I think that this is a fantastic manga to read if you're a fan of MMA or interested in seinen manga. There's lots of interesting things happening in each match along with the backstory with the childhood friends who see each other for the first time in years in a match. Definitely check this out! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Book Review
Title: All Rounder Meguru
Author: Hiroki Endo
Genre: Manga
Rating: *****
Review: I didn’t know a lot about this manage when I requested it from NetGalley but I have been getting into sports anime with Haikyuu, so I was excited to read it. I realised earlier on that All Rounder Meguru doesn’t follow boxing or baseball as I first thought by Mixed Martial Arts or MMA fighting. We are introduced to our two protagonists, Takashi Segawa (Meguru) and Takayanagi who both trained in Takayanagi’s karate dojo. Both boys have lost their mothers, but have very different fathers, Meguru lives with his grandparents because his father travel a lot for work while Takayanagi’s father is mixed up the yakuzu and had to skip town.
One day the boys try to fight some older boys picking on them and get beat up and they both want to become stronger but it turns out for very different reasons. Meguru’s life gets harder when his grandfather dementia gets worse leading to him falling off a bridge and dying which means they have to move again this time to Tokyo. Takayanagi’s father makes a reappearance and gives his son the warning not to turn out like him but when he is killed by the yakuzu, Taka wants revenge and makes that his mission in life. We then jump forward 7 years and Meguru still trains in his spare time but seem to have quite the talent for art in high school, he is popular and has a good friend base. One day he is offered to fight in a shooto match and accepts but it turns out he is fighting against his old friend. The tattoo take is sporting likely links him to the yakuzu, as his uncle runs a yakuzu family but this isn’t confirmed. Taka has obviously trained harder and longer than Meguru and he quickly wins the fight.
Afterwards, Meguru tries to talk to him but gets the cold shoulder and Taka says to a friend that he has always hated Meguru but we know this isn’t true from seeing their childhood together but I really wanted to know what had changed in those seven years. Meguru, meanwhile, goes home and decide to take part in the pro training class in order to get stronger and takes on a few more fights although unlike the other amateur boy in the pro training class, Meguru hasn’t developed his own style of fighting which would be why he loses yet again but losing doesn’t seem to frustrate him like it does other fighters. Towards the end of the manga, Taka learns that the yakuzu boss who killed him father has been killed in prison thus cutting his dream of revenge short and he doesn’t really know what to do with himself now.
Overall, I really enjoyed All Rounder Meguru, the characters are really compelling, even if the art style is a bit plain. I also like the focus on fighting and training as well as the external struggles both boys are going through and I am hoping to see more interaction and fighting between them soon.

A rather meandering manga. It's definitely not my cup of tea overall. It's story is pretty odd and it's characters are rather uninteresting. I can't say I particularly enjoyed it.

One of the genres of manga that quickly became an unexpected favorite was sports manga. I’d not heard of All-Rounder Meguru Vol. 1 by Hiroki Endo before so, obviously, I read it immediately upon receiving a copy.

All-Rounder Meguru focuses on two boys – Meguru and Takashi – who were once childhood friends. Brought together by not having their parents around and living with their grandparent’s instead, Meguru and Takashi take up karate after school. After being separated by time and events, the pair meet once again, this time at a Shooto mixed martial arts tournament. While Meguru wants to train harder and get better at the sport Takashi already seems like pro. And he isn’t very friendly anymore, either.

All-Rounder Meguru is shown mostly from Meguru’s point of view. However, certain sections are shown from Takashi’s point of view. These sections tend to be much more heavy-hitting than Meguru’s sections. The now-older boys are very different and Takashi’s story tends to be tenser and darker than that of his friends despite the similarities the pair may have.

Events are generally shown in a linear manner, though a handful of flashbacks do occur. The first couple of chapters focus on the boys in middle school. The rest of the volume shows Meguru and Takashi as they go through high school.

In many ways this feels much more like a slice of life manga than a traditional sports manga. Much of the manga follows Meguru as he begins participating in matches and training with professionals for the first time. There is no immediate issue which needs to be resolved. The generally lovable but common tropes of a school team down on their luck, or an important game they’ll probably lose aren’t seen here. Instead, we have these two boys just living their lives. They want to get better at their sport, win matches, and work towards that goal. More pressing issues begin to form later in the volume, yet remain vague threats, not quite fully explained yet, but enough to create intrigue and draw the readers on to read future volumes.

The way in which Meguru and his skills are treated are somewhat unique as well. At least, it feels extremely refreshing after watching the latest season of Baki the Grappler. Unlike the majority of sports-based manga protagonists I grew up with, Meguru isn’t a prodigy. He wasn’t born with enormous, untapped skills. Constant practice doesn’t mean he grows by leaps and bounds in the span of only a few weeks. Distractions occur, much as they do in real life – school, clubs, and friends creep into time that would otherwise be spent training.

