Stars'', ran in ''[[Magazine/ShonenSunday Monthly Shonen Sunday]]'' magazine from June 2009 to December of 2010.
7
8	----
9	!!''Beach Stars'' has examples of the following tropes:
10	* TheAce: Hayakawa Sanae is probably the epitome of this trope.
11	** [[spoiler: Ishihara Kotomi, former Ace of Onsoku Middle School... until her GameBreakingInjury.]]
12	** [[spoiler: Iruka herself is one by the end of the manga. Whatever she doesn't have in height, she more than makes up with impressive jumps, thoughtful calculation and a ''lot'' of [[GenkiGirl spirit.]]]]
13	* AmazonianBeauty: Kurachi when she gets into a swimsuit. Very fit, very muscular, tall and overall just well developed. Too bad her personality is simply not as good as her toned looks... well, until the PetTheDog moment mentioned below.
14	* AwesomenessByAnalysis: ''[[spoiler: Iruka,]]'' of all people.
15	* BadassBoast: Taki gets [[strike: one]] several for herself in her first match of the Madonna Cup.
16	** Immediately subverted, since Taki doesn't have the control to actually land her super-powerful attacks in the court; it's all just bluster. Or is it?
17	* BadassTeacher: Honda-san. Much like another [[Manga/GreatTeacherOnizuka infamous delinquent-turned-teacher]], he is sometimes forced to put his ill-gained skills to good use.
18	* BeachEpisode: About half of the manga takes place on the beach, what do you expect?
19	* BerserkButton: Iruka is a bit short, especially for her chosen sport. Be sure ''not'' to remind her of that.
20	* {{Bifauxnen}}: Kurachi can easily be mistaken for a guy. She's tall, muscular, has a sharp jawline, and the first time you see her you can't really tell if she has breasts or not. The [[MadEye eyes]] don't help much either.
21	** Of course she gets into a bathing suit, and it becomes a bit more obvious that she's female.
22	** She also looks way more feminine in the flashbacks.
23	* BlackEyesOfEvil: Thanks to their irises apparently taking up the majority of their eyeballs, the Sannomiya Twins (especially the incompetent sister, Hatsune) appear to have this. Although it's less ''evil'' and more ''stupid.''
24	* BloodKnight: Aside from the fact that she fights through volleyball and not direct violence Hayakawa Sanae fits into this trope rather well - she doesn't care for fame, nor for any particular achievement and even victory isn't all that important to her, what she craves for is a strong opponent that can challenge her on equal terms [[spoiler: and the only time we see her genuinely smile is after she was beaten by Iruka.]]
25	* BokeAndTsukkomiRoutine: Hiro Kagurazaka (boke) and Sadako Izumi (tsukkomi).
26	* BreakingTheFourthWall: In ''The!! Beach Stars'':
27	-->'''Iruka''': "I thought if the editing was done right, it would look like we warped or something..."
28	-->'''Michiru''': "And these are all the words I've gotten to say for this entire chapter!"
29	* BrokenAce: Kurachi-senpai.
30	** Which is why she was quite happy when [[spoiler: the same thing happened to Kotomi.]]
31	* CallingYourAttacks
32	* CoolTeacher: Ryoko plays this role to the girls of the beach volleyball club since their actual adviser, Honda-sensei, doesn't actually know anything about beach volleyball.
33	* CloudCuckoolander: Several characters dip in and out, including Iruka and Taki. However, the best example in the manga is probably Hirahara from Unmei Commercial High School, who bases her volleyball strategy on ''Feng Shui''.
34	* ComicBookTime: The first third of the original manga takes place over several months. The second third takes up about half a day. The final third is consumed entirely by the final match.
35	** To be fair, the final match is three sets rather than just one, so the final match is about as long as the rest of the tournament combined, in terms of play time.
36	* CrashIntoHello: How Iruka meets Reika. Of course, with her... endowments, this also resulted in MarshmallowHell for Iruka.
37	* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: [[spoiler: Reika, who manages to block both Sanae's and Reika's serves ''simultaneously.'']]
38	* CryIntoChest: At the beginning of the manga, Iruka does this to a then-unwilling Honda, when the volleyball club gets shut down.
39	* DemotedToExtra: Rin is the odd man out in the five-person beach volleyball team, and so barely gets any screen time through the entire preliminaries... which is about [[ComicBookTime two-thirds of the manga.]]
40	** [[spoiler: But she come back in full force at the end of the first series, threatening to leave the team for good.]]
41	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: After winning the quarter-finals, Iruka decides to get some food... specifically, a ''giant hot dog.'' However, it manages to avoid the normal connotations, since she immediately bumps into Hiro.
42	** Who is ''also'' eating an enormous hot dog.
