ES21 anime v manga

Normally, when the anime is sketchier than the manga on details, I'd say to watch the anime first, so you can go on to the richer source and not be disappointed. This one is... kind of weird, though. The anime leaves out huge numbers of details and background action to focuse exclusively on the game and training (which is very distressing, because we see so much less of Hiruma's magnificent wickedness), but every now and then a detail crops up out of place, without the background action to explain it. Eg, the Apollo-chicken Hiruma's holding at the start of the match in the anime, which does not appear at that point in the manga, but which makes no sense at all without the foregoing story about the chicken video. It makes me think that maybe the anime was planned or drawn to cover everything the manga does, and then clipped later.

On the other hand, having a seiyuu to do Hiruma's Ya-Ha really adds something. And I think the anime artists went to some trouble to make both Hiruma and Shin sexier (though this took some serious work, with Shin).

So, curiously enough, I think this is a series where watching the anime and reading the manga work equally well in either order. And possibly best of all when you do both simultaneously.