Mitsuru Adachi’s Rough began in Weekly Shonen Sunday on 8 April 1987 and ended on 20 September 1989 at chapter 119, collected in 12 volumes. Keisuke Yamato and Ami Ninomiya belong to rival confectionery families in the same town, and Ami has grown up being told that Keisuke’s great-grandfather ruined hers.
They end up in the same school dormitory and the same swimming club, he in freestyle, she in diving. The misunderstanding is what holds them apart at the start, and the rate at which it dissolves is the pace of the book. It is short by this author’s standards, which keeps the emotional line tight, and the races are drawn by cutting between above and below the water and taking the sound out.
Twelve volumes can be read in a day, which is why it is so often the one recommended to people who have never read Adachi. A live-action film exists.
