Dumbbell Nan Kilo Moteru?
How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?

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There is not too much to say about this manga since there is basically no story, or character development, or anything you can usually find in a manga. I would call this not a manga, but a training manual which looks like a manga. If we watch from this aspect than it is a decent one.
I like training, and it is also my job, that's why this manga was recommended to me. I have to say I am not disappointed. The techniques, the training methods, and the general concept of training are well introduced, with enough time spent on proper forms. Even risks of ... injuries are mentioned. There are only a couple minor mistakes here and there, but nothing big. So for someone who is not training but wants to start it, I would say it is a funny way to get some information about training.

But what about the story?
There is not much to it. We follow a high school girl who wants to get fit in order look good\get a boyfriend. She joins a gym, where she learns something new every day. Not an interesting story, but that's not the main point of the manga. The main point is the training, and that part is well done. There are a couple funny moments too.

Art:
Not astonishing, but I would say it is at least decent. There are a couple ecchi scenes(not too much, maybe 1 page in every chapter), which are well drawn if you are into that stuff.

Characters:
Again, it is not the main point, so I would say they are typical characters, mostly funny.

Overall:
I would recommend it to anyone because you can learn the basics of training from here in a fun way, but don't forget to ask a professional if you really want to get started.

Sup fellow Gymcels are you looking for something to read between crushing reps and box at the gym? Well look no further.

Here we have a manga that is just mindless fun, no story no end goal, no character development, just a gag manga about working out. There is no real through line, each story can just be taken as an excuse to insert some kind of work out knowledge into the weeb population which we will need when we rise up.

The jokes are a bit samey as there is only so much material you can cover but the art and the ridiculousness keeps ... it fun and light hearted. The problem here is that some of the stuff in this manga is just flat out incorrect causing me to sperg about it on the artists twitter even though he can't read in english and I am shadow banned for calling out fake natties.

Treat this as it is, a light hearted boner inducing comic, not as a work out bible. If you are trying to get into lifting do research on your own don't get advice from chinese finger paintings.

tld:dr pretty SWOLE 7/10

5/10

This manga is incredibly average in most ways. It’s average as an ecchi, average as CGDCT, and it’s average as slice of life.

Characters: The characters are all fun and likable with well-defined personalities.

Art: The art is great, with a lot of attention paid to anatomy. Something that I like is that while there are some absurd bodies meant to be unrealistic and exaggerated, many of the bodies depicted look within the realm of realism. An example of this is the women’s breasts, which have a pretty realistic size and shape rather than looking like someone with watermelons under their shirt. We ecchi enjoyers love ... a good unrealistic, sexy, bombshell anime body, but I think that the choice to make the women sexy but not absurdly unrealistic was a fantastic choice for something centered around real exercise.

Writing: This is where it really suffers. I enjoy manga that is chill slice of life with no real plot development, so when I criticize the writing, I am doing it in comparison to other similar aimless manga, not against plot and character-heavy works. I read 7 volumes of this manga, and just a few volumes in I was already thinking “is every single chapter going to be the same?” Don’t get me wrong, there are new locations, new characters, etc., but it all feels the same. Every chapter is like “I wish my boobs were perkier!” “Oh, you know what’s good for that? Exercises that target the upper pectorals!” followed by several pages explaining how to do something like incline bench presses, how to hold the bar, how to sit on the bench, etc. I get that explaining exercises is a core concept of the manga, but it gets tedious to have every chapter grind to a halt so that they can do a lifting tutorial that you would just google if you ever wanted to do it in real life, followed by a high-effort full-page ecchi drawing that is admittedly quit sexy. And while some of the exercise advice is good, some of it is iffy (there’s even a chapter I saw where the exercise is accompanied by a note that says “This is an outdated approach, consult a trainer”. Okay… so if it’s bad advice that people don’t use anymore, why is it in the manga? Just because the author couldn’t think of another useful exercise?

Overall, I don’t think that this manga is bad. It just feels very same-y all the way through, in a way that I found boring and shallow rather than comforting and chill. If you’ve read a couple volumes, then you’ve essentially read as much of it as I have because every subsequent chapter will feel exactly the same except for they might go to the beach or a haunted house occasionally or something like that. If you like no plot slice of life ecchi with cute girls, you might like this. If you’re into exercise and weight lifting in real life, you might find it fun to find that in a manga. But as an avid lifter and dumb manga fan I love both of those things and still couldn’t find anything particularly fun or interesting here, and there are a ton of series that will offer much better ecchi, much better slice of life, and much better CGDCT, although I can’t think of another that will give you the weightlifting focus. Give it a shot to see if it’s for you, but I would suggest taking an afternoon to watch the short anime adaptation and skipping the manga.