The series is a Sports Story focused on the world of competitive fencing. There are two main characters who also happen to be rivals: Nicholas Cox, a Hot-Blooded young fencer, and Seiji Katayama, a cool and collected fencing prodigy. They both attend the prestigious Kings Row, an all-boys boarding school where they both compete for a slot on the elite fencing team among a colorful cast of characters made up of spoiled rich kids, tough coaches, and flirty jocks.
The series borrows a lot of tropes from Sports Anime, complete with a pretty accurate depiction of fencing. It also has a heaping amount of Boys' Love content, with numerous gay characters along with the Homoerotic Subtext between the two main characters. Unsurprisingly, it quickly picked up a fanbase and after the initial 12 issues were released, the series was announced to be continued in OGN (original graphic novel) form, along with two written prose novels (titled Striking Distance and Disarmed) that were released in 2020 and 2021.
Not related to the play Fences, written by August Wilson in 1984, or its 2016 film adaptation.
This series includes the following tropes:
- The Ace: Fence has a number of characters who fit this trope, and a few of them are teammates with the protagonist Nicholas.
- All There in the Manual: The fencing parameters, preferences, and other tidbits regarding the main cast are listed in their profile images made available online. The comic's original print also includes copies
of the characters' transcripts and Coach Williams's assessment of their skill levels. - Always Identical Twins: Seemingly played straight by the Levantis twins at first glance, though Redemption reveals they have contrasting personalities that set them apart.
- Ambiguously Gay: Both Nicholas and Seiji, who constantly think about each other and have yet to state if they're romantically interested in women, though the writer does confirm the former to be bisexual. This is in stark contrast to Aiden, Harvard, and almost every other boy who attends Kings Row.
- Animesque: While not as blatant in many works invoking the trope, some volumes of Fence have the cast being depicted Super-Deformed style for comedic effect.
- Art Evolution: The art style used in the Rise and Redemption volumes are a step up from the original series.
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: Subverted in that fencing is more than just being able to overwhelm the opponent through sheer offense, but also parry their counterattacks and make tactical moves depending on the discipline chosen.
- Audience Surrogate: Nicholas and the less experienced students serve this role as they are given lectures involving the finer details of fencing, sports mentality, and even team dynamics from Coach Williams or other characters.
- Awesomeness by Analysis: Coach Williams of Kings Row often does this to give readers more insight on the fundamentals of the sport. She even properly assesses the traits of each competitor, giving them instructions on what they can do to improve themselves. Aiden himself is shown to be quite skilled at observing other fencers and taking advantage of their weaknesses.
- Backstory: Every major character has one that details their motivations for joining Kings Row's fencing team to begin with.
- Batman Gambit: Realizing that Nicholas and Seiji can help each other grow, Coach Williams creates situations where the two are forced to interact despite their initial hostility with one another. It results in both boys forming an actual rapport which steadily improves over time.
- Battle of Wits: The story thoroughly emphasizes that fencing is just as much a battle of wits as it is a physical sport through the various tactics and mind games employed by many fencers.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Nicholas and Seiji don't get along at all, and yet can't stop thinking about each other; Seiji seems especially enamored after he's nearly beaten by Nicholas in a match.
- Beta Couple: Though they're not officially couple, both Harvard and Aiden are treated as this to further contrast them from Nicholas and Seiji.
- Bickering Couple, Peaceful Couple: Nicholas and Seiji are obviously the bickering couple while Harvard and Aiden are the more peaceful pair.
- Birds of a Feather: This surprisingly happens when some of the main characters get to know their rivals from other schools during the training camp at Halverton.
- Boarding School: Many of the schools in the story including Kings Row are this. In Nicholas's case, it's a huge benefit for him as his previous home was shown to be very dilapidated.
- Break the Haughty: Lots of characters undergo this with Seiji being the most prominent recipient of the trope.
- Cast Full of Gay: There are a lot of gay/bi students attending Kings Row. The explicitly gay main characters include Aiden, Harvard, and Dante, and there are several minor characters that happen to swing that way too (namely, Aiden's fanboy squad). Nicholas and Seiji obviously have some sort of attraction towards each other, but neither has declared themselves straight or gay.
- Cast Full of Pretty Boys: The story is filled to the brim with many attractive boys with more showing up as the story progresses further.
- Cast of Snowflakes: Just about every character has something that makes them both unique and interesting.
- Centipede's Dilemma: Nicholas experiences this early on after the amount of fencing information he acquires becomes almost too much for him to handle, causing his performance to worsen from the pressure. But with some encouragement from Coach Williams, he's able to move past that and regain his drive to improve.
