96 Fun Facts About Manga

Most manga is traditionally printed in which colour format?

Black and white keeps weekly manga cheap and fast: the magazines are printed on low-grade paper in a single ink colour, artists add shading with screentone, and colour is saved for a few rare pages.

In One Piece, the Devil Fruit that Monkey D. Luffy eats as a boy gives his body the properties of what?

Rubber: the fruit lets Luffy stretch like elastic, but it also takes away his ability to swim for good, an awkward price for a boy who dreams of being King of the Pirates.

Which traditional Japanese scroll art form is often cited as manga's earliest ancestor?

Emakimono such as the 12th-century Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga tell stories in pictures as the scroll unrolls; its frogs and rabbits wrestling like people are why it is sometimes credited as the first manga.

Which ukiyo-e master published sketchbook volumes titled 'Manga' from 1814?

Hokusai's 'Manga' is not a comic at all: its fifteen volumes, the first published in 1814, are collections of thousands of sketches of people, animals and everyday life.

The early chapters of Dragon Ball were loosely modelled on which classic Chinese novel?

Journey to the West gave Dragon Ball its hero: Son Goku is the Japanese name of the novel's Monkey King, Sun Wukong, which is why he starts out with a monkey's tail and a magic staff.

Manga aimed at young adult men, more mature than shōnen, falls under which demographic?

Seinen means 'youth'. The category took shape in the late 1960s, when magazines such as Weekly Manga Action and Big Comic were launched for readers who had outgrown boys' comics.

In Naruto, which beast was sealed inside the title hero on the day he was born?

A nine-tailed fox was sealed inside the newborn Naruto by his father, the Fourth Hokage, to stop its attack on their village, which is why the villagers shun him throughout his childhood.

Which manga category is created primarily for adult women, often with realistic relationships?

Josei, 'women's comics', took shape in the 1980s, partly to serve readers who had grown up on girls' manga; its dramas are mostly realist stories about the lives of ordinary women.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, what does Alphonse Elric lose in the brothers' failed attempt to revive their mother?

His entire body: Alphonse survives only because Edward, who has just lost a leg, gives up his right arm to bind his brother's soul to a suit of armour.

Which mangaka created the 'Dragon Ball' series?

Akira Toriyama burst onto the scene in 1980 with the gag hit 'Dr. Slump' before 'Dragon Ball'; he also designed the characters for the Dragon Quest video games.

Which artist created the magical-girl manga 'Sailor Moon'?

Naoko Takeuchi built 'Sailor Moon' out of her one-shot 'Codename: Sailor V'; a fan of live-action sentai team shows, she decided to make one with an all-female team.

Who created 'Galaxy Express 999' and 'Space Pirate Captain Harlock'?

Leiji Matsumoto launched both space operas in 1977; decades later he supervised the animated videos for Daft Punk's album Discovery, released together as the film Interstella 5555.

Which mangaka created 'One Piece'?

Eiichiro Oda has said his love of pirates probably goes back to the TV cartoon Vicky the Viking, about a small Viking boy whose quick wits keep rescuing his father's crew on their voyages.

Which female mangaka created Fullmetal Alchemist?

Hiromu Arakawa was born and raised on a dairy farm in Hokkaido, and she later turned that upbringing into 'Silver Spoon', a manga set at a Hokkaido agricultural high school.

Which manga, running in Big Comic since 1968, follows a professional assassin who goes by Duke Togo?

Golgo 13 has outlived its creator: Takao Saito asked that the series carry on without him, so after his death in 2021 his studio, Saito Production, kept drawing it.

Which comedy manga ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump for exactly 40 years, September 1976 to 2016?

KochiKame is set around a police box in Tokyo's Kameari district, where more than a dozen bronze statues of its characters have gone up since 2006; the final chapter and the 200th volume came out on the same day.

Keiji Nakazawa's manga 'Barefoot Gen' is loosely based on his own survival of what event?

