I’ve been making this same point ever since Blue Lock burst onto the scene in 2018, but sports manga that focus on nothing but the sport itself are doomed to fail. Except for Blue Box by Kouji Miura, Weekly Shonen Jump has largely failed to take that lesson on board, but the magazine’s digital sister publication seems to be doing just fine. Slap Shot Girls is a new series by Alpa on Jump Plus that skillfully blends comedy and romance together with… ice hockey?

Given that the first few pages see main character Kurumi Kobashiri rejected by her boyfriend and rudely displaced to Hokkaido, you might not even be able to tell that this is a sports manga at first glance. The frustration that Kurumi feels when her ex casually shoots down the possibility of a long distance relationship despite stringing her for months runs throughout the entire story, to the point where her mother kicks her out of the house for a change of pace. She ends up at an ice rink, because those are a dime a dozen up in the frozen north.

Part of the fun of this opening chapter is that a certain fact that doesn’t get revealed until the very end. The nature of this article necessarily requires the lead to be unburied, however, so here goes: Kurumi is kindly taught to ice skate by a beautiful boy who eventually turns out to be a girl. Not only does she mislead the character with her gender identity, she even uses the opportunity to teach her about ice hockey! How rude!

Jokes aside, the way that Kurumi’s rejection fits into the story and the eventual shift to ice hockey is impressive. The character’s need for connection is what drives her to interact so intensely with Ryuko and sit through her lecture on the sport, where she discovers both an aptitude thanks to her background in MMA and a genuine passion. Her objective is still to find a new boyfriend, but the reveal at the end of the chapter that she enrolled in an all girls school might put up some barriers and push her further towards puck life.

If all of this sounds a little ridiculous, that’s kind of the point. Despite the romantic framing, the tone of Slap Shot Girls is mostly comedic, centering around Kurumi’s reactions to the unfortunate events of her life with some wonderful facial expressions. Alpa’s style actually reminds me a lot of Yoshiaki’s work on Rairairai, in the sense that a less than serious character is thrown into a serious situation. Of course, there are less giant monsters here and more winter sports.

Whether the story continues to maintain this balance or shift wholeheartedly into ice hockey action remains to be seen, but the unique combination of narrative elements has already made quite a splash.  As of the time of writing, the first chapter has over 1800 comments and the series is currently the second most popular work to be published on Tuesday, beating out Next Manga Awards winner Sucker Pitch. Much hay has been made about the story’s yuri overtones too…

I leave the final word to my favorite comment from Jump Plus: “Run like a crazy dog!” No idea what that means, but I like the sentiment.

Chapter One Club is a weekly column that aims to spotlight the latest in new series and one-shots from across a wide variety of different demographics and publications.