All Out!! Review: Two Very Different Boys Start Rugby and Learn That the Sport Has Room for Every Kind of Body

Quick Take

• Rugby manga with genuine technical depth and an unusual emphasis on body diversity — every size and shape has a position
• Gion's fire and Iwashimizu's hesitance make for one of sports manga's most complementary central partnerships
• 24 volumes complete in Japan; ongoing in English

Who Is This Manga For?

• Readers who want sports manga about a non-traditional sport
• Fans who enjoy ensemble team sports where every member's specific role matters
• Anyone interested in rugby who wants to understand the sport through manga
• Readers who like character-driven sports stories

Content Warnings & Age Rating

Age Rating: T (Teen) Content Warnings: Rugby is a contact sport and the manga depicts injuries; physical competition is intense but not gratuitous

Appropriate for teen readers and above.

Yu's Rating

Category	Score
Story Depth	★★★★☆
Art Style	★★★★☆
Character Development	★★★★★
Accessibility for Non-Japanese Readers	★★★★☆
Reread Value	★★★★☆

Story Overview

Gion Kenji is short. This has been a problem in every sport he has tried. Rugby, he discovers on his first day of high school, has a position for someone with his exact combination of size, speed, and aggression: scrum-half.

Iwashimizu Sumiaki is enormous and has stopped playing contact sports since an incident in middle school where his strength hurt someone. His arc — learning that his size is not a threat but a tool, and that the team needs what he has — runs parallel to Gion's from the first chapter.

The series follows Kanagawa High School's rugby club from near-dissolution through competitive development, with the sport's actual technical structure — positions, formations, rules — explained clearly enough that readers with no rugby knowledge can follow everything.

Characters

Gion Kenji — Small, fast, and absolutely unwilling to accept that size means limitation. His specific contribution to the team is not just physical but psychological: his intensity pulls better performances from the people around him.

Iwashimizu Sumiaki — A character arc about learning to use your own strength without fear of it. His development is the series' most careful psychological work.

Sekizan Takuya — The team captain whose leadership style — demanding, exact, occasionally brutal — is the series' central model of what it means to lead a team that is not yet good enough.

Hachioji Mutsumi — The coach whose understanding of rugby tactics and player development provides the technical framework the series builds around.

Art Style

Amase's art handles the ensemble rugby matches with genuine tactical clarity — the formations, the positions, the movement of the ball across the field are legible in ways that many team sports manga fail to achieve. The character designs emphasize body diversity deliberately: the range of builds on the team reflects the actual positional requirements of rugby.

Cultural Context

Rugby has a specific position in Japanese sports culture as a sport that is gaining international prominence — Japan's Rugby World Cup 2019 performance generated enormous domestic interest. All Out!! was part of a wave of rugby content that preceded and accompanied that moment. The sport's specific culture of physical commitment and mutual dependence is treated seriously.

What I Love About It

The position explanations. Rugby has fifteen positions with distinct physical requirements and tactical roles. The series explains this systematically not through info-dump but through each character discovering their position through trial. By the time the team is fielding full matches, the reader understands why every person on the field is exactly where they are.

What English-Speaking Fans Say

Western rugby fans who have found the manga describe it as the most technically accurate sports manga about a Western sport they have encountered. The Gion and Iwashimizu friendship — the way their opposite qualities make them better at exactly the points where the other is limited — is consistently cited as the series' emotional core.

Memorable Scene ⚠️ Spoiler Warning

Iwashimizu's first real tackle in a competitive match — the moment he stops holding back — reframes his entire arc and marks the point where the team becomes something more than it was.

Similar Manga

• Haikyu!! — High school team sports, ensemble development, competitive drama
• Eyeshield 21 — American football, similar physical role specificity
• Blue Lock — Football (soccer), character-driven sports intensity
• Slam Dunk — Basketball, team building from scratch

Reading Order / Where to Start

Volume 1 — Gion's discovery of rugby and its fit for his specific body establishes the series' thesis immediately.

Official English Translation Status

Kodansha Comics is publishing the ongoing English release.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Rugby explained clearly enough for readers with no prior knowledge
• Body diversity as a structural premise is genuinely refreshing
• Ensemble development is sustained across the full cast
• Gion/Iwashimizu partnership is one of sports manga's best

Cons

• English release is ongoing — not yet complete
• Slower between match arcs
• Some positional explanations are dense for casual readers

Format Comparison

Format	Notes
Individual Volumes	Kodansha Comics; standard
Digital	Available

Where to Buy

Get All Out!! Vol. 1 on Amazon →

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