Nakazawa survived the Hiroshima atomic bombing as a six-year-old in 1945; he began writing about it after his mother's 1966 cremation left almost no bones, which he blamed on radiation.

Who created the dark fantasy manga "Berserk"?

Kentaro Miura created 'Berserk', which began in 1989 in Hakusensha's Monthly Animal House before moving to Young Animal; after his death in 2021 it continued under his assistants with Kouji Mori.

Which mangaka created 'Inuyasha', 'Ranma ½' and 'Urusei Yatsura'?

Rumiko Takahashi learned her craft at a manga school run by Kazuo Koike, the writer of Lone Wolf and Cub, while still at university, then had her first hit with 'Urusei Yatsura' in 1978.

What is the term for adult-oriented manga with complex narratives and cinematic effects, distinct from shōnen or shōjo?

Gekiga, 'dramatic pictures', was coined in 1957 by Yoshihiro Tatsumi, who wanted a name that set his gritty stories about everyday adults apart from children's comics.

What do the Japanese call self-published works, including fan-made manga?

Dōjinshi are sold above all at Comiket, the Tokyo fair held every summer and winter: the first, in December 1975, drew about 700 people, and by 2019 attendance had reached some 750,000.

Which of these themes is most characteristic of shōnen manga?

Coming-of-age adventures and action follow a famous formula: Weekly Shōnen Jump, launched in 1968, took 'friendship, effort, victory' as its watchwords, an idea of its first editor-in-chief.

Which 1975 shōjo manga by Kyoko Mizuki and Yumiko Igarashi follows an orphan girl?

Candy Candy ran in Nakayoshi from 1975 to 1979, then its creators fell out: in 2001 Japan's Supreme Court ruled that the illustrator could not sell goods based on it without the writer's consent.

In Sailor Moon, which talking black cat tells Usagi she is a guardian and gives her a transformation brooch?

Luna, the black cat with a crescent moon on her forehead, sends Usagi to find the other guardians and their lost princess, not knowing that the princess is Usagi herself.

Which major Japanese publisher is known for manga magazines like 'Weekly Shōnen Jump'?

Shueisha was set up in 1925 as the entertainment division of Shogakukan and became a separate company a year later, so the publisher of Weekly Shōnen Jump began life inside one of its main rivals.

Which American manga publisher began in 1997 as Mixx Entertainment, serializing Sailor Moon in its magazine MixxZine?

Tokyopop, as Mixx renamed itself, announced in 2002 that all its manga would be printed 'unflopped' in the original Japanese page layout, the first North American publisher to commit to that.

Which 1947 work is credited with launching Japan's postwar manga boom?

New Treasure Island (Shin Takarajima), drawn by Osamu Tezuka in 1947 from Shichima Sakai's script, reportedly sold around 400,000 copies and set off the postwar 'akahon' manga boom.

In Doraemon, the robotic cat from the future is terrified of which animals?

Mice terrify Doraemon because one gnawed off his ears, which is why the cat-shaped robot has none; he was built yellow, and in the series' telling his own tears washed him blue.

Which mangaka created the Viking-themed historical manga 'Vinland Saga'?

Makoto Yukimura launched 'Vinland Saga' in Weekly Shōnen Magazine in 2005, but he could not keep up with a weekly schedule, so within months it moved to the monthly Afternoon.

Whose horror manga include 'Uzumaki', about a town cursed by spirals, and 'Tomie'?

Junji Ito was working as a dental technician when he sent the first 'Tomie' story to a horror magazine's new prize, judged by his childhood favourite Kazuo Umezu; its honourable mention launched his career.

Which 1972 Moto Hagio series follows the ageless vampire Edgar across the centuries?

The Poe Clan was the first girls' manga Shogakukan issued in paperback, in a first printing of 30,000; it sold so well that Hagio's unpopular serial The Heart of Thomas, which editors wanted cut short, was spared the axe.

Which basketball manga by Takehiko Inoue ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1990 to 1996?

