Beck (manga)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Ordinary Middle School Student Yukio 'Koyuki' Tanaka wonders if his life will ever be interesting enough to write an autobiography. This all starts to change as he steps in to rescue a frankenstein-looking dog from a bunch of pestering kids. The dog, Beck, turns out to belong to Ryuusuke 'Ray' Minami, a Japanese kid with a checkered past that was largely spent in New York in the company of a currently world-famous singer/songwriter. Ryuusuke introduces Koyuki to rock music and lends him a guitar.

Ryuusuke is also setting up a band, which eventually gets named Beck, after the dog. After Koyuki has learned to play the guitar to a somewhat passable level, he gets accepted into the band. There he impresses everyone with his fantastic voice. From then on, the whole story is mainly about Beck's struggles to become famous, both nationally in Japan and internationally. Well, that and Koyuki's romantic troubles with Ryuusuke's sister, Maho.

The other members of the band are:

  • Ryuusuke Minami: The lead guitarist and front man for BECK. Raised in America, he and his sister Maho often stick out because of their personalities. While in America, He had befriended Eddie Lee, a prodigious guitarist who goes on to be famous in his later years. Ryuusuke vows to Eddie that he will make a band worthy enough to play alongside him, and goes on to learn guitar. Ryuusuke himself is rather talented, and has a bit of an ego.
  • Yoshiyuki Taira: The bassist of BECK. As the oldest, he is the most mature member and has a large history of music (his father was the bassist of a jazz band.) He has no problem with staying in the background, but will speak up if he feels he needs to. His play style is based off Michael 'Flea' Balzary of The Red Hot Chili Peppers fame. He also has bleach blonde hair and doesn't wear a shirt on stage.
  • Tsunemi Chiba: The lead vocalist of BECK. His rougher vocals suit the band's faster songs, but he raps for the majority of the songs. His brash and hot-blooded nature usually gets him in trouble, but he's just passionate about what he does. In his spare time he participates in rap battles, and apparently he knows some martial arts. His look and rapping style is a shout out to Zack De La Rocha of Rage Against the Machine.
  • Yuuji 'Saku' Sakurai: The drummer of BECK, and a transfer student. He quickly befriends Koyuki through the music of The Dying Breed. Not one to conform, he is unafraid to speak to Koyuki after a school-wide silence is imposed on him. He is surprisingly talented, and the moment the band hears him play, they recruit him.

Not to be confused with the alternative rock musician of the same name.

Essentially the Manga is a Seinen in Shounen's Clothing.

Tropes used in Beck (manga) include:
  • Aloof Big Brother: Ryuusuke.
  • Anime Theme Song: The Beat Crusaders performed the song "Hit in the USA" as the theme. This band tended to sing mainly in English and were influenced by the United States heavily. On a side note, they also performed "Tonight Tonight Tonight", the fourth opening theme for Bleach.
  • Ass Kicks You: here.
  • Author Appeal: Creator Harold Sakuishi is a very big fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, so it's no surprise that Taira is pretty much modeled after RHCP bassist Flea.
  • Bash Brothers / Back-to-Back Badasses: Chiba + Tetsuo = Curb Stomp Battle.
  • Bishonen: Ryuusuke, Eiji's band, Yoshito, Eddie Lee. And depending on your point of view, Koyuki.
    • Koyuki's more like a cute little boy, in the anime at least (he's 14 when the story starts, after all).
  • Burger Fool: Hiromi used to work at a donut joint when Koyuki met her. She was fired for making a mistake (which is never described or brought up again).
  • Bland-Name Product: The Anime is full of them, the characters shirts often have Band names usually with one letter swapped, like The Pixis, The Rammones, Tho Who, also a common one is Samsang.
    • Averted in the opening sequence, where a number of Real Life casino logos had to be censored in the American release for legal reasons (including the fake Coca-Cola logo, just to be safe).
  • Big Damn Heroes: Ryuusuke has a bad habit of making impossible bets. In the finale, when he pulls another Greatful Sound and wagers that Beck will get the most viewers, everyone else goes out of their way to help. Matt Reed flies Koyuki in with his helicopter when it seems like Koyuki will be late for the show, and colleague band Room 13 tells people to go to their performance. Even Hyde, a popular American artist, tells his fans to head to the show. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work out.