Meguru is more mundane and with a less intense past than Takashi, but I liked him because of that, not despite it. He feels like a regular, everyday person, something that always makes me want to root for that character all the more.

All-Rounder Meguru Vol. 1 by Hiroki Endo is a fun sports manga that takes a slower, more casual approach to the story, but one that sets the stage for some darker tones as well. I’m intrigued, and I will be seeking out more volumes of this series in the future.

All-Rounder Meguru is so very middle-of-the-road for me - it’s all-round mediocre! - that I find it hard to even muster up the energy to review it as I didn’t feel strongly about it either way. Eh, let’s give it a shot anyway - I like a challenge!

Part of the problem is that there isn’t really a story. Meguru is an amateur fighter getting into MMA, doing the training, having his first matches; Takashi is Meguru’s childhood friend who’s doing the same but is also out to avenge his yakuza father who was murdered. It doesn’t have a driving plot or much of anything. They train, they fight, and not much of the thin story advances - Takashi’s vengeance subplot is anticlimactically dealt with.

Nor does it help that neither character is especially compelling or unique. Meguru is kinda bland but vaguely likeable in his guilelessness; Takashi is stoic. Wow, so impressive! I also didn’t find the actual fights themselves all that interesting.

I didn’t dislike the book though. The training was weirdly fun to read despite being straightforward and the brief glimpses into Meguru and Takashi’s lives were kinda engaging - Meguru is unwittingly used by a girl he likes to make her boyfriend jealous while Takashi has a complex relationship with a mysterious ex. And, while Meguru might not be the most enthralling protagonist, he is endearing enough that I ended up wanting him to succeed. I like underdogs who follow their dreams and dare to take the road less travelled rather than settle for dull jobs and lives, as much of a cliche as that is.

The art is generic manga-style but not unappealing for that. The character designs are a bit too similar though so the fights were hard to follow at times - who’s winning/who’re we meant to be rooting for? And Hiroki Endo has this odd shading technique where, from side angles, character’s eyes on the far side are shaded out so it looks like they’re missing an eye!

I can’t say I was that bored reading this but neither was I that interested and I’m not sure I’ll even continue with the series as I’m hardly champing at the bit to find out what happens next - or maybe I will, who knows? Am I damning this with faint praise? I definitely am, but that’s how it is sometimes! It should be called “All-Rounder Meh-guru” - wakka wakka!

Kind of a weird title that seems to be trying to straddle the line between sports manga and a crime story. The art isn't awful but it isn't enough to carry a plotline I'm not terribly interested in.

A different sort of book where you're dropped in the middle of the story and get to figure it out. The manga style of reading was a little different at first but soon got used to it. The art is excellent but the story seemed long and drawn out at times, with outgoing anywhere. Fight and win or fight and lose. Not enough happened to make me want to continue.

'All-Rounder Meguru Vol. 1' with art and story by Hiroki Endo is a sports manga about mixed martial arts.

When Meguru Takayanagi was young, he made friends with a boy named Takashi Segawa. They both had some things in common, but Meguru finds that wasn't really true. Years later, Meguru lives in another city and he decides to get in to martial arts fighting. He's surprised to meet his old friend in the ring, but things have changed. Events in Takashi's life have made him angry and focused.

I'm not sure where this story will eventually go, but I can imagine. It's still different enough from other sports stories I know to make it interesting. The art is solid, and the characters are interesting.

I received a review copy of this manga from Kodansha Comics and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this manga.

Wow, finally a true sports series that's actually all about sports! All-Rounder Meguru is about mixed martial arts, Shooto. It starts from Meguru and Takashi's childhood, how they both lost their mothers and how they indulged themselves with martial arts to become stronger. Then Takashi moved away and they reunite again later on, but Takashi is someone else now with relations to yakuza. Meguru decides to become a real fighter and aims for becoming a pro and it would seem that Takashi aims for the same. I really like the conflict between them and how the sports is depicted so thoroughly. Every move and every angle serves a purpose and this is surely so much more. It's evident this is seinen and I love how the manga handles the setting, but perhaps for someone not into this kind of sports manga, All-Rounder Meguru may seem boring.

The art is solid and very masculine and the characters tend to have wooden faces. It works actually and I like the grave and stale art work, since it's still very precise and detailed. I'm glad the series isn't just about sports though, but we have the guys' relationship there too. All-Rounder Meguru is a well made series and it's awesome we have this in English. We need more sports manga!