Slam Dunk left its creator feeling he owed his success to basketball, so in 2006 Inoue founded a scholarship that sends Japanese high-school players to study and play in the United States.

What is the term for the collected volumes of a manga series?

Tankōbon literally means a 'standalone book', one that is not part of a series or anthology, yet in manga the word has come to mean the numbered volumes that collect a serial.

Which publisher did Seiji Horibuchi found in San Francisco in 1986 to bring manga to America?

VIZ Media grew out of a 1985 trip to Japan: Horibuchi was no manga fan until he read Katsuhiro Otomo's Domu, and the next year he launched the firm, then called Viz Communications, with Shogakukan's money.

The manga 'Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind' was created by which renowned filmmaker and animator?

Hayao Miyazaki began the Nausicaä manga in Animage in 1982 and directed the film two years later, but he kept drawing the story for another decade and finished it only in 1994.

Osamu Tezuka, whose big-eyed characters shaped the look of manga, said he had seen which Disney film over 80 times?

Bambi was the film: its wide-eyed animals, along with Betty Boop, are credited with inspiring the large, sparkling eyes that Tezuka gave his characters and that manga has kept ever since.

In One-Punch Man, what did Saitama's punishing training cost him as it made him unbeatable?

His hair: Saitama credits 100 push-ups, sit-ups and squats plus a 10 km run every day for his strength, and blames the same routine for leaving him bald and, with no rival left, bored.

Which artist created 'Sazae-san', the four-panel family strip that debuted in 1946?

Machiko Hasegawa began the strip in a local Fukuoka paper; when she moved to Tokyo she moved Sazae's family there too, and from 1949 it ran in the national Asahi Shimbun.

Which artist draws the manga 'One-Punch Man'?

Yusuke Murata was a fan of ONE's original One-Punch Man webcomic and contacted its creator to propose redrawing it; their remake launched in 2012.

What collective name is given to the women who reshaped shōjo manga in the early 1970s?

The Year 24 Group was never a formal club: critics coined the label later for artists born around Shōwa 24, or 1949, though only a few of them were actually born that year.

Which 1982 cyberpunk manga did Katsuhiro Otomo himself turn into a 1988 anime film?

Akira reached cinemas in 1988 with its story still unfinished on the page: Otomo directed the film himself, and the manga did not reach its own ending until 1990.

What is a common literal translation of the word 'manga'?

Whimsical pictures is the common gloss, though some dictionaries prefer 'involuntary pictures'. In the Edo period the word meant informal sketches and caricatures; only later did it come to mean story comics.

Which manga artist created 'JoJo's Bizarre Adventure', known for its unique style and character poses?

Hirohiko Araki, who names the painter Paul Gauguin as an influence, was one of five comic artists the Louvre featured in 2009; he marked it with a story set in the museum, 'Rohan at the Louvre'.

Which term names the art style that draws characters with tiny bodies and oversized heads?

Chibi, also called 'super deformed', comes from a Japanese word for a runt or small child, which is why the style shrinks characters into stubby bodies with huge heads and eyes.

Which Gosho Aoyama manga features a teenage sleuth shrunk into a child's body by poison?

Detective Conan's hero builds his alias from the mystery writers Arthur Conan Doyle and Edogawa Rampo; legal problems with that title led several English releases to be renamed Case Closed.

In Ranma ½, what turns the martial artist Ranma Saotome into a girl?

Cold water does it: Ranma fell into a cursed spring in China during training, so every cold splash turns him into a girl and only hot water turns him back.

Which mangaka created the ninja series 'Naruto'?

Masashi Kishimoto first drew 'Naruto' as a one-shot in 1997, then rebuilt it around ninja and traditional Japanese culture for the serial that began in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1999.

Who illustrated Death Note, working from Tsugumi Ohba's scripts?

Takeshi Obata, already known for drawing Hikaru no Go, turned Tsugumi Ohba's rough thumbnails, passed along through their editor, into Death Note's finished pages.

In Death Note, Light Yagami carries out his killings under what god-like alias?

