The Land of Obscusion's Hot-Blooded Ranking of Masami Kurumada's Manga! #7 to #1 (Kurumada's Long-Runners)

When it comes to legendary mangaka, most tend to have just one iconic work that everyone instantly thinks of, even if that individual actually has multiple long-running manga in their catalog. Masami Kurumada is a perfect example of that, as pretty much all anyone ever thinks of is Saint Seiya, his 28-volume Shonen Jump series that ran from 1986 to 1990. However, the truth of the matter is that by the time Seiya's first chapter debuted in early 1986 (technically late 1985, but let's not get pedantic here) he had already been a notable & influential success in Japan for about a decade, and even after Seiya came to an end would go on to continue to be a notable success during the 90s. This, in turn, would essentially allow him to be given carte blanche from then on out, starting in 2000, where he could pretty much make whatever manga he wanted, & at whatever pace he wanted to make it at, without fear of it being cancelled due to a lack of popularity. In fact, in the 2010s he even revived a manga that had previously been cancelled literal decades prior in the 80s, due to a lack of popularity, & finally saw it to completion, which is something that is rarely seen in manga, even by some of its most iconic & popular creators.

Therefore, I do feel that it is a bit of a disservice to only think of Masami Kurumada as "The Saint Seiya Guy", as it would also be to consider Akira Toriyama "The Dragon Ball Guy", Rumiko Takahashi "The InuYasha Girl", Tetsuo Hara "The Fist of the North Star Guy", Go Nagai "The Devilman Guy", Gosho Aoyama "The Detective Conan Guy", or Shotaro Ishinomori "The Cyborg 009 Guy". Sure, there are shared themes, concepts, & (especially) character designs across Kurumada's various works, but there are plenty of differences between his titles, and especially in the long-runners. However, to really notice those elements that do make each title unique is to really read each of them & look for those differences... and since only two of Kurumada's long-runners have ever received official English releases (& also, to this day, remain the only ones with complete English translations, official or otherwise) it's something that most people don't really have the ability to take note of. That's been the major reason why I wanted to review all of Kurumada's works here on the blog, as aside from giving my own personal opinion on each of them (& satiate my own curiosity, as well) I also just wanted there to be some sort of detailed English write-up on each of them, so that there might be something out there to explain the differences between each work & showcase the career of Kurumada himself; that's also why I held off on reviewing Saint Seiya for so long.

In total, there are seven long-running manga from Masami Kurumada, with the "shortest" of them all being 10 volumes long. Having now given proper reviews to all of them at some point between 2013 & 2025, there's only one question remaining: How would I personally rank them? Let's find out!

#7

Fuma no Kojirou

We start the second half of the overall rankings with what I've sometimes referred to as "Masami Kurumada's Fourth-Most-Well-Known Manga", and that's mainly because it's kind of true. Following the end of Ring ni Kakero, which was a major hit for Jump & Shueisha, expectations were naturally high for what was coming next, & even Kurumada himself stated on the full-color opening page that "You still don't know what a real Kurumada manga is!". That manga would be Fuma no Kojirou/Kojirou of the Fuma, which told the story of the titular Kojirou of the Fuma Clan of ninja (best known in history via its fifth leader, Fuma Kotaro, during the Sengoku era) & the battles he & his brethren would find themselves in. The manga was given a lot of pomp & circumstance when it debuted, first appearing as the cover title in a special "January 10, 1982" edition of Jump featuring a bunch of one-shots, followed by its first three weekly chapters all leading their respective issues with full-color opening pages (if not more!), and all but 20 of its total weekly chapters appeared within the first five slots of each issue's table of contents (with 12 of those happening in a row as it came to an end); in short, it was a big deal at the time. As for FnK's plot, it's split up across three story arcs which see Kojirou (&, to various degrees, his Fuma brethren) get involved in various battles, whether it's taking on rival ninja clan the Yasha under the pretense of a conflict between two schools, fighting on the side of "Cosmo" against the forces of "Chaos" in a battle determined by destiny with full ownership of the immensely powerful 10 Sacred Swords at stake, or needing to deal with an attempted coup from within his own clan.

