Takeki Ryusei: Research Notes

Tucker

Title:

• Takeki Ryuusei 猛き龍星
  • Tah-keh-kee, Ryɯɯ-say
  • Roughly translates to “The fierce dragon star/planet”
  • Hara seems to like including the kanji 星 (star) somewhere in the title of his works.

Author

• Hara, Tetsuo 原 哲夫（はら てつお)
  • Hah-rah, Teh-tsɯ-oh

Characters

• Ryuusei, Katou 花藤龍星
  • Ryɯɯ-say, Kah-toe
  • The “toe” syllable of his personal name has twice the length of the previous syllable
  • Ryuusei is written as “dragon star/planet” as mentioned previously.
  • “Katou” is written as flower + wisteria (a type of flowering tree), which doesn seem to have too much significance at first blush
• Yashiro, Kenji 八城剣次
  • Yah-shee-ro, Ken-jee
  • Family name written as “eight castles,” personal name written as “sword” + “next” ….probably not much significance
• Yukiko
  • Yɯ-kee-ko
• Chaka チャカ
  • Chah-kah
• Kido, Masashige

Other

• Bousouzoku
  • Beau-sew-zoekɯ
  • Japanese word for Japanese-style motorcycle gangs, which took inspiration from groups of American soldiers in Japan who were greasers in the ‘50s, but has evolved since then into its own thing.
  • Literally means “the running-wild tribes”

MaxyBee

Author - Tetsuo Hara

• Notable people they were an assistant for:
  • Yoshihiro Takahashi (author of Silver Fang: The Shooting Star Gin)
    • It’s SURPRISINGLY hard to find what specific series this was on, but considering the time frame indicated from interviews and profiles, it was probably on Aozora Fishing (1981, 5 volumes) and Sho to Daichi (1982, 3 volumes), though he would have left the latter series before it was over to debut Iron Don Quixote.
  • Kazuo Koike (author of Lone Wolf & Cub)
    • Not so much an assistant as a student under Koike at his Gekiga Sonjuku, a training school started to preserve gekiga, a style of comic that was considered more dramatic, mature and detailed than manga. Other graduates include Rumiko Takahashi, Yuji Horii, and Keisuke Itagaki.
• Notable people they had as assistants:
  • Koji Maki (Godsider, Metal K)
  • Masanori Morita (Rokudenashi BLUES, ROOKIES)
    • Lots of notable assistants, but this is the big one. Prominent worker on Fist of the North Star, including an iconic backdrop of a large full moon behind Kenshiro
  • Shinji Imaizumi (Kami-sama wa Southpaw)
  • Yasuhiro Watanabe (just mountains of baseball manga)
  • Hirohisa Onikubo (very accomplished hentai artist, chief assistant for Hirohiko Araki on Battle Tendency/Stardust Crusaders, currently works with David Pro on the JoJo anime)
  • Katsuhiro Nagasawa (The Edge)
    • (Bonus fact: Onikubo and Nagasawa worked together ln F no Senkou, the shonen jump biographical manga for F1 driver Ayrton Senna)
  • Tetsuya Hasegawa (Napoleon - Lion’s Era)
  • Yuuko Uramoto (The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up: A Magical Story, written by Marie Kondo. Yes, that Marie Kondo)
• Other works (highlights):
  • Iron Don Quixote (1982, 2 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump)
    • Debut! A motocross manga, didn’t catch on. Currently being fan-translated, so future flop eligible with any luck.
  • Fist of the North Star (1983-1988, 27 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump) written by Buronson
    • You don’t need me to tell you what this is. Star-making, genre-defining, massively influential. You’re already dead.
  • Cyber Blue (1988-1989, 4 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump) written by Bob/Ryuichi Mitsui FLOP ELIGIBLE
  • Keiji (1990-1993, 18 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump) based on Ichi-mu-an Furyuki by Keiichiro Ryu
    • Hara’s second hit, a fictionalised biography of Keiji Maeda, a somewhat flowery samurai gangster. Revisited many times since with Hara and longtime editor/partner Nobuhiko Horie overseeing sequels and spin-offs.
  • Kagemusha - Tokugawa Ieyasu (1994, 6 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump) written by Sho Aikawa, based on work by Keiichiro Ryu
  • Sakon - Sengoku Fuuunroku (1997-2000, 6 vols, Monthly Shonen Jump) written by Shingo Futahashi, based on work by Keiichiro Ryu
  • Fist of the Blue Sky (2001-2010, 22 vols, Weekly Comic Bunch) supervised by Buronson
    • A prequel of sorts to Fist of the North Star, set in 1930s Shanghai. A cool comic for cool people, and it had to be, as the flagship of Coamix, the new company Hara, editor Horie, City Hunter creator Tsukasa Hojo and others founded in the wake of Weekly Shonen Jump’s changing environment. Was in English for a while in the long-defunct Raijin Comics, a weekly-then-monthly competitor to Viz’s Shonen Jump in the early 00s (even pre-dating Jump by a short distance!)
  • Ikusa no Ko: The Legend of Nobunaga Oda (2010-2022, 20 vols, Monthly Comic Zenon) with Seibo Kitahara and Yuuta Kumagai
    • Hara’s last series as an artist due to a combination of a deteriorating eye condition and a desire to work with young talents and pass on his skills. A semi-biographical manga of Nobunaga Oda, focusing on his youth.
  • Some bonus things:
    • GOOGLE THIS MAN. HE LOOKS LIKE A FUCKING GANGSTER.
    • Cannot overstate how big a deal Coamix is. Several classic Jump authors taking their ball and going home after Shonen Jump’s audience and style had left them behind. This was a huge break-up, and changed the landscape of manga FOREVER. They also run the Silent Manga Audition, one of the first global manga contests, a notable landmark in reaching outside of Japan for talent. To be a founder of this company would immortalise Hara alone, never mind his massively influential body of work.

Publishing

• Series it replaced:
  • Shin Jungle King Tar-chan by Masaya Tokuhiro (20 vols, HIT)
• Series that replaced it:
  • Kaosu Kanburiya by Ton Okawara (1 vol, 9 chapters, FLOP)
• Series from same round:
  • Ayatsuri Sakon by Masaru Miyazaki & Takeshi Obata (4 vols, anime, so who even knows)
  • Ryuudo no Sieg by Takashi Noguchi (2 vols, FLOP)