What do you think?
Rate this book
Blue Spring
From the author of the masterful
TekkonKinkreet
, Taiyo Matsumoto's
Blue Spring
is a short story collection focusing on the lives of a small group of disenchanted high school students. Although spring usually connotes the blossoming of new life and a time of nurturing and anticipation, the spring for these characters is "blue." They can't wait for school to end and the summer to come. Their lives are balanced on the edge of a knife as they flirt with crime and their own deaths in the form of a deadly rooftop game. Each character has a different story to tell and the rebellion, questioning and frustration of these youths are palpable.
216 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
11 people are currently reading
411 people want to read
About the author
Taiyo Matsumoto
163 books617 followersSee also: 松本大洋 and 松本 大洋
Although Taiyo Matsumoto desired a career as a professional soccerplayer at first, he eventually chose an artistic profession. He gained his first success through the Comic Open contest, held by the magazine Comic Morning, which allowed him to make his professional debut. He started out with 'Straight', a comic about basketball players. Sports remain his main influence in his next comic, 'Zéro', a story about a boxer.
In 1993 Matsumoto started the 'Tekkonkinkurito' trilogy in Big Spirits magazine, which was even adapted to a theatre play. He continued his comics exploits with several short stories for the Comic Aré magazine, which are collected in the book 'Nihon no Kyodai'. Again for Big Spirits, Taiyo Matsumoto started the series 'Ping Pong' in 1996. 'Number Five' followed in 2001, published by Shogakukan.
Source: Lambiek website bio .
Although Taiyo Matsumoto desired a career as a professional soccerplayer at first, he eventually chose an artistic profession. He gained his first success through the Comic Open contest, held by the magazine Comic Morning, which allowed him to make his professional debut. He started out with 'Straight', a comic about basketball players. Sports remain his main influence in his next comic, 'Zéro', a story about a boxer.
In 1993 Matsumoto started the 'Tekkonkinkurito' trilogy in Big Spirits magazine, which was even adapted to a theatre play. He continued his comics exploits with several short stories for the Comic Aré magazine, which are collected in the book 'Nihon no Kyodai'. Again for Big Spirits, Taiyo Matsumoto started the series 'Ping Pong' in 1996. 'Number Five' followed in 2001, published by Shogakukan.
Source: Lambiek website bio .
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
February 3, 2021
"It doesn't feel like we're living" is the quote that best sums the feeling this book exudes. Set in the spring of a group of delinquents' lives, we see short snippets of what it's like to dwell in a limbo: waiting for their adulthood, but also not quite wishing for it. They get into fights, dip into crime, flirt with death, and it's all permeated with a sense of aimlessness that we've all felt at least once during our younger years.
This was an interesting read for sure.
This was an interesting read for sure.
September 9, 2024
Una serie de historias cortas sobre adolescentes que viven sin mayor supervisión y en entornos precarios.
El estilo de Taiyo Matsumoto es excelente, va muy en sintonía con las historias.
No sé si hay más casos pero, por ejemplo, en uno de los capítulos aparecen la rata y Kimura, personajes pertenecientes a otro manga del autor, Tekkonkinkreet.
El estilo de Taiyo Matsumoto es excelente, va muy en sintonía con las historias.
No sé si hay más casos pero, por ejemplo, en uno de los capítulos aparecen la rata y Kimura, personajes pertenecientes a otro manga del autor, Tekkonkinkreet.
October 12, 2022
Si estás ya metido en el mundo de Matsumoto, lo vas a disfrutar. Salvo la historia del Mahjong, todas me han gustado.
December 25, 2024
"no matter how much your blood boiled, I believe youth is a blue period."
August 24, 2019
Short stories about disaffected youth with a really trippy feel.
Guns, fights in toilets, yakuza, restaurant bills and rooftop dares. Definitely not brimming with optimism.
Not a typical high school drama at all!
Guns, fights in toilets, yakuza, restaurant bills and rooftop dares. Definitely not brimming with optimism.
