is he autistic or what

i think in many sports manga, if not all, usually have the main character love said sport since they were young, prodigy or not, from the get-go, they knew they were always going to do the sport. however, in dogsred, i love that rou shirakawa learns to love skating again through discovering a newfound passion in hockey. i also love how it is for his sister too, despite having her passion taken away from her at young age, she finally lets herself go out and find something new.

despite rou being a prodigy in figure skating, he sucks at hockey. hes clearly so awful, but that doesnt make him insecure, instead, he adores hockey so much he pushes himself to practice and try, even though most of the time he fails. having a sports manga that's centered around finding a new found passion because you love it is something so realistic and something i deeply resonate with.

i find a lot of dogsred to be so authentic. i know theres a big cast, but all the characters feel like people, and i love how it doesnt rely so much on 'powers' or visual metaphors to make hockey look cool, all the techniques, albeit possibly exaggerated, are all based on a realistic foundation and the amount of details that go into explaining hockey, and how noda makes it so visually appealing and easy to follow makes me appreciate dogsred as sports manga above all others

i love thinking about how ogata and usami reincarnated into yota tsunemaru and kazutaka asahi... literally buds on the same team bit little do they know their ancestors HATEDD each other