TAKEHIKO INOUE

A motorcycle accident, bone cancer, a speeding truck crashing into a boy on a stolen bicycle--tragic life-changing events turn the worlds of three young men upside down. These three very different personalities have only one thing in common--their passion for basketball.

The story revolves around three teenagers with a desire to play basketball. Nomiya, being a high school dropout, has no future in his life. Engulfed by the guilt of crippling a girl in a traffic accident where he invited her on a bike ride finds himself in a deep predicament. Togawa, a former talented sprinter who once strove to become the best in Japan now putting his all in wheelchair basketball finds it hard to deal with the disinterest and psyche of his own teammates. Takahashi, once a popular and arrogant team leader, an honor student, a self proclaimed elite now finds himself being unable to move from the chest down.Real also deals with the reality of physical disabilities, and the psychological inferiority that the characters struggle against. The characters break through their own psychological barriers bit by bit.Chosen by the American Library Association (ALA) as one of the Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens 2009. (Vol. 1-2)

In 16th-century Japan, Shinmen Takezou is a wild, rough young man, in both his appearance and his actions. His aggressive nature has won him the collective reproach and fear of his village, leading him and his best friend, Matahachi Honiden, to run away in search of something grander than provincial life. The pair enlist in the Toyotomi army, yearning for glory—but when the Toyotomi suffer a crushing defeat at the hands of the Tokugawa Clan at the Battle of Sekigahara, the friends barely make it out alive. After the two are separated, Shinmen returns home on a self-appointed mission to notify the Hon'iden family of Matahachi's survival. He instead finds himself a wanted criminal, framed for his friend's supposed murder based on his history of violence. Upon being captured, he is strung up on a tree and left to die. An itinerant monk, the distinguished Takuan Soho, takes pity on the "devil child," secretly freeing Shinmen and christening him with a new name to avoid pursuit by the authorities: Musashi Miyamoto. Vagabond is the fictitious retelling of the life of one of Japan's most renowned swordsmen, the "Sword Saint" Musashi Miyamoto—his rise from a swordsman with no desire other than to become "Invincible Under the Heavens" to an enlightened warrior who slowly learns of the importance of close friends, self-reflection, and life itself.