Not a typical high school drama at all!
January 10, 2019
This is my first Matsumoto manga, and it won't be my last. Taiyo Matsumoto really knows how to elicit a very specific feeling and tone.
These short stories aren't great stories in themselves; they don't have any plot or character development. They are tone pieces through and through. The art isn't all that great either, but it oozes with charm and really captures that punk rock vibe that's present throughout the book. I loved how there were tons of graffiti, to the point that the bottom of the page was chock-full of annotations from the translator. Loved all the music references too (Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Sex Pistols). Really helps cement the type of tone Matsumoto is going for. All in all, this manga is a perfect snapshot of teenage delinquency in the 80s and 90s in Japan, and the blues that fueled it.
7/10
I'll leave you with two quotes from Matsumoto's after thoughts at the end of the book:
These short stories aren't great stories in themselves; they don't have any plot or character development. They are tone pieces through and through. The art isn't all that great either, but it oozes with charm and really captures that punk rock vibe that's present throughout the book. I loved how there were tons of graffiti, to the point that the bottom of the page was chock-full of annotations from the translator. Loved all the music references too (Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, Sex Pistols). Really helps cement the type of tone Matsumoto is going for. All in all, this manga is a perfect snapshot of teenage delinquency in the 80s and 90s in Japan, and the blues that fueled it.
7/10
I'll leave you with two quotes from Matsumoto's after thoughts at the end of the book:
[talking about teenage delinquents] "In retrospect, I realize that for these youth, for whom the present was already the past, the camera was an important item. But at that time, when their actions didn't quite make sense, I was strangely attracted to them. They answered to reason with their fists and never questioned their excessive passions. Their frankness and their sense of being true to themselves won me over. They were my heroes."
[after talking about how those delinquents now have families, are responsible, etc] "No matter how passionate you were, no matter how much your blood boiled, I believe youth is a blue time. Blue - that indistinct blue that paints the town moments before the sun rises. Winter is coming."
October 20, 2023
Blue Spring is an early and decidedly minor work from Taiyo Matsumoto. While his artwork is bold and indicative of the far more interesting work that was yet to come from his pen, the stories are fairly generic, dealing with young delinquents on the cusp of joining the yakuza. It's well-trod territory in the world of manga, and despite his many talents, Matsumoto doesn't bring forward anything original in his treatment of the material.
March 16, 2023
" اون ۱۲ بار کف زد
تا حالا کسی رو ندیده بودم که ۱۲ بار کف بزنه "
تا حالا کسی رو ندیده بودم که ۱۲ بار کف بزنه "
Read
August 3, 2025[2025.08.03_111]
暴力、頹廢、虛無，就算是松本大洋，也是無法。
【臺中市立圖書館】線上閱覽
暴力、頹廢、虛無，就算是松本大洋，也是無法。
【臺中市立圖書館】線上閱覽
May 11, 2025
Definitely the slightest of Matsumoto’s work that I’ve read but the art is still super neat.
September 10, 2025
Storie brevi di un Matsumoto forse un po’ acerbo ma brillanti e strazianti comunque, con la prima apparizione di Suzuki che tornerà in Tekkonkinkreet
April 21, 2009
Matsumoto is currently my favorite thing going, so I've been reading everything I can get my hands on by him. This is a short collection of what seem to be earlier pieces, and they're okay, if a little weird.
Part of the weirdness is the translation, which has tons of footnotes for what graffiti on the walls in the background says. It's nice that the translators were that thorough, and some of the graffiti is pretty funny, but a lot of it is kind of baffling, or meaningless if you're not familiar with Japanese pop culture during that time. Footnoting all this stuff sort of implied to me that there was some importance to what was written there, or that it related to the stories in some way, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Also, some of the artwork is a bit unusual. It looks like Matsumoto was still refining his style in some of these pieces, and it works a bit better in some places than others.