Kira is a Japanese rendering of the English word 'killer', the name the public gives Light's killings; the notebook itself belonged to the bored shinigami Ryuk.

In Attack on Titan, which regiment does Eren join to fight Titans beyond the walls?

The Survey Corps is the only regiment that rides out past the three walls; Eren vows to join it and wipe out the Titans after watching one devour his mother when his hometown falls.

Which Bleach teenager receives Soul Reaper powers from Rukia Kuchiki?

Ichigo Kurosaki was meant to borrow only half of Rukia's power to save his family from a Hollow, but he absorbed almost all of it, so he has to take over her duties while she recovers.

Whose Hunter × Hunter has gone on repeated long hiatuses since 2006?

Yoshihiro Togashi has paused Hunter × Hunter repeatedly since 2006 for ill health; in 2022 he said back and hip problems had stopped him sitting for two years, so he drew lying down.

In Demon Slayer, Tanjiro fights to restore the humanity of which sister?

Nezuko is the sole survivor of the attack on the Kamado family, and her transformation is what drives Tanjiro into the Corps.

Who wrote and drew Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba?

Koyoharu Gotouge's first draft was turned down as too dark, so the editor asked whether its world held a brighter, more ordinary character; that question produced Tanjiro.

In My Hero Academia, what are the commonplace superpowers called?

Quirks are the superpowers about 80 percent of the population has; Izuku Midoriya is born without one until All Might passes his own Quirk, One For All, to him.

In Chainsaw Man, which devil merges with Denji to become his heart?

Pochita, the Chainsaw Devil, becomes Denji's heart, letting him sprout chainsaws from his body; the first arc ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump and the second moved to the Shōnen Jump+ app.

In Jujutsu Kaisen, Yuji Itadori becomes the host of which powerful Curse?

Ryomen Sukuna, the 'King of Curses', takes up residence in Yuji after he swallows one of Sukuna's fingers; Gege Akutami's earlier prequel was retitled Jujutsu Kaisen 0 after the main series launched.

In Fruits Basket, the cursed Sohma family transform into animals from which set?

The Sohmas turn into the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, plus the cat the legend left out; Natsuki Takaya's series ran in Hana to Yume from 1998 to 2006.

Who created Nana, about two women of the same name who move to Tokyo at 20?

Ai Yazawa created Nana, serialized in Cookie from 2000; illness halted her work in 2009 after 21 volumes, with Nana O. chasing fame and Nana K. chasing romance.

In Naoki Urasawa's Monster, which boy saved by surgeon Kenzo Tenma grows up to be a serial killer?

Johan Liebert is the boy Tenma operates on instead of the mayor, a choice that stalls his career at a Düsseldorf hospital years before Johan resurfaces as a killer who manipulates others into murder.

Urasawa's 20th Century Boys takes its title from a song by which glam-rock act?

T. Rex's '20th Century Boy' is heard in the story too: it opens in 1973 with a schoolboy taking over his school's broadcast system to play the record at lunchtime.

Who created the cyberpunk manga Ghost in the Shell, led by Major Motoko Kusanagi?

Masamune Shirow first offered Ghost in the Shell, a title said to nod to Arthur Koestler's The Ghost in the Machine; his editor asked for something flashier, so in Japan it leads with the name Kōkaku Kidōtai.

In Lone Wolf and Cub, what was Ogami Ittō's job for the shōgun before his disgrace?

Ogami Ittō was the shōgun's kaishakunin — his official executioner, who beheaded condemned lords after seppuku — before the Yagyū clan framed him and he took the assassin's road with his son Daigorō.

In Kiyohiko Azuma's Yotsuba&!, who is raising the green-haired five-year-old Yotsuba?

Her adoptive father, the translator Koiwai, raises Yotsuba; the title means 'Yotsuba and', and nearly every chapter is named 'Yotsuba and [something]'.

Four-panel yonkoma strips traditionally follow which four-part structure?