43	* {{Ecchi}}: Given that beach volleyball requires swimsuits as the default outfit, oddly [[JustifiedTrope justified]]. Of course, there's plenty of fanservice showing off shapely female bodies... and then there's [[{{Gonk}} Taki]] who may or may not provide enough FanDisservice to sour some. [[spoiler: She decides to slim down in the epilogue though, and it's quite possible she graduated into being a MsFanservice too.]]
44	* EleventhHourSuperpower: Iruka, who manages to [[spoiler: figure out the secret behind Kurachi's Cross Spike during the Madonna Cup Preliminary Finals.]]
45	* EmbarrassingNickname: The girls on the beach volleyball team refer to Honda as "Ponda-san" (usually translated as "Humvee" or something to that effect, as it's a pun on the fact that he has the same name as a car company). He really doesn't like it.
46	** So, of course, [[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname the girls refuse to call him anything else.]]
47	** After they lose the volleyball match with Iruka, Reika and Akira, the three thugs are referred to as Nobu-pyon, Ta-kun, and Suguru-chi, as per Iruka's wishes.
48	*** As part of the same agreement, they must now refer to Iruka as the Emperor/Your Highness/the Queen.
49	* ExpositoryHairstyleChange: Kotomi starts out wearing GirlishPigtails, but switches to TomboyishPonytail [[LetsGetDangerous when it's time to play seriously.]] [[spoiler:Turns out she used to wear her hair this way when she was TheAce of her volleyball team.]]
50	* {{Expy}}: Honda is basically what would happen if [[Manga/GreatTeacherOnizuka Onizuka]] weren't the center of his own universe.
51	* FanService: It's an ecchi manga about beach volleyball. The rest should be self-evident.
52	* {{Fantasy Forbidding Parent}}s: Michiru's father, who is not happy with her joining the beach volleyball club. Justified since [[spoiler: when she was in the basketball club in elementary school, she was [[KidsAreCruel horribly abused]] by the other kids, and he doesn't want that to happen to her again.]]
53	* ForgottenFirstMeeting: An extra scene shows a young [[spoiler:Honda]] crying over just being rejected, and a little girl [[spoiler:implied to be Iruka]] giving him a little kiss on the cheek for comfort. Neither of them seems to be aware of this.
54	* FormerlyFat: [[spoiler:Taki in the final chapter has lost quite a bit of her extra weight. The others even find her unrecognizable.]]
55	* FunBagAirbag: See CrashIntoHello above.
56	* GameBreakingInjury: How [[spoiler: Kotomi]] went from being a star volleyball player to [[spoiler: being too frightened to spike the ball.]]
57	** Subverted in that the injury itself isn't what broke her, it was the psychological trauma that she never got over.
58	* GenkiGirl: Iruka, to an alarming extent.
59	* {{Gonk}}: Taki. Dear lord, ''Taki.''
60	** To be fair, a lot of it has to do with her makeup; otherwise, she'd just be sort of short and overweight. [[spoiler:In the final chapter she's shown to have lost some weight and her face looks more attractive.]]
61	* GoodEyesEvilEyes: Kurachi-senpai ''definitely'' goes into the evil eyes territory.
62	* HiddenDepths: Several characters.
63	** Kyosuke Honda, known to the girls as Ponda-san, who founded Yamagami High's Death Metal Club, still has enough of a reputation to scare the crap out of most of the delinquents just by mentioning his name.
64	** [[spoiler: Ono Reika, who is secretly Hayakawa Sanae's partner and one of the most talented volleyball players in the country, if not the world.]]
65	* HotBlooded: Terashima Akira.
66	* InnocentFanserviceGirl: Iruka did her first beach volleyball game in her high school uniform, and didn't realize she was [[PantyShot flashing the audience]] every time she jumped up to receive or spike the ball.
67	* InsistentTerminology: It's Taki, [[BerserkButton not Takiko]]!
68	* ItsAllAboutMe: Taki, so much. People tend to ignore her when she does this, though.
69	** And the Sannomiya Sisters manage to compete pretty well with her when they compete in the Madonna Cup.
70	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Taki, who is there when the volleyball team needs her.
71	* {{Joshikousei}}
72	* LetsGetDangerous: [[spoiler: Kotomi]], after getting over her FreudianExcuse, does this whenever she's on the offensive.
73	* LikeBrotherAndSister: How Honda views his relationship with Iruka by the end of the manga. Iruka [[TeacherStudentRomance doesn't agree with this assessment.]]
74	* TheLoad: Taki starts as this, but [[CharacterDevelopment she starts to get better.]]
75	* MaleGaze: Most of the girls in this manga are well gifted, and the men definitely notice. It's beach volleyball after all.
