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Title: The Indomitable Fortress
Series: Eyeshield 21 #24
Author: Riichiro Inagaki
Artist: Yusuke Murata
Rating: 4 of 5 Stars
Genre: Sports Manga
Pages: 200
Format: Digital Scan

Synopsis:

The Oujou Highschool is hosting a festival and the Devil Bats attend. Some to have fun, some to spy. With all that they see, the Devil Bats go for a quick 3 day counter-training program to hopefully deal with what they learned.

Then the fateful game between the Devil Bats and the Oujou White Knights begins. It will be an epic battle between individuals and between 2 teams that have simply dominated to this point. There are no more tricks, no more time to do special training, no more people to pull in at the last moment. It is now Mano E Mano and one team is going to go on to the Christmas Bowl and one team will have its dreams crushed forever.

My Thoughts:

It's been quite some time since I read Then Came the Showdown! [Vol 23] and I was just in a manga slump. So today I decided that after church, I was going to sit down and read this volume,no matter what. It also helped that I needed something much lighter than the Deadhouse Gates Readalong that I've been participating in with Dragons&Zombies. I also wanted to sneak in one more book before April ended so I could at least list a double digit number instead of a single number :-(
[Yes, as much as I may naysay and decry, I am VERY aware of my numbers]

The Festival was fun. The kind of humor that Eyeshield 21 excels at. The stupidest guy from the White Knights and the stupidest guy from the Devilbats end up in a quiz show against each other and it was just so perfect that I laughed my head off.

Which was good. Because the game is going to be intense and drawn out. This is one of the battles that we've been waiting for since the earliest books. It is raining and the atmosphere is appropriately gritty. Things start off explosively, with both sides immediately giving it 100% from the get go and leaving no reserve for later. This will be a game of stamina and whoever folds first will be crushed.

I am preparing myself for this game taking at least 3 books. The other time a long drawn out game was shown, I did find myself getting bored so we'll see if that happens again.

★★★★☆ ( )