Kishōtenketsu began as the pattern of classical Chinese four-line poems: introduction, development, twist and conclusion, which is why a four-panel strip can give each step one panel.

The 1995 ending of which hit series is partly blamed for the slide from Weekly Shōnen Jump's 6.53 million peak?

Dragon Ball ended in 1995, months after Jump's record New Year issue; by 1998 the magazine was down to 4.15 million copies and, for the first time in 24 years, was outsold by Weekly Shōnen Magazine.

Which weekly manga magazine serialized Ranma ½, Inuyasha and Frieren: Beyond Journey's End?

Weekly Shōnen Sunday does not come out on Sundays: it goes on sale on Wednesdays, and its first editor chose the name to evoke the feeling of a Sunday.

Which unfinished 12-part epic did the creator of Astro Boy call his 'life's work'?

Phoenix jumps between the ancient past and the far future from one self-contained part to the next, linked by reincarnation; Tezuka worked on it on and off for 35 years and died in 1989 before finishing it.

What is the profession of the scar-faced title character of Black Jack?

Doctor, but an unlicensed one: Black Jack is a surgeon of genius sought out for operations no one else would dare to perform; the series ran in Weekly Shōnen Champion from 1973 to 1983.

Kimba the White Lion is known in Japan by what title?

Jungle Emperor is the original title of Tezuka's story of a white lion; when Disney released The Lion King in 1994, the resemblance drew claims that the studio had borrowed from it.

Princess Knight's gender-bending heroine was inspired by which all-female musical troupe?

Takarazuka Revue shows, in which women play every role, were a boyhood love of Tezuka's and gave him the idea for Sapphire, who is born with both a boy's heart and a girl's.

The Rose of Versailles is set before and during which upheaval?

Riyoko Ikeda sets the story in the run-up to the French Revolution, pairing Marie Antoinette with the invented Oscar François de Jarjayes, a woman raised as a man who commands the Royal Guard.

The hero of Shigeru Mizuki's GeGeGe no Kitarō belongs to which class of Japanese spirit-monster?

Yōkai are the folklore spirits that Kitarō both belongs to and battles; the 'GeGeGe' comes from Mizuki's childhood mispronunciation of his own name, Shigeru, as 'Gegeru'.

Doraemon first appeared under which pen name, shared by two artists who had been friends since elementary school?

Fujiko Fujio was the pen name of Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motoo Abiko, who debuted together in 1951 and shared the name until they split in 1987; Doraemon was Fujimoto's work, and he signed afterwards as Fujiko F. Fujio.

Who created the gentleman-thief franchise Lupin III?

Monkey Punch (Kazuhiko Katō) launched Lupin III in Weekly Manga Action in August 1967; copyright trouble over Maurice Leblanc's Arsène Lupin later forced foreign releases to rename the hero, as 'Rupan' or 'Wolf'.

Captain Tsubasa, which ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1981, centres on which sport?

Soccer has Captain Tsubasa to thank for some real players: Hidetoshi Nakata and Andrés Iniesta are among the professionals who have said the manga inspired them as boys.

In Fist of the North Star, Kenshiro is the successor to which deadly martial art?

Hokuto Shinken strikes vital points so that opponents explode from within; the series ran 245 chapters in Weekly Shōnen Jump between 1983 and 1988.

Masami Kurumada's Saint Seiya is also known in the West by what title?

Knights of the Zodiac is a translation of the French title Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque; the Saints wear constellation-themed armour called Cloths.

In Yu-Gi-Oh!, which ancient Egyptian artefact houses the spirit that possesses Yugi Mutou?

Solving the Millennium Puzzle frees a gambling spirit who settles disputes through games; Duel Monsters only took over the plot in later arcs.

Which manga group created Cardcaptor Sakura?

Clamp began in the 1980s as a circle of about a dozen fans who published their own comics; by the time of Cardcaptor Sakura it had slimmed down to the four women who have made up the group since 1993.

Yasuhisa Hara's Kingdom dramatises which period of Chinese history?