In general, this is a nice collection, but maybe more suited towards existing fans who are interested in reading everything out there. The stories here lack the depth of content that TekkonKinkreet (Black & White) or No. 5 have, and aren't as visually impressive.
Part of the weirdness is the translation, which has tons of footnotes for what graffiti on the walls in the background says. It's nice that the translators were that thorough, and some of the graffiti is pretty funny, but a lot of it is kind of baffling, or meaningless if you're not familiar with Japanese pop culture during that time. Footnoting all this stuff sort of implied to me that there was some importance to what was written there, or that it related to the stories in some way, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
Also, some of the artwork is a bit unusual. It looks like Matsumoto was still refining his style in some of these pieces, and it works a bit better in some places than others.
In general, this is a nice collection, but maybe more suited towards existing fans who are interested in reading everything out there. The stories here lack the depth of content that TekkonKinkreet (Black & White) or No. 5 have, and aren't as visually impressive.
January 14, 2022
Even despite Matsumoto's style of taking the Japanese delinquent stereotype and ratcheting it up to ten, I found this sort of coming of age story to be more relatable than what you'd usually find. Periods of boredom, melancholy and being dumb are more akin to the average experience of youth when you're broke and live in a bad situation. However, even though this is, in my opinion, more realistic, it also makes the story less interesting. Matsumoto's aesthetic is the saving grace in maintaining your attention, there's not just some graffiti in the walls, every inch of every space (even the windows) have to be covered, a character can't just look tough, but his face has to be scarred, everyone who's anyone is always smoking. Overall, despite being fun to look at, it's not something I'd plan to reread or go out of my way to recommend it to other readers.
May 4, 2017
Not the kind of manga I generally pick up, so I did end up feeling a bit lost, but that doesn't necessarily comment on the quality. It was still a pretty interesting read however due to the fact I just finished up Matsumoto's other series Sunny. While both series are pretty different, there are also a lot of similarities.
For one, Matsumoto really takes an interest in the struggles of "lower class" people, not something I have read previously in manga. And while the art style did initially strike me as much more main stream at first, I was pleasantly surprised by how stylized and caricatured it ultimately felt - subtle but still very expressive. The page layouts were also extremely interesting.
For one, Matsumoto really takes an interest in the struggles of "lower class" people, not something I have read previously in manga. And while the art style did initially strike me as much more main stream at first, I was pleasantly surprised by how stylized and caricatured it ultimately felt - subtle but still very expressive. The page layouts were also extremely interesting.
February 9, 2012
I have been searching for a manga to pair with with Charlie Huston’s The Shotgun Rule in a juvie noir unit in my Japanese/American noir class, and I think I’ve finally found it. Taiyo Matsumoto’s Blue Spring is a collection of seven interconnected stories from the lives of burned out seniors at Kitano High School. Seasoning gritty realism with the tiniest dash of surrealism, this book, I suspect, will grow in my estimation when I revisit it with a class. Possible pedagogical bonus: There’s a movie, too.
February 12, 2017
This is an early work from Matsumoto. I enjoyed these stories, but they didn't have the same impact as does his later work (e.g., Tekkon Kinkreet and Sunny). For me, Matsumoto is at his best when he's writing about and focalizing through younger children. The stories in Blue Spring focus on high school-age young men, and as such they have a harder edge to them. Nothing wrong with that. I just prefer the tone he adopts in his other books.
March 7, 2010
This is a brilliant compilation of stories. Much in the style of Pulp Fiction it follows around a group of people and their lives as they cross and recross. Taiyo Matsumoto is the creator of Tekkon Kinkreet, another wonderful story!
The final 2 pages of this manga are actually quite impressive...it puts life and photographs in perspective very well.
The final 2 pages of this manga are actually quite impressive...it puts life and photographs in perspective very well.