- Central Theme:
- Experiencing failure is necessary in order to grow and improve. This is something Nicholas lives by as he quickly learns from his mistakes and adapts to give himself a better chance of success. Meanwhile, Seiji struggles to tolerate failure due to his perfectionist streak, though he does get better with help from his teammates.
- Winning isn't everything. There are things people only learn or gain by not obsessing over victory. Throughout the story, Seiji had been constantly plagued by the defeats he's experienced. But along the way, he forms a genuine bond with Nicholas and comes to realize that seeing how far they'll go together is more important than siding with the strongest team.
- Challenging the Bully: During the training camp arc, Nicholas is given the opportunity to duel against the guy who mocked him in the first volume. While it ends in defeat for him, he's not the least fazed about it as every defeat is a learning experience for him.
- Character Focus: While Nicholas and Seiji do take up more attention in the story, each major character is given some attention here and there to allow for personal growth.
- Childhood Friends: Harvard and Aiden, and they have another childhood friend in Arune who attends another school. Also applies to Seiji and Jesse who attended the same fencing camp together during their formative years.
- Color Motif: The comic uses blue for both the logo and intro pages. While the color itself usually symbolizes calmness or confidence, it is also associated with same-sex romance between men. And given the heavy amount of Homoerotic Subtext in the story, the latter meaning may be more appropriate.
- Combat Commentator: While Coach Williams often does this to provide additional insight on fencing in general, other characters will sometimes join in during certain matches.
- Constructive Criticism: One of the ways Coach Williams helps her students is to provide them with feedback on how they can overcome their weaknesses and become more effective at fencing. Nicholas benefits from this the most due to his inexperience.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Nicholas finds himself at the receiving end of this more often than not. However, it becomes less of an occurrence as he gains enough experience to make up for some of his flaws and bad habits.
- Dumb Jock: Averted hard as many of the athletes depicted in this story are intelligent enough to apply tactical maneuvers and learn from their mistakes. Played straight with Nicholas whose grades are downright abysmal in every subject except physical education.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Bobby has a tendency to "appreciate" Seiji's handsome countenance to the point of viewing him with a Crush Filter whenever they interact.
- Escapism: Nicholas uses his passion for fencing as a way to distract himself from his horrid home life. Unlike most examples, he's able to find fulfillment from improving in the sport after earning a scholarship to Kings Row.
- Everyone Went to School Together:
- Seiji and Jesse attended the same fencing club together and were supposed to enroll in the same high school until their falling out.
- Harvard was classmates with Arune during their time at grade school together.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Fence is basically a story about, you guessed it, fencing.
- Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Averted by many of the rival fencers who try to stay mum about their team tactics while trying to uncover the strengths and weaknesses of the Kings Row team.
- Expy: The creators have stated that the anime Haikyuu!! has been a major inspiration for the series and characters, even the buildup of the stories are the same.
- Naïve Newcomer Nicholas/Hinata goes against The Ace Seiji/Kageyama, who is expected to win the opening tournament in their debut match. Nicholas/Hinata hopes they can somehow pull out a win, only to be handed a crushing defeat. Seiji/Kageyama taunts their hopes of success while Nicholas/Hinata swears they will defeat them. Months pass and Nicholas/Hinata enters a low-ranked high school with the optimism of facing their rival, only to find Seiji/Kageyama attending the same school and now having to learn how to work together.
- Family of Choice: Nicholas comes to see his fencing team as this which is understandable considering how miserable his own family life has been so far.
- Fanservice: Averted as most of the characters are underaged.
- Five-Token Band: The cast of Fence is racially diverse, both in and out of Kings Row: Seiji is Japanese, Eugene is Filipino, Harvard is African-American, Aiden is white, Nicholas is ethnically ambiguous with white heritage, Bobby is Hispanic, Kally is presumably Middle Eastern or South Asian.
- Flawless Victory: For high-tiered fencers like Seiji and Jesse, dealing with inexperienced or amateur opponents is of little trouble for them. The fact that Nicholas was able to slightly mar Seiji's perfect streak is what causes the latter to take a growing interest in him.
- Following in Relative's Footsteps: Nicholas, Jesse, and Kyle are eager to follow in the footsteps of the legendary fencer Robert Coste who happens to be the father of the first two and the latter's uncle.
- Friendly Rivalry: The Kings Row fencing team ends up forming friendly rivalries with some of their opponents from Macrobertson and Halverton.
- Gaming and Sports Anime & Manga: Fence is a Western take on this genre.
- Hard Work Hardly Works: Mostly averted throughout the story, though Aiden comes across as a rare exception due to his undeniable fencing talent. However, Aiden's lackadaisical work ethic comes back to bite him at Halverton where he's outshined by almost half of the participants there.
- Heroic Second Wind: In the middle of their match against MLC, Harvard decides to have Nicholas replace him due to their opponents not having much information to use against the latter. This results in Nicholas not only triumphing, but also spurring both Eugene and Seiji to turn the odds in their favor.
- I Shall Taunt You: Several fencers including Aiden make use of taunts in order to rile up their opponents and leave them more vulnerable. Of course, characters like Nicholas and Tanner tend to be immune to these mind games despite their more temperamental personalities.
- Instant Expert: Averted by Nicholas whose lack of training and finesse puts him at the bottom of the team's ranking. It becomes even more glaring when he attends the training camp at Halverton and gets outclassed by most of the other fencers there.
- Interclass Friendship: Some of the bonds established throughout the story are between characters from different backgrounds and economic statuses. This is best demonstrated by Nicholas and Seiji who gradually come to see one another as friends in later volumes.
- Just Friends: Aiden is clearly into Harvard and wants him as more of a friend, but Aiden refuses to date him because he doesn't sleep with teammates. When Jay asks Aiden why he has this policy, Aiden explains it's so he "doesn't mess up the one good thing he has in his life" as he fondly looks at Harvard.
- A Lesson Learned Too Well: A humorous example occurs in Rise when Nicholas experiments with flicking his opponents too much, resulting in Eugene and Terrell angrily finger-jabbing him in retaliation.
- LGBT Representation in Media: Fence has a plethora of this with Nicholas and Seiji's rivalry skirting the line between rivalry and affection, Aiden's hidden feelings for Harvard, Bobby expressing himself through crossdressing, and Kally having been raised by two mothers.
- Loser Friend Puzzles Outsiders: As Nicholas and Seiji's relationship grow stronger, some people can't help but wonder what it is the latter sees in the former. Even Jesse is perplexed by their dynamic upon meeting Nicholas the first time.
- Love Triangle: The comic gradually portrays the relationship between Nicholas, Seiji, and Jesse as this with Nicholas and Jesse as rivals competing for Seiji's attention. Seiji himself still pines for Jesse, but slowly warms up to Nicholas as the gap between them starts to narrow.
- Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Dante (the masculine one) and Bobby (the feminine one) are a more platonic version of the trope, though the former is hoping to make into an actual romantic one.
- Men Don't Cry: Averted as many notable characters including Nicholas shed tears during agonizing moments of defeat.
- Moment Killer: A hilarious instance happens during the training camp arc when Aiden interrupts Nicholas and Seiji's private moment on account of the entire team bunking in the same room.
- Monochrome Past: Deliberately invoked in some of the volumes when flashing back to moments that happened way before the story's events.
- No-Sell: Aiden's mind games don't work on Nicholas, who is generally just too dense to get what Aiden's doing. But beyond that, Nicholas focuses on the fact that Aiden beat Seiji, so beating Aiden is like beating Seiji.
- Novelization: Fence has spawned two novels written by Sarah Rees Brennan with the first one being given the subtitle of Striking Distance and the second one called Disarmed.
- Oblivious to Love: Bobby has an obvious crush on Seiji, who is too focused on fencing to even bother noticing. Meanwhile, Dante is seemingly crushing on Bobby big time, not that Bobby notices.
- One-Gender School: The schools introduced in Fence are all comprised of male students, though female teachers and coaches do prominently appear as well.
- The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: This is what partially drives both Nicholas and Seiji to be better fencers than they currently are. Nicholas in particular wants to be the one to defeat Seiji and refuses to let anyone including Jesse get in the way of that goal.
- Performance Anxiety: Due to their inexperience in actual duels, Nicholas and Eugene end up being impeded by performance anxiety at certain points. Nicholas is able to shake it off by relearning how to fence more naturally while applying the things he's learned from others while Eugene only gets better after receiving a confidence boost from his own teammates.
- Privilege Makes You Evil: Averted with many characters who attend more expensive schools like Exton and Halverton. In Kyle's case, it's downplayed as he's more of a bullying jerk with a large ego.
- Put Me In, Coach!: Subverted by Eugene and Nicholas who separately ask Coach Williams to put the other in the team's reserve spot, thinking the other deserves it more. Fortunately, the coach is able to convince the school to create two spots instead of one, allowing both boys to join the team together.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
- Seiji, being a dedicated prodigy in fencing, has a habit of handing these out like candy. Him giving one to Nicholas is what spurs the latter to try and surpass him.
- Aiden and Seiji give each other one during the training camp at Halverton, though it eventually gives way to them being more friendly with one another after Seiji acknowledges his own flaws.
- Kyle hands several towards Nicholas who merely brushes it off out of annoyance.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Coach Williams and the coaches from the other schools are this to varying degrees. Harvard also has this mentality as captain which makes him well-liked among his peers.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: Nicholas's passionate and strong personality contrasts with Seiji's icy demeanor. Likewise, Aiden's capricious nature matches well with Harvard's stern but caring side.
- Removing the Rival: Scott of Halverton High attempts to remove Seiji as a rival by attempting to coax him into joining his school instead. Unfortunately for him, he outright refuses thanks to a bonding experience with Nicholas.
- Roommate Drama: The protagonists are each others' roommates. Nicholas with Seiji, Harvard with Aiden, and Bobby with Dante. While each pair has their own hang-ups, only Bobby and Dante seem to be the most stable while Nicholas and Seiji are the most volatile.
- Rousing Speech: Coach Williams tends to hand these out to the team in order to further motivate them.
- Running Gag:
- Whenever Kyle mentions his cousin Jesse either directly or implicitly, two of his acquaintances playfully mock the things he might end up saying.
- The repeated comments on how Nicholas's form is horrible, with Coach Williams's handwriting getting angrier each time she mentions it.
- Coach Williams's obsession with the sabre discipline of fencing.
- School Forced Us Together: Ends up happening to Nicholas and Seiji when both of them become each other's roommate much to their chagrin. They eventually do make the most out of it as the story progresses.
- School Rivalry: Rivalries between the different schools are rampant, though Kings Row and MLC take the cake due to their past history together. There's also no love lost between Lowther Hall and Macrobertson Boys School as shown in Redemption.
- Ship Tease: Fence has plenty of ship teasing not just from Nicholas and Seiji, but also with other pairs like Harvard and Aiden.
- Shown Their Work: C.S. Pacat works with an épée coach in order portray fencing realistically as well as develop the characters' strengths and weaknesses.
- Sports Story: Fencing serves as the core theme of the story as Nicholas and the other students learn more about the techniques and intricacies of the sport.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Despite possessing the drive to succeed, Nicholas ends up suffering a lot of losses as most of his opponents are years ahead of him when it comes to training and experience.
- Talent vs. Training: This work is not afraid to delve into the trope's premise, especially when it comes to Aiden's raw talent versus Seiji's years of dedicated training. Nicholas himself exemplifies the idea that talent alone isn't necessarily enough to succeed and that both knowledge and experience are important for self-improvement.
- Team Spirit: Seiji comes to realize the value of teamwork as he starts relying more on Nicholas for motivation and Aiden for feedback.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Happens when both Nicholas and Seiji participate in a team fencing match against MLC. It goes better than expected due to Harvard's faith in their respective abilities.
- There Is Only One Bed: Harvard and Aiden push their bunk beds together in volume 5, which means Seiji and Nicholas also have to sleep next to each other.
- This Is My Side: Nicholas and Seiji split their dorm room down the middle. Seiji keeps his side tidy and organized while Nicholas leaves his disheveled clothes on the floor.
- Tournament Arc: Downplayed by the training camp arc which has the characters personally size up the other schools to understand both their respective strengths and weaknesses. It's eventually played straight by the upcoming stateside championship where many teenage fencers will be going to show off their prowess.
- Training Montage: The Kings Row fencing team is forced to undergo serious training in order for them to fully unleash their potential. However, only Aiden has managed to skip out on them entirely while still being one of the team's top-tier fencers.
- Underdogs Never Lose: Averted hard by Nicholas suffering multiple losses throughout the story. However, each defeat serves as a lesson for him in getting better which makes whatever victories he earns all the more sweet.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Aiden clearly wants to be with Harvard, but also tries to be Just Friends due to his insecurities as well as not being initially unsure that Harvard likes boys. Harvard himself realizes that he's into Aiden in Striking Distance, but also doesn't want to ruin their friendship.
- Victorious Loser: Nicholas and his teammates are portrayed as this after completing the training camp at Halverton. Despite the losses they incurred there, each match gave them an opportunity to not only work on their respective traits, but also get a glimpse of what the other teams are capable of.