  • Can't Catch Up: Chiba thinks this of himself later on.
  • Celebrity Lie: subverted. Ryuusuke's claims to be an old friend of Dying Breed guitarist Eddie Lee are largely believed to be of this trope, but is in fact true.
  • Chekhov's Gun: "Devil's Way", Eddie Lee's unreleased song. From playing it privately to Koyuki over the phone, it becomes an important plot point late in the manga.
    • Remember that fabled helicopter of Matt's that was offhandedly referred to in an earlier chapter? The one that Ryuusuke said was just gossip written for the tabloids? Well, it exists. And it shows up just in time for a Big Damn Heroes moment.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: The English dub.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: The boys meet a few along their career. Ran, Leon Sykes, Victor Slater... It gets to Sorting Algorithm of Evil levels in the manga.
  • Downer Ending: Averted. Especially because, in the anime, it does not happen in the final episode, but in the penultimate. And the story moved on in the manga.
  • Egocentric Team Naming: When the main characters are trying to come up with a name for their band, lead guitarist Ryuusuke spends a moment on the floor writing ideas. When he's finished, he holds it up proudly, and every suggestion contains his name, like "The Ryuusuke Experience" and so on. Of course, no one was impressed, though the fangirls that hang around them were amused.
  • Eyes Always Shut: Saku. Naturally averted in the movie.
    • Lampshaded when Saku justifies not showing his driver's license to Koyuki: he says the photo didn't come out good because he had to open his eyes. But since said photo is neer seen, the trope's still in effect.
  • Face Doodling: here. But Koyuki gets even (with a Shout-Out to another manga no less!).
  • Face of a Thug: Taketoki Kanemoto, the frontman of Shiboyugi, may look like a cross between Scary Black Man and Yakuza, but he's an overall nice guy (just like the rest of his band, in fact) and close buddies with Chiba.
  • Fan Service: Maho definitely has her moments, Usually for Koyuki. Also, Taira for the male side.
  • Fascinating Eyebrow: Jim Walsh has one of these virtually every time he's pictured.
  • First Girl Wins: Averted with Izumi.
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble: a more accurate description of the group's dynamics. Ryusuke = phlegmatic; Koyuki = supine; Taira = melancholic; Chiba = choleric; and Saku = sanguine.
  • Gangsta Style: Frequently employed by the actual gangsters who appear in the manga.
  • A Good Name for a Rock Band; Well, no. Beck gets settled on because all other options Ryuusuke and Chiba can come up with suck worse. By the time they make their international debut, their first agent comes up with the name 'Mongolian Chop Squad'. It's used whenever they're outside Japan, usually abbreviated to MCS.
  • Gratuitous English: The lyrics to Beck's songs are full of it, though not completely ("Spice of Life", for example, does have verses in Japanese).
    • There's also Koyuki singing in English without knowing the language. To be fair, he sings well, it's only his accent that sucks (for example, his "gently" in "Moon in the Water" sounds like "gentry").
  • Hollywood Pudgy: Koyuki, with no sense of sarcasm chides Maho of not eating so much or she'll get fat. Unfortunately, that's Japan for ya.
  • Hot Teacher: Momoko, for whom Saitou falls.
  • Ho Yay: A bit between Koyuki and Ray in the beginning.
    • Koyuki and Shiingo pull this off a bit in England, where Koyuki waits for Maho to show up at Abbey Road for their big reunion in London, only for her not to show up. Cue the Rain. Then Shiingo shows up with an Umbrella of Togetherness...
    • Minor in-universe example with Koyuki and Matt Reed, of all people, where Matt flies Koyuki and Maho into the Avalon Festival in his helicopter... except that the gossip mags had said Matt would show up with his girlfriend. When Koyuki exits the chopper with Matt, several fans are quick to assume that Matt must swing both ways. "Just what I'd expect from a rock star!", indeed.
  • Idiot Crows: well, more like a cockatoo.
  • Intergenerational Friendship: Saitou and Kayuki
  • Jerkass: Ryuusuke, especially later in the manga.
    • Also, Kevin in the manga. He does everything to push the members of Beck (rather, MCS) around while they are touring the USA as the opening act for F.V.E. (the band for which he and his brother, David, who is sympathetic towards the guys, play) just for the hell of it. But then again, he justifies this by the fact that MCS' performances in USA are subpar (which they had been, until Ryusuke rejoined them in Seattle). From what David tells Ryusuke later on, this may be simply prejudice since Kevin had a Japanese girlfriend in high school, but she cheated on him.
    • Ryusuke should be more like a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
    • Heck, any prominent character under Ran's wing (including Ran himself) is one of these. Eiji seems to enjoy looking down on Beck as a whole, while Yoshito outright hates Koyuki just because of Maho. As for Ran, well...
  • Large Ham: Saitou, Koyuki's swimming teacher-slash-guitar teacher-slash-employer. The man is just about as hammy as a middle-aged Japanese man can get, or even more.
    • Chiba could also count. He is, by far, the loudest of the members of Beck.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: For a series which features real musicians and instrument brands, it's surprising, but there are some, like Music Vibe instead of MTV.
  • Male Gaze
  • Narm: GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!!! (Ryusuke calling out on Koyuki, after the latter unintentionally breaks a guitar the former had given him in an early episode. Turns out that the guitar, which Ryusuke cherished for thinking it belonged to Eddie Lee, was a replica of Eddie's usual one, and all was good between them again.) It's only funny because of Ryusuke's accentized English.
    • Averted in the English dub, where the lack of an 'Engrish' accent helps the line's effectiveness. That scene is still hard to watch for this troper.
  • Never Learned to Read: Maho can't read kanji, making her almost completely illiterate.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • One Steve Limit: Why they're known as Mongolian Chop Squad overseas.
  • Ordinary High School Student: Koyuki, at least until he ditches school for Beck. Also Saku. Izumi and Hiromi fit this too, though they are mostly secondary in different points in Koyuki's life (e.g. once he starts attending high school, Izumi is Put on a Bus - as are almost all of his middle school colleagues - , with Hiromi serving as a replacement of sorts, because she starts dating Saku).
  • Pac-Man Fever: At one point, Taira's racing game appears exactly the same when he's playing it as when he isn't.
  • Psychic Dreams for Everyone: Except Chiba.
    • Actually, it's revealed in the manga that Chiba does see the same vision, and even more of it, when Ryuusuke is in the States and everyone is there touring and trying to find him.
    • Also mentioned in the anime. Listen to the comments Koyuki makes as he shows Maho the pictures of the tour (which is shown more in-depth in the manga).
  • The Power of Rock: A more realistic version than usual.
  • Running Gag: Koyuki realizes he doesn't speak English every single time someone around him speaks it. ("I-can't-engurishu!")
    • As a matter of fact, we learn in the manga that, of the five members of Beck, Ryusuke is the only one who can speak English, which leads to loads of lost-in-translation when they go to the USA. And it's rather ironic, since Chiba sings mostly in English. So he wouldn't have a clue of what the songs mean if Ryusuke didn't explain (assuming that he did)?
  • Rushed Inverted Reading: Koyuki and Maho were spending time together, thinking they were alone in the fishing hole. Cue Chiba and Taira's arrival. They then quickly clothed themselves while all sweaty along with forced expressions (Koyuki is reading a book upside down and Maho is wearing her shirt inside out.) Hilarity Ensues.
  • Scary Black Man: Gordie (or Goldie). Not just in terms of appearance, he's legitimately dangerous.
    • And Leon Sykes isn't too far behind his own henchman. He might as well be scarier.
  • Scary Shiny Glasses: BigBads Ran and Leon Sykes have these. Overlaps with Sunglasses at Night.
  • School Festival: Koyuki gets roped into helping organise a choir for one and performs with his guitar at another.
  • Sex as Rite-of-Passage: Heavily implied with all the times Maho slipped into Koyuki's room. Doesn't help that she also averts Not Staying for Breakfast.
    • The day of the Avalon Festival is the one definite Point were this Trope is probably invoked. (She wanted to go to Japan a few chapters earlier and packed her Lingerie)
  • Shirtless Scene: The way Taira usually plays.
    • Also Tetsuo, the vocalist of Room 13, who always takes the stage wearing only his underwear (or a Speedo, whatever's more probable).
  • Shoot the Dog: Victor Slater kills Keith to try and intimidate Leon Sykes.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Several in the manga: many of the opening illustrations of the chapters allude to album covers, single covers and even screenshots from music videos. Movie posters are referenced as well.
    • The scene where Koyuki plays a DyBre song over the school PA system, later alluding to The Shawshank Redemption to explain himself to his teacher.
    • Chiba's afro is a Shout-Out to Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha. The two have a number of similarities, from the way they look to the rapping used in their songs.
    • Taira is one to Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea, from the playing style to the bleached hair.
    • The name BECK is more than likely an obvious reference to the musician of the same name.
      • Considering the naming conventions for pets in the series, such as the cockatoo Page and the other dog Keith, it's more likely Beck's named after Jeff Beck from The Yardbirds.
      • This becomes unfortunate when Funimation was (eventually) forced to rename their release of the anime, allegedly because the real Beck complained.
    • The rail platform where Maho and Koyuki have their reunion happens to be the exact same platform in Dartford where Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had their famous reunion in 1961, a meeting that eventually led to the formation of the Rolling Stones.
    • Also, aside from rock, another of Sakuishi's great passions is soccer. That can be seen by the soccer player names scattered about in the backgrounds, especially in the late chapters (for example, there's a bookstore named after Arsenal's Spanish midfielder Cesc Fàbregas, and one of the new opening acts at the underground club where Beck started off is named Aguero, after Atlético de Madrid's Argentine forward Sergio Agüero).
    • A strange shout out is the cover illustration of the english EP of the band, which consist of a baseball bat in the bottom of a well, as described in Haruki Murakami's novel The Wind-up Bird Chronicle.
  • Spoiler Opening: The group, plus Maho, is in America (first Vegas, then somewhere in the desert, then NYC).
  • Squee: Koyuki has something of a guy version when he sees Eddie from Dying Breed in the crowd at a gig.
  • Start My Own: Both Ryuusuke and Eiji, disbanding Serial Mama and starting Beck and Belle-Aime, respectively.
  • Sunglasses at Night: Dying Breed's frontman Matt Reed is almost never seen without his shades.
  • Supporting Leader: Although Ryuusuke started the band, Taira, as a Type II leader, functions as this. He's involved in all of the important decisions made for the band, especially whenever Ryuusuke goes AWOL.
  • Surprisingly Good English: The voice-acting of some of the extras in the anime. The main characters, unfortunately, not so much. It could be a lot worse, but Ryuusuke and Maho supposedly grew up in the US, and their grammar and pronunciation really don't show it.
    • This is because most of the American characters were played by American ex-pats. Their acting, however, is more than a little weak once one compares it to the exact same lines spoken in the English dub.
    • Ryuusuke's much better English and the American extras in the movie lead to a lot of this.
  • Technician Versus Performer: the feud between Ryuusuke and Eiji, Ryuusuke being the Performer, Eiji being technician.
    • Also, to a minor extent, Koyuki and Yoshito.
    • as Eiji disappeared, it's more Koyuki and Hyoudo.
    • In general, Beck and Belle-Aime also follow this: Beck being Performer, Belle-Aime being Technician, and other bands associated with Beck, such as The Dying Breed and Ciel-Bleu also being Performer. Hyoudo's band also was technician, as Ryusuuke pointed out. In general the Performer beats the Technician, except in best guitar when both Koyuki and Hyoudo won.
  • True Companions: No matter what hardships they come through, BECK will always come together when it really matters.
  • Tsundere: Maho, in a slightly more deredere way than usual.
  • Ugly Guy Hot Girlfriend: Saitou and Momoko.
  • Up to Eleven: Ryuusuke's amp can go this high.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Chiba and Ryusuke.
  • Vocal Tag Team: Chiba and Koyuki.
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