Read
December 20, 2024Story 1 - If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands — Yeah I don’t think I got too much out of this emotionally but just the environment and atmosphere depicted - all the graffiti that was subbed was super fun to read - horny teenager edginess but also like Anpo protest anti USA vibes but at the same time consumerism rotting everyone’s brains - and yeah the sorta suicidal malaise atmosphere of like delinquent boys or w/e… oof it didn’t resonate DIRECTLY emotionally but def still hit
Story 2 - Revolver, I really like the way we randomly get people’s thoughts around the city - all the shinjuku city segments and the overwhelmingness of it is v cool - Matsumoto is v v good at capturing like the mass of urban life in a virginia woolf way - I made this comparison before too but yeah.
Really liked this story, more than the first one. It’s obviously a lot less suffocating and more about escaping the like empty delinquent highschool boy lifestyle — but yeah I just think this being the longest of all the short stories gave the characters more space to breathe - and the gun as the structuring agent worked well - I reallly liked the third chapter of this a lott and the very ending - v v cathartic
Story 3 - Mahjong Summer - Wasn’t particularly drawn in emotionally but again the general atmosphere/vibe of this + the narrative structure of this as one long game of mahjong as this depressive stagnation of time that goes on a whole summer — plus the mixing of the past baseball game and what’s going on in the radio with the mahjong game - and also all the stuff in the backdrop like anti US protests - all sorta caught up with this idea of “summer” and by implicit extension, “youth” — which is mixed in with baseball, wasting away playing mahjong - a diff set of priorities / passions - cool
Story 4 - Suzuki-San - Liked this a lot!! Nice seeing Kimura and Suzuki again - my fav characters from Tekkon - but yeah here Kimura especially is so diff - boyish and kinda chill unlike in Tekkon where he’s kinda perpetually fuelled by vengeance until the very tragic end - the art here was way rougher but idk still a pre good/solid like yakuza initiation story - the empty gun being used to hammer in the nails for a new home was a cool note to end on - this idea of the yakuza not being associated with violence but a HOME of sorts for the kimura kinda person - inchresting - Also MOORE anti US currents
Story 5 - Peace - oof - def feels like a more polished, but also much darker version of the first story — imo it does a better job of capturing that delinquency emptiness nihilism vibe — and the cuts to Yukio’s childhood are esp. good — also that like imperial japan flag style paneling when he murders his friend… not v subtle but v v good - liked this one a lot
Story 6 - V funny — sort of a cross between like Goodfellas style mafia convo and like Azumanga Daioh episode one nonsense convo - because it’s like delinquent highschool guys just kinda yapping until it explodes into a lil bit of fighting - and idk just the energy of it was really funn and also idk it’s panelled and written in such a way that it’s overwhelming as intended but also really smooth and readable - v neat
Story 7 - I don't know what love is - fun story but not many thoughts so I'll talk about the little blurb at the end — its interesting that taiyou paints such a bleak picture sometimes but ultimately his whole thing is a sorta admiration for the sincerity and the frankness of delinquents comitted to whatever passions even if they're wasting their lives away — an admiration of that in a heroic sense but also a recognition that it's “blue” and shortlived
The vibe of this anthology reminded me a lot of yoshihiro Tatsumi - but unlike that sorta 70s/80s gekiga - this is less…edgy and dark and more like highschool emptiness vibes which feels harsher and bleaker but also that sorta admiration of these kinds of figures rather than like…detached critique of society makes it treat its characters a lot nicer than Tatsumi
Anthology Ranking
2>5>6>4>1>3
Story 2 - Revolver, I really like the way we randomly get people’s thoughts around the city - all the shinjuku city segments and the overwhelmingness of it is v cool - Matsumoto is v v good at capturing like the mass of urban life in a virginia woolf way - I made this comparison before too but yeah.
