Few weeks ago I wrote about Gun-Jou, a short series about high-school relay racing. I’m about halfway through and so far it turned out to be way more of a drama than sports story. I know these two tend to linked together quite often but in this case it seems like sports is more of a background excuse for the plot rather than an active plot point. I’ll put some examples in a spoiler to show what I mean.

Limited story spoilers

So far running showed up in following roles: - MC’s personal training. - Main goal behind MC’s wish to create school’s running club (still doesn’t exist halfway through the story). - Mode of transportation. - Activity to gain information about past events. The actual racing showed up only as tiny fragments during backstory sections.

Not that it makes the story less interesting, let alone bad, but I won’t be surprised if the second point from the spoiler ends up as a closure in the final chapter rather than a starting point towards something more. It’s a pretty enjoyable story so far so I don’t mind, just a little surprised.

As for the drama elements, they are realistic and make sense within the story so I’m curious about how things will turn out going forward. I’ll report back once I’m done with the whole thing.