"It's Primary Colors in a really bad mood."
As mild-mannered Japanese newspaper reporter Takashi Jo is mourning his mother's untimely death, he receives an even more shocking announcement: his employer is transferring him to America to report on the presidential campaign of Japanese-American senator Kenneth Yamaoka. The one who requested the transfer? Yamaoka himself.
So begins Takashi's journey into both the complicated and often dangerous world of American politics, and into the murky history of his own family, which may prove even more so...
Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President by Kaiji Kawaguchi, is both an informative and entertaining look at the American electoral process and a compelling human drama of lies, sex and above all, power. The manga ran in the Seinen magazine Big Comic from 1997 to 2001.
Eagle provides examples of:
- Driving Question: If Takashi's mother was murdered who was responsible? Although Kenneth is the obvious suspect, it's eventually revealed the culprit was Patricia's father by way of his Red Right Hand, who took it upon himself to clean up the loose end threatening his son-in-law's career. The revelation comes after the underling takes it upon himself to try to kill Takashi late in the story.
- False Flag Operation: Yamaoka has been secretly funneling money to racist organizations in order to make the problem of racism in America impossible to ignore.
- Funetik Aksent: Senator Woodsman, a Southern Democrat who is also in the running to for the Democratic nomination until he backs out and turns over his delegates to Senator "Yam-May-Okee".
- Intrepid Reporter: Takashi actually starts out pretty milquetoast, but gradually becomes one over the course of the series. The different attitudes between Japanese and American journalists is a major theme of the early chapters.
- Lady Macbeth: Patricia to her son Alex. Also First Lady Ellery to pretty much everyone.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Yamaoka owns up to being Takashi's dad surprisingly quick.
- Meaningful Name: Invoked in the climax of the story, when Kenneth finally tells Takashi the story of how he met his mother, and why he decided to leave her in order to pursue his political goals after being wounded during The Vietnam War. After hearing the story, Takashi calls Kenneth out and says that his mother had been quietly fighting alongside him all her life. To prove this, he explains the meaning of his name to Kenneth, who doesn't speak Japanese: "Takashi" — "Will of the Eagle".
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: The manga, set in a fictionalized version of the 2000 U.S. Presidential race, prominently features incumbent Vice President Al Noah, along with the ambitious First Lady "Ellery" and her unnamed-yet-familiar-looking husband.
- Our Presidents Are Different: Yamaoka is (trying to be) both President Personable and President Scheming. The fun is in figuring out which persona is closer to his true self.
- Secret Secret-Keeper: Patricia has used her own resources to discover Takashi's relationship to her husband, but feigns ignorance to both of them for her own reasons.
- Snow Means Love: Takashi and Rachel's first kiss happens not long after a major blizzard.
- Surprise Incest: Narrowly averted. Rachel spends a good chunk of the first volume flirting with Takashi, which freaks him the hell out. His relief when she tells him she's adopted is palpable. So is his fear when Rachel's birth mother surfaces to tell the press that she had Kenneth's child, after they'd slept together. When Takashi confronts him after this, Kenneth says that Takashi will have to discover the truth for himself, since he can't trust anything Kenneth would say at this point. Takashi then investigates the story by himself for an arc.
- Tournament Arc: Essentially how the election is portrayed, especially the New Hampshire Primary arc. Amusingly, it's pretty easy to read Eagle as sort of a grownup version of a shonen fighting series.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Takashi first meets Yamaoka in person in a men's room after the latter is done puking his guts out in a stall as a result of being forced to eat everything at two back-to-back political luncheons.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy:
- Takashi frequently tries to meet the challenges that his long-lost father Kenneth, Zen Survivor of The Vietnam War, poses to teach his illegitimate son the way of the
Magnificent Bastard. Takashi's attempts to understand Yamaoka conflict with his resentment over his mother being abandoned — and the suspicion that her recent, suspicious death was no accident... - Alex Yamaoka, Kenneth's son by Patricia, has naturally been dealing with his father's head games for far longer, and shows more advanced symptoms of this trope.
- Takashi frequently tries to meet the challenges that his long-lost father Kenneth, Zen Survivor of The Vietnam War, poses to teach his illegitimate son the way of the
