Japanese manga series
 is a Japanese manga series created by Yuriko Nishiyama. It details the struggles of young Nate Torres to go from a benchwarmer to a street-ball player. The story's scope expands as he makes friends and eventually becomes a member of his high school basketball team. It was compiled into 29 "tankōbon" volumes.
In North America, it was published by Tokyopop. The manga goes up to 9 volumes under the name "Harlem Beat", while what were volumes 12+ in Japan were published under the series title "Rebound", with the "Rebound" volumes renumbered beginning at 1. As of August 31, 2009, the "Rebound" volumes are out of print. The Japanese "Harlem Beat" Volumes 10 and 11 were never translated by Mixx/Tokyopop.
Jason Thompson stated that it was the author's "most popular manga". According to Thompson the work "assumes that the reader knows basketball."
Creation and conception.
Initially Nishiyama planned for the series to be only about street basketball, but later added a school-based team.
Nishiyama had made multiple submissions to show her editors that she had the aptitude to maintain a manga series in a weekly magazine. She stated that initially "Harlem Beat" did not sell well and that she attended meetings with her editor on how to rectify this, but that sales improved in a manner she described as a "kamikaze"; she stated that working on the manga became "overwhelming" as merchandising occurred.
English version.
Thompson stated it was "the first serious sports manga published in America." Some editing of nudity and self-insert references as well as changes of character names are in the English version. Thompson argued "the Americanization and changed names don't hurt the story that much".
The English publication did not include volumes 10 and 11; a summary of volumes 10 and 11 was included in Volume 12.
Related products.
There is a Playstation game "Harlem Beat: You're the One" published by Konami in Japan in 1999. There are also some novels.
Reception.
According to Nishiyama, there were members of the public who believed "Harlem Beat" was "a bit too "earnest" for its own good".
References.
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