Really liked this story, more than the first one. It’s obviously a lot less suffocating and more about escaping the like empty delinquent highschool boy lifestyle — but yeah I just think this being the longest of all the short stories gave the characters more space to breathe - and the gun as the structuring agent worked well - I reallly liked the third chapter of this a lott and the very ending - v v cathartic
Story 3 - Mahjong Summer - Wasn’t particularly drawn in emotionally but again the general atmosphere/vibe of this + the narrative structure of this as one long game of mahjong as this depressive stagnation of time that goes on a whole summer — plus the mixing of the past baseball game and what’s going on in the radio with the mahjong game - and also all the stuff in the backdrop like anti US protests - all sorta caught up with this idea of “summer” and by implicit extension, “youth” — which is mixed in with baseball, wasting away playing mahjong - a diff set of priorities / passions - cool
Story 4 - Suzuki-San - Liked this a lot!! Nice seeing Kimura and Suzuki again - my fav characters from Tekkon - but yeah here Kimura especially is so diff - boyish and kinda chill unlike in Tekkon where he’s kinda perpetually fuelled by vengeance until the very tragic end - the art here was way rougher but idk still a pre good/solid like yakuza initiation story - the empty gun being used to hammer in the nails for a new home was a cool note to end on - this idea of the yakuza not being associated with violence but a HOME of sorts for the kimura kinda person - inchresting - Also MOORE anti US currents
Story 5 - Peace - oof - def feels like a more polished, but also much darker version of the first story — imo it does a better job of capturing that delinquency emptiness nihilism vibe — and the cuts to Yukio’s childhood are esp. good — also that like imperial japan flag style paneling when he murders his friend… not v subtle but v v good - liked this one a lot
Story 6 - V funny — sort of a cross between like Goodfellas style mafia convo and like Azumanga Daioh episode one nonsense convo - because it’s like delinquent highschool guys just kinda yapping until it explodes into a lil bit of fighting - and idk just the energy of it was really funn and also idk it’s panelled and written in such a way that it’s overwhelming as intended but also really smooth and readable - v neat
Story 7 - I don't know what love is - fun story but not many thoughts so I'll talk about the little blurb at the end — its interesting that taiyou paints such a bleak picture sometimes but ultimately his whole thing is a sorta admiration for the sincerity and the frankness of delinquents comitted to whatever passions even if they're wasting their lives away — an admiration of that in a heroic sense but also a recognition that it's “blue” and shortlived
The vibe of this anthology reminded me a lot of yoshihiro Tatsumi - but unlike that sorta 70s/80s gekiga - this is less…edgy and dark and more like highschool emptiness vibes which feels harsher and bleaker but also that sorta admiration of these kinds of figures rather than like…detached critique of society makes it treat its characters a lot nicer than Tatsumi
Anthology Ranking
2>5>6>4>1>3
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 14, 2021
the manga was not what i expected it to be. the art style was sO COOL!!!!! yukio is my favorite character and i liked chapter 5 the most. but i must admit chapter 6 was the funniest.
some lines i rlly liked; "we're all under the same sun." "im not choosing icecream, im choosing my life." "i always believed that if someone pushed me, i could fly." "youth is a blue time. blue- that distinct blue that paints the town moments before the sun rises." "spring will come again."
some lines i rlly liked; "we're all under the same sun." "im not choosing icecream, im choosing my life." "i always believed that if someone pushed me, i could fly." "youth is a blue time. blue- that distinct blue that paints the town moments before the sun rises." "spring will come again."
August 29, 2022
hugeeee fan of the live action movie based on the manga and had no idea there was one
the art style is very unique and geometric and gorgeously grotesque with its subject matter
chapter 5 is my favorite i love the story of yukio it’s so bleak that anyone’s life has the ability to drastically change
i just wish that it followed more of the same plots of the movie but that’s kinda shallow of me ig
✌️peace🤓
the art style is very unique and geometric and gorgeously grotesque with its subject matter
chapter 5 is my favorite i love the story of yukio it’s so bleak that anyone’s life has the ability to drastically change
i just wish that it followed more of the same plots of the movie but that’s kinda shallow of me ig
✌️peace🤓
July 9, 2024
Christ, this was very bleak. Disillusioned kids. Crime. Degenerate behavior. Violence. Textural, more emphasis on feeling & mise-en-scène than plot. Art and writing are hard to follow at parts. I remember liking the movie better, but that was over 10 years ago when I saw it.
