Blue Giant

Dai Miyamoto lives an ordinary high-school life in Sendai, playing basketball, working part-time and unsure about his future. What fills the gap is jazz. With his final year running out, he makes a promise that sounds absurd for a teenager who has barely played: he will become the greatest jazz player in the world. With a tenor saxophone, Dai practises alone by the river every day, through summer heat and winter snow, chasing a sound only he can hear. He has no formal training and little money, but he has a raw, overwhelming passion that grabs the attention of everyone who hears him, and that will carry him from his hometown to Tokyo. Shinichi Ishizuka's series puts the sweat and joy of live music on the page so vividly that readers can almost hear it. It was adapted into an acclaimed animated film and continued in sequels that follow Dai across the world.