The Warring States period ended in 221 BC, when Qin's king Ying Zheng conquered the rival states and unified China; Kingdom follows the war orphan Xin, who serves him and dreams of becoming a great general.

In Spy × Family, what secret does Agent Twilight's adopted daughter hide?

She is a telepath, the product of an experiment, so Anya alone knows the whole truth: Loid, who adopted her, is a spy and Yor, his wife of convenience, is an assassin, and neither suspects the other.

Haikyu!!, by Haruichi Furudate, follows Shoyo Hinata in which sport?

Haikyū is the Japanese word for volleyball, written with the kanji 排球; Hinata's whole arc is overcoming his short stature on the court.

In Dr. Stone, which science prodigy breaks free after 3,700 years of petrification and sets out to rebuild civilisation?

Senku Ishigami stayed conscious inside the stone by counting every second for some 3,700 years, so when he finally broke out he already knew the date.

Which manga by the Death Note team follows two ninth-graders chasing a career in manga?

Bakuman doubles as a tour behind the scenes of Weekly Shōnen Jump, the magazine that ran it: some characters resemble its real artists and editors, and real Jump series are mentioned by name.

Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond dramatises the life of which swordsman?

Vagabond adapts Eiji Yoshikawa's novel Musashi, following Musashi Miyamoto's path from the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600; Inoue paused it in May 2015 after 37 volumes.

Which cyborg-heroine manga by Yukito Kishiro is published in Japan under the title Gunnm, or 'Gun Dream'?

Battle Angel Alita is the export title: the heroine is called Gally in Japan and was renamed Alita for English readers, and older American editions also turned her floating city of Zalem into Tiphares.

Which long-running comedy manga about a cheeky five-year-old was created by Yoshito Usui in 1990?

Crayon Shin-chan did not end with its author: after Yoshito Usui died in a hiking accident in 2009, his team carried on the Nohara family's life in Kasukabe as New Crayon Shin-chan.

Which Go Nagai manga is credited with introducing the giant robot piloted from a cockpit inside it?

Mazinger Z came to Go Nagai in a traffic jam: he imagined a car that could grow legs and step over the queue ahead, and that became a robot its driver climbs into and steers.

Cyborg 009 and Kamen Rider creator Shotaro Ishinomori was known by which nickname?

King of Manga is how Guinness styles Ishinomori, crediting him with the most comics published by one author: 770 titles. He was still at high school when Osamu Tezuka sent a telegram asking for help, so he skipped classes and went to Tokyo.

Keiko Takemiya's Kaze to Ki no Uta is an early example of which genre?

Shōnen-ai, romance between boys written for female readers, grew from works like this: it follows Gilbert and Serge at an all-boys boarding school in 19th-century France and ran from 1976 to 1984.

In the street-racing manga Initial D, Takumi Fujiwara hones his driving by delivering what for his father's shop?

Tofu: years of pre-dawn delivery runs down a mountain road in his father's ageing Toyota AE86 turn Takumi into a formidable racer before he or his friends realise it.

In Tokyo Ghoul, which drink can flesh-eating ghouls enjoy even though ordinary food makes them sick?

Coffee is the one human taste ghouls can share, which is why a café, Anteiku, serves as their refuge and takes in Ken Kaneki when a transplant turns him into a half-ghoul.

Who wrote and drew Kaguya-sama: Love Is War?

Aka Akasaka wrote and drew Kaguya-sama from 2015 to 2022; when it ended he announced that he would retire from drawing manga and work purely as a writer.

The creator of Astro Boy qualified in which profession before going full-time in manga?

Medicine was Tezuka's training: he studied at Osaka University and qualified as a physician, yet he never practised, choosing to draw manga full-time instead.

Which Urasawa manga reworks Astro Boy's 'Greatest Robot on Earth' arc as a murder mystery?

Pluto takes its title from the arc's chief villain; Naoki Urasawa retells the story as a mystery led by the robot detective Gesicht, who investigates a string of robot and human deaths.