76	* MotiveDecay: Lampshaded; you might have forgotten, by the time you get to the Madonna Cup Preliminaries, that Iruka's original goal was to beat Hayakawa Sanae. Don't worry though, [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall Iruka takes time to remind us, just in case.]]
77	* MsFanservice: Too many to count. After all the series is an {{Ecchi}} manga about (mostly) good-looking girls playing volleyball.
78	* TheNapoleon: Iruka is the second shortest girl in the cast, and [[BerserkButton she's a bit sensitive about the subject]].
79	* ObfuscatingStupidity: Most of Ono Reika expressions and comments make her look like an airhead but underneath the surface she is not only one of the best and most competent players in the manga but is also capable of reading other people quite well and on occasion delivering a subtle, yet accurate remark that digs right where it hurts.
80	* {{Ojou}}: The Sannomiya Twins, from Saint-Karelina High School, who manage to out-bluster even Taki.
81	* OneHeadTaller: More about ''two'' heads, since Iruka is pretty short for her age and Honda is rather tall. Becomes notable whenever they hug each other.
82	* PassionateSportsGirl: Iruka's favorite thing in the world is volleyball. Heck, she was crying for days when she found out that the school volleyball club got disbanded because of a lack of players. [[spoiler: It's this nature of hers that allowed her to become an ace beach volleyball player by the end of the manga.]]
83	* PetTheDog: [[spoiler: Kurachi, after getting encouragement from the fans from her school. It's the first time we see her [[MadEye not looking absolutely bonkers.]]]]
84	* PervertRevengeMode: During the Boys vs Girls match, when Akira asks to be handed over the ball, Suguru takes the chance to lift her top and flash her boobs for all to see. Naturally she gets pissed and kicks him in the face, and proceeds to turn around the score from that point on.
85	* ThePowerOfFriendship: Every beach volleyball player relies on their partner to help them win the match. This is emphasized repeatedly over the course of the manga.
86	** Also, the reason the girls were eventually able to [[spoiler: get their own beach volleyball court.]]
87	* RevengeByProxy: [[spoiler:Kurachi's plan to defeat Kotomi is to purposefully target Iruka, because she knows Kotomi won't have the courage to stand up and protect her. It works at first, but Kotomi finally breaks through her trauma and starts fighting back.]]
88	* TheRival: Iruka to Sanae.
89	** Also Akira, but [[UnknownRival Sanae doesn't really seem to care about that]].
90	* RoomFullOfCrazy: A comedic version of the trope, and not actually in a room: Michiru accidentally gets a glimpse of Sadako's notebook, which is full of manic, hateful screeds about her partner, Hiro.
91	* RousingSpeech: By [[spoiler: Mr. Fuji, of all people.]]
92	** Honda-san tries this... [[SubvertedTrope but realizes it's pretty hard to come up with an inspirational speech on the spot]]. It just ends up making everyone even more depressed.
93	* SadistTeacher: Mr. Fuji is definitely this, [[spoiler: or so we are meant to think. In reality, he's more of an over-exuberant SternTeacher who didn't realize his intense training and disciplinary method were chasing people off]].
94	* SpotlightStealingSquad: Taki, who was so effective that she ended up being on the second team in the preliminaries with Hinami instead of Rin.
95	** Poor Rin, who [[spoiler: suddenly comes back at the end of the first series, pissed off that she was relegated to the sidelines for the entire manga and ready to quit.]]
96	* SugarAndIcePersonality: Sanae, definitely.
97	* TeacherStudentRomance: Teased between Honda and Iruka.
98	* ThoseTwoGuys: Those Three Girls: Yuina, Nagisa and Kanae of the Newspaper Club. Don't show up that often, but they're rather distinctive when they do.
99	* TournamentArc: The Madonna Cup, though the original run of the manga only actually follows them through the preliminaries. The manga got cancelled with the magazine it ran in, and it was close enough to completion to get {{Uncancelled}} to cover the Madonna Cup Finals - which was always meant to be the ending.
100	* TrainingFromHell: Mr. Fuji's preferred method [[spoiler: and one of the main reasons the volleyball club closed down in the first place.]]
101	* TwoTeacherSchool: Honda-san and Fuji-san are pretty much the only ones who show up.
102	* UnknownRival: Terashima Akira, to Hayakawa Sanae.
103	* VictoryIsBoring: Sanae feels this way, since she hasn't found an opponent that can make her play with her full strength, regardless of the result. [[spoiler:She finally finds it in Iruka.]]
104	* WhamEpisode: Literally, in this case: [[spoiler: Iruka takes a ball to the face pretty hard and ends up with a concussion, barely able to stand up, much less play.]]
105	** But, of course, [[spoiler: [[{{Determinator}} she gets up anyway.]]]]

Context Manga / BeachStars