If there was one pitch you couldn't take back... could you find a way to take it back?
What do you want to be when you grow up, Yukio?
If there was one pitch you couldn't take back... could you find a way to take it back?
What do you want to be when you grow up, Yukio?
August 2, 2024
Una obra del maestro Matsumoto anterior de sus primeros tiempos como mangaka. Aunque el trazo de los dibujos no es tan seguro como llegará a ser, lo esencial de su estilo diria que ya es visible aquí. Todo muy chabacano, historias feistas de chavales de instituto sin planes de futuro.
Como todas las obras del autor, muy expresivo y muy personal. Mas allà de cualquier argumento, sus dibujos le convierten en uno de mis autores favoritos.
Dudo que guste a los lectores de manga mainstream.
Como todas las obras del autor, muy expresivo y muy personal. Mas allà de cualquier argumento, sus dibujos le convierten en uno de mis autores favoritos.
Dudo que guste a los lectores de manga mainstream.
February 28, 2025
“No matter how passionate you were, no matter how much your blood boiled, I believe youth is a blue time. Blue - that indistinct blue that paints the town moments before the sun rises. Winter is coming.”
quite lyrical despite the subject matter. a couple of chapters where i felt lost, but i think the focus was more on the emotional impact than the plot anyway
quite lyrical despite the subject matter. a couple of chapters where i felt lost, but i think the focus was more on the emotional impact than the plot anyway
July 13, 2024
1. 〈如果感到幸福你就拍拍手〉
精彩的設定！完美詮釋百無聊賴的青春該如何邁向死亡！
2. 〈左輪手槍〉
無聊的高中生活，意外地收到手槍，反而有了正向的結局，挺意想不到的。
3. 〈夏天碰！〉
把麻將和棒球結合再一起的小片段，蠻有短片的風格
4. 〈鈴木先生〉
這個記憶點不太深。
5. 〈Peace〉
非常黑暗！高中校園是不良少年的天堂啊！
6.〈家庭餐廳是我們的天堂呀！〉
家庭餐廳版的Pulp Fiction，幹話連篇，抱怨連篇，卻幽默萬分！
7. 〈這下完蛋啦〉
幽默動作喜劇
精彩的設定！完美詮釋百無聊賴的青春該如何邁向死亡！
2. 〈左輪手槍〉
無聊的高中生活，意外地收到手槍，反而有了正向的結局，挺意想不到的。
3. 〈夏天碰！〉
把麻將和棒球結合再一起的小片段，蠻有短片的風格
4. 〈鈴木先生〉
這個記憶點不太深。
5. 〈Peace〉
非常黑暗！高中校園是不良少年的天堂啊！
6.〈家庭餐廳是我們的天堂呀！〉
家庭餐廳版的Pulp Fiction，幹話連篇，抱怨連篇，卻幽默萬分！
7. 〈這下完蛋啦〉
幽默動作喜劇
April 9, 2018
Consists of seven short pieces. Some were unintelligible and mundane, but that might have been the translation. Destitute environs of urban Japan and the (male) youth that inhabit them.
November 29, 2019
Stories are hit or miss, but if you're an Taiyo Matsumoto fan, it's worth a read
Read
November 18, 2021konusundan ziyade çizimleri o kadar etkileyiciydi ki...
August 25, 2022
This shit rocked. Dumb angry kids mad at the world - beautiful little collection.
October 5, 2022
Little stories each chapter, chapter 2 was the best one.
July 4, 2024
*2,5
O último conto é muito bom.
Os outros, deixam muito a desejar.
O último conto é muito bom.
Os outros, deixam muito a desejar.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews