I recently read All Rounder Meguru which was a manga about MMA fighting and I wanted to read more sports manga so I had to finally pick up Karate Heat and I must say it was one of the best I have read in all my life with the exception of Haikyuu because I love my volleyball boys.

It's a fun and relatively quick read in the vein of other sports manga I've enjoyed. I found the characters to be interesting and the overall story to be entertaining.

Two boys meet by accident when Takumi, out for a run, saves Shinya from being hit on the head by a falling plant. They strike up a friendship and Shinya soon learns that Takumi is one of the best martial artists of their age group and they start training together. But when Shinya passesd out from over-exercising, Takumi decides to move to Shinya's Junior High so they can continue to train together and so he can help make Takumi stronger. Appealing to both fans of slice of life and martial arts manga, this one combines great art with lovable characters and a lot of kicking and punching.

Sort of like Hikaru no Go or Yowamushi Pedal but with karate, I think? It's actually quite cute and well-drawn for a sports manga. The two main characters (a cheerful naïf who's never done karate before but seems to have a natural talent and a lonely wunderkind who is excited to have a potential companion in his heretofore solitary sport) have a supportive rather than competitive relationship, which I enjoyed. So far there's a good balance of character development with information about karate. Recommend to fans of sports manga and shonen in general.

A fun read. When two kids learn of a shared love of karate their lives quickly become intertwined. Well written.

Karate Heat...

has a great title that is as fun and vivid as the text you will find.  This is a polished book and an energetic read.  I would gladly share it with any fellow graphic novel fan and would use it as part of a graphic novels course.  Recommended for readers of this medium and those who want to give it a try for the first time.  Fun, fun stuff.

Typical shounen-sports manga. The hero is supposedly a plain, regular, unassuming boy who is discovered to be quite talented in karate (because he has a great posture). Of course he has all the regular characteristics of a shounen hero, the Yamato spirit that means he will not give up and is always full of fire. You have seen this in Naruto, <i>FairyTail</i>'s Natsu, <i>One Piece</i>'s Luffy, *inserts other shounen MCs* ad infinitum.

And of course our hero has a rival. In this volume, said rival is the friend who first discovered his talent. They are still just friends. But obviously they will soon be rivals and our hero will set his eyes on defeating his friend. For once I actually like the rival character, Takumi Yanagiya who, instead of being too cool to sit next to you, is all warm and friendly. He is still OP as heck, 6 times elementary school national champion or whatever, a prodigy. But his character is quite funny and more interesting than our hero.

It is a fun and quick read. The art is neat and pretty and so far the fight scenes are easy to understand. The humour works well, too. But those still cannot make up for the fact that this manga is too typical to be anything but another just-average-shounen. The plot is too fast, the pace sometimes seems rushed - at some parts, some extra panels could have been drawn to build up the tension - and the side characters are so cardboard cutouts as to be unintersting and unimportant. Can't even tell who their names are, and they are supposed to be the members of an elite karate club.

Shinya Kinoshita doesn’t much care for sports. He’s not particularly strong or tall, but one thing he has going for him is his perfect posture—a product of constantly trying to look taller than his twin sister.

Takumi Yanagiya is the six-time elementary school national champion in karate. A strict training regimen means that he doesn’t have time for friendships, and even if he wanted to, he’s forbidden from training with other kids his own age.

A chance encounter in the summer holidays before they head off to middle school suddenly brings these boys together, and changes their lives forever. After initially mistaking Shinya for another karateka, Takumi sees potential in his perfect posture and decides to teach him, his master’s orders be damned.

So begins Karate Heat by Eiichi Kitano, a light-hearted sports manga characterised its friendly atmosphere. Where most others tend to be put a focus on the competitive nature of their chosen sport, and the trials and challenges that the hero overcomes in their pursuit of it, Karate Heat is more interested in the burgeoning friendship between Shinya, Takumi, and the rest of the Kawasaki Ukishima Junior High School Karate Club.

That isn’t to say that Karate Heat isn’t without its athletic drama. Shinya and Takumi both have their rivals, and Shinya in particular is defined as much by his hard work and refusal to give up as he is by his cheerful nature. But, at least in the first volume, Karate Heat puts less emphasis on that, and more on the friendly, light-hearted interactions between its characters.

Nor is this to say that sports manga tend to shy away from friendships; indeed, friendship is a key theme across the genre. But they tend to focus on bonds forged through fire, in some sense: a hero lucks into a sport they never would have tried, learns to love it, and then finds kinship among their teammates as they fight through the gauntlet of other teams.

Karate Heat plays down those high stakes and machismo, and instead takes on a more relaxed tone. It doesn’t completely upend the genre’s tropes (nor does it try to), but it takes a much friendlier, more carefree approach to them, and there’s something refreshing in that.

Kitano’s art does a fine job of carrying the emotion and humour of the story to the fore. Close-ups on characters’ faces feature heavily throughout the book, giving their expressive eyes and demeanour the space they need to do their work, whether its highlighting the intensity of Shinya’s training or Takumi’s unexpected clumsiness when he isn’t.

When the action does ramp up—this is still a sports manga, after all, and a martial arts one at that—the speed and kineticism really comes through. You can see each fighter’s movement in the sharp, heavy linework, and liberal use of afterimages drives home the agility at the heart of the sport.