So why is Fuma no Kojirou only at #7? Simply put, while 50% of FnK is arguably some of Kurumada's best work ever... the other 50% is nowhere near as strong. The second story arc, the Sacred Sword War Chapter, takes up roughly 50% of the entire manga & I feel remains one of the absolutely best individual story arcs ever in a Kurumada manga. While I certainly would have loved to see a bit more development given to Kojirou's two new compatriots that were introduced here (Soushi Date & Sigma) the story that's told in this arc, one all about the idea of pre-ordained destiny & reincarnation, is immensely strong. The climactic battles between the 5-on-5 forces of Cosmo & Chaos, while mostly straightforward, all fit the story that's being told & the way each of them end really feel like something literally no one else could ever get away with in Jump, both before & after, due to their feeling of "Can one truly fight against what the gods have preordained for them?". FnK examined existentiality in ways that were arguably years ahead of its time, at least for an action manga in Jump, as this entire story arc was finished a couple of months before Fist of the North Star would even debut. If I was ranking individual story arcs from Kurumada manga then the Sacred Sword War would easily be in the Top 5, if not even Top 3, and it remains one of Kurumada's absolute best.

Unfortunately, neither the Yasha Chapter before it nor the Fuma Rebellion Chapter after it are really anywhere in the same league. They're not poorly told stories in their own rights, but the Yasha Chapter has a bit of a slow start to it, and then once the main part of the arc begins it feels like it blows by a mile a minute, never truly feeling like it finds the perfect pace; there's good reason why I feel the best version of this arc is the live-action J-Drama/tokusatsu adaptation from 2007. As for the Fuma Rebellion Chapter, its main flaw is simply in how short it is, brought about due to Kurumada deciding to end the entire manga earlier than planned, on account of his father's passing in 1983. Still, that personal event in Kurumada's life definitely affected FnK's final story arc, giving it a dour & death-ridden execution that actually helps make it all the more memorable &, once again, results in a storyline that I don't think any other mangaka could ever get away with, both before & after. Overall, Fuma no Kojirou is just too spunky of a manga for me to rank any lower than #7 overall, still above both Ai no Jidai & Evil Crusher Maya, as while only half of its total length is truly excellent the other half is still full of gumption & drive that I have to admire & respect, and at 10 volumes long it still has enough length to it to feel substantial.

#6

Saint Seiya: Next Dimension

Rounding out the bottom half of the Top 10 is the second sequel manga Masami Kurumada ever made, as well as his most recently finished manga &, in turn, the most recent Kurumada manga I've reviewed, as of this piece. The story behind the creation of Saint Seiya: Next Dimension is definitely an interesting one, as it essentially acts as a second attempt from Kurumada. Initially, the idea of a sequel to Saint Seiya was attempted via anime, as after the production of the Saint Seiya Hades Sanctuary OVA in 2002 & 2003 it was decided that Toei Animation would work with Kurumada to produce a movie that would act as a prologue to the next actual part of the Saint Seiya story: The Heaven Chapter. However, the resulting Saint Seiya Tenkai-hen Jousou ~overture~ movie in 2004 seemingly diverted too far from what Masami Kurumada himself had planned, resulting in the entire Heaven Chapter TV anime continuation being scrapped & Kurumada eventually deciding to make his own sequel to Saint Seiya (with blackjack & hookers) via manga. That would finally come to fruition two years later with the debut of Saint Seiya: Next Dimension in mid-2006 in the pages of Weekly Shonen Champion, though with it being a full-color manga from the start it wound up being serialized extremely irregularly, eventually taking around 18 years before finally coming to an end in mid-2024 across 16 volumes. The story of this sequel details Athena/Saori Kido & her Bronze Saints deciding to head back 243 years into the past, to the time of the previous Holy War with Hades in 1747, in order to destroy Hades' sword, which in turn would save the life of Pegasus Seiya, as the residual curse of said sword is set to kill Seiya in three days. However, Saori's time travelling shenanigans results in all sorts of things happening to the Sanctuary of the past, including the revival of 18th century Silver Saint Ophiuchus Odysseus as the 13th Gold Saint, a force so powerful that it was sealed away by the gods themselves in the Age of Myth.

Next Dimension is... a curious manga, that's for sure. Compared to the Tenkai-hen movie, which made Seiya the lead character so strongly that his fellow Bronzes had what amounted to glorified cameos, ND sees Seiya play a literal non-factor by having him be comatose & incapable of doing anything throughout. However, there is still a Pegasus Saint by way of Tenma, the Pegasus of 1747, and while he's essentially very much the same character as Seiya he at least still has little touches that make him somewhat different. However, the main thing that prevents ND from ranking any higher than #6 comes down to its biggest overarching flaw: It's in, a lot of ways, much of the same as the OG Saint Seiya, at least from a structural perspective. Much like that manga, ND is all about characters making their way through the Sanctuary of 1747 (i.e. effectively an enemy base) & dealing with the Gold Saints of that era (plus the rare Specter from Hades' forces), all in order to save Athena/Saori from a situation that could kill her. This even stretches to specific plot points & character beats, like having a Saint seemingly betray Athena & join Hades' side, having some Gold Saints initially want to kill Athena themselves, and even some of the 1747 Golds are very much like their 1990 counterparts. Sure, there are indeed some notable differences, with Cancer Deathtoll easily being the most unique of the 1747 Golds, but while the first half of ND is very good it still can sometimes feel repetitive. Once things shift over to the set up, introduction, & actual events involving Odysseus in the second half, though, ND markedly improves & gets even better, with Odysseus himself truly being one of the most interesting antagonists in Saint Seiya history. However, while I wouldn't call it a case of this happening "too late", it does result in ND truly being a tale of two halves, and even the second half still follows the same "Sancutary run" ethos of the first half, only with some twists & turns for flavor.

Saint Seiya: Next Dimension is still a very damn good sequel to Saint Seiya, though, & I feel anyone who enjoys the OG series but hasn't read ND definitely should; plus, the full-color artwork by Kurumada is honestly some of his all-time best. However, as its own work it falls just shy of the Top 5.

#5

Ring ni Kakero 2

We're now at the "Top 5 Masami Kurumada Manga" (according to me, at least), and we begin with the very first sequel Kurumada ever made. After finishing up B't X in late 1999/early 2000 he decided to return to Shueisha for his next manga, and in the end he decided to revisit the world of his first hit manga, Ring ni Kakero. Seemingly inspired by his friends Yudetamago & their Kinnikuman II-Sei (a.k.a. Ultimate Muscle) manga that debuted in 1998 & became a quick hit in Japan, Kurumada's first manga upon his return to Shueisha would be Ring ni Kakero 2, a next-gen sequel to the Shonen Jump classic starring the children of the cast of the original, with said OG cast returning in various ways for supporting roles. RnK2 stars Rindo Kenzaki, son of Jun Kenzaki & Kiku Takane (also making him the nephew of RnK's main character Ryuji Takane), who has grown up into a rebellious young man who cares not about honoring (either side of) his family's legacy, only to find himself wanting to take up boxing after failing to defeat Xanadu Skorpion, European Jr. Champion & son of the Skorpion that Ryuji & Kenzaki fought both against & alongside in the past, & getting into all manner of situations relating to the prior generation (& the current gen that they brought forth) that he once had no interest in whatsoever. In some ways, RnK2 is very much a traditional next-gen sequel, as it stars the children of the iconic cast of the OG series as they take on the children of the various rivals from the OG series, as well as a cast of brand new characters, and the general concept is for the new generation to feel like true successors to the prior gen.

However, where RnK2 differs from many other next-gen sequels, & why it ranks so high for me personally, is that Kurumada made sure to avoid ever simply venerating the cast of RnK1. Instead, Kurumada mostly went in the opposite direction & gave just about all of them rough, if not downright tragic, futures. Kenzaki & Kiku are both dead, leaving Rindo without any parents ever since he was a small child & instilling in him a deep-seated hatred towards his father. Ishimatsu never married & instead has raised Rindo as his own son, due to his old love for Kiku. Shinatora arguably became much like his father & raised his own son Iori in an even stricter fashion than he was raised. Kawai also never married (his next-gen equivalent is his nephew, Kyo) & is first seen mentally & psychologically wrecked in Germany. The various World Rivals of RnK1 tend to have strained relationships with their own kids, which in turn helps drive the main conflict of some of the story arcs in RnK2. Ryuji Takane, the main character of RnK1... is long dead & is literally only ever referenced to in RnK2. Not just that, but all of the OG cast that are still alive for RnK2 