Beck Mongolian Chop Squad by Harold Sakuishi

Beck's a great story, basically about this kid who gets into a band. It's really inspiring and down to earth. The day to day crap was really relatable and was almost enjoyable to watch because even though bad things happens to Koyuki (I think he even says at some point 'when it rains it really pours for me' or something) he still doesn't get majorly depressed and looks at the situation positively. 

I also thought that the passion for music was successfully transferred to the reader and at some points I really wanted to pick up a guitar and start playing, though I don't know how. Some of the ways they related to the American music industry was kind of gimmicky, but it was pulled off a lot better than I've seen else where, like they won't just throw out some musician's name just so that the reader's like 'ooo they know who that is!!!' which I find largely annoying, but the people they did incorporate were given a couple of lines to explain who they were and how they fit into the story so it wasn't that bad. The story did feel like it was dragging on in some places, but those were usually the places that the guitar guy was being a douche, but it gets resolved so I guess you just have to suffer through it (though the story usually makes up for the suffering, and I guess it could be seen as a good kind of tension). I'm not done it yet so I don't know if I'm satisfied with it yet, but there are a few indicators of a happy ending so I think it'll pay off. So to sum up... give this one a shot.