Karate Heat isn’t going to change the mind of anyone who doesn’t like sports manga, but its a welcome change of pace for those fans wanting something a bit more low-key.

I thought this would be interesting in the beginning but I quickly lost passion in this book and felt that it would be better for a different reader.

I enjoyed Karate Heat, though it is a very typical shonen series. Honestly, it reads a lot like Haikyu!! to me. I wish it were available in print and not just as an ebook or I would absolutely purchase it for my library's children's graphic novel collection.

The colors in the cover are amazing.

The story follows the basic sports manga trope where a young boy tries a sport they've never tried before and somehow they are already fabulous at it. The thing that makes this story sweet is the friendship between the two boys, one being a champion with no friends and another visiting on vacation. You can tell that they're children by the way that they just rush into enjoying each others' company, that's honestly very refreshing. 

The fact that the main character is so naturally good even though he hasn't spent years training like the other kids gets annoying. I know that's how a lot of sports manga go, but man, it just takes you right out of the story. It's a cute story, but there isn't enough conflict with him getting stronger to keep me invested.

A fun, karate-based manga which would be a nice introduction for younger children (particularly those jealous of their older siblings' books. Fairly clear, no crazy magic, and a nice theme on friendships.

I really loved this graphic novel.. The main character Shinya Kinoshita, learns karate from a lonely boy genius Takumi Yanagiya,  just so he can hang out with him. Its so wholesome. Shinya has incredible posture, is super charismatic and is a natural at learning. Takumi is a champion at karate but a white belt at friendship. The companionship that blooms between these two are so natural and the way their smiles are drawn are infectious.   I really hope to read more of these good boys in the near future!

I wanted to try something new and I figured I should give graphic novels a try. I did not know exactly what to read, but I wanted to start off with something easy and Karate Heat seemed like the best option to be the first one I would read. When I first got the copy of Karate Heat, I was thinking I was getting a graphic novel. However, I believe that this is is more classified as Manga. It took me a notice to realize that the order I was reading in didn’t make sense. I then remembered how to correctly read a manga.

Once I started reading the right way, I found that reading this manga was actually enjoyable and easy read. One of the main things that captured my attention was karate. I really don’t know karate, but I always thought it was something cool to do. The manga kept the topic of karate, journey, and even friendship strong enough to keep my attention and keep it interesting. I always liked it when Shinya Kinoshita told himself he needs to be stronger to be better. He has shown he has an interest in karate and has the ability to self-motivate to get whats he want.

The art in the story is great for the story line. I had no issue with it and I thought it fit with the theme very well. I always thought drawing karate scenes and poses would be the hardest thing to do as well, but the art was made to look really good. It was so good, even I thought I could draw it myself (probably not, but you get the point).

For trying something new, Karate Heat was the perfect graphic novel to try. It was fun, easy to read, and just about everything that I was looking for. I even thought I would continue the next volumes when the new translations would be released. I would very much like to see how this journey continues. This has also made me willing to try more graphic novels as well. This is definitely something to get into and try more of.

Karate Heat is a classic-style middle grade manga adventure.  It brought me warm memories of reading Shonen Jump magazine as a middle-schooler myself.  The ethics portrayed are positive and the content is appropriate for the age level.  More positive in many ways than comparable American comics becausethe characters are less sexualized and racist.

Middle grade students should read and re-read this new manga series.  The characters are introduced and two are highlighted in this volume..  Karate Heat also shares instructional Karate moves and vocabulary.  Students must remember to read right to left which can be confusing.

This is a sports/martial arts shonen manga, and while it's pretty low key for a first volume, it does have appeal. Isolated karate genius discovers a karate prodigy and they become friends, end up at the same middle school and decide to flip the rankings of their school karate club upside down. The upperclassmen are weirdly offended at first but then start liking the concept of mentorship. It's  cute (so far) and I'd like to see where the story goes.

4.5

Thank you NetGalley, Kodansha Comics (one of my favorite manga publishers), and Eiichi Kitano for he opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

I never expected to adore a karate book so much! Karate Heat features two boys: Shinya, a boy who knows nothing about karate, and Takumi, a boy who is a young karate national champion who has adored the sport since childhood. On a chance meeting, Takumi finds that Shinya might just have what it take to match up to his own special strength and stamina...one day. Together, the boys enter junior high and join a karate club where they strive to be the best. As long as Shinya has a set goal, he can accomplish anything he sets his mind to.

This is an excellent middle-grade novel that's not only about karate, but friendship and self-determination as well.  The art is excellent and the story is very engaging and fast-paced. The characters are interesting and likable, and I want to root for Shinya as he begins to move from the basics of karate in his own unique way as the series moves forward. Recommended for middle-grade, sports lovers, and manga lovers of all ages!

This was such a cute opening volume! The plot is a little simple and the dialogue lacking at times, but the characters are likable from the first page and their progression is enjoyable. The art style, too, is clean and fluid, and it's easy to see that this isn't Eiichi Kitano's first manga series. I know this volume has only just been released, but I'll happily read the next when it comes out!

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This is my first action comic, and I love it. Would definitely recommend for first time action comic readers.