Break Shot

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Break Shot
Cover art from the first volume of the manga
ブレイクショット (Bureikushotto)
Genre	Sports[1]
Manga
Written by	Takeshi Maekawa
Published by	Kodansha
Magazine	Weekly Shōnen Magazine
Demographic	Shōnen
Original run	1987 – 1990
Volumes	16

Break Shot (Japanese: ブレイクショット, Hepburn: Bureikushotto) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Takeshi Maekawa. Many of the shots portrayed in the series are based on actual billiards principles, though they are highly dramatized and sometimes ignore principles of physics.

The story initially focuses on Oda's desire to publicize the pool-playing club at his high school. Eventually the focus shifts to Oda's climb up the pool tournament circuits and his desire to master new skills and invent new shots.

Shinsuke Oda

The main protagonist of the series, Oda is a high school student that is obsessed with pool. At the start of the series, he was the only member of his school's pool club. He is a very focused individual and displays amazing talent in pool. Oda would constantly invent creative methods of escaping from difficult situations while playing against other pool players.

Initially his specialty is the "jump shot", but as the story progresses he uses more varied and sometimes even exotic moves.

Asako Hayakawa

She is the student body president at the same high school as Oda. When they first met, she came to the pool club to disband it for lack of members and lack of school funding. After Oda showed his skills to her, he convinced her that the club was worth keeping and she even became a member.

Ryoji Kano

One of Japan's best Billiard players, and is known as "three moves Ryoji" because he always defeats an opponent in only three moves. He is left handed, but is also an excellent player with his right hand.

His specialty is the "shotgun shot", which launches the cue ball so hard it shatters on impact, scattering the pieces to hit the balls surrounding it.

Minoru Aono

Another of Oda's friends, his specialty is hitting with an accurate back shot that returns the cue to the center of the table, enabling him to keep shooting from a good vantage point.

Aki

Yet another of Oda's endless friends he picked up in his first tournament, he relies on his powerful "Massé" to cause chain reactions at an angle. however, because of his power his accuracy is a bit on the low side (compared to the pros, of course).

Jeffery Boid

The main rival in the Japan-USA high-school tournament situated in Hawaii, his specialty is the "miracle shot" that uses the cushion of air of the cue, spinning at 210 km/h, to spin around other balls. The human eye finds it hard to follow movement at this speed and so it appears as if the cue goes through the other ball.

He has another specialty, the "hurricane shot", which also uses the air cushion of the spinning cue but uses it to direct move other balls without actually touching them.

• Ironfist Chinmi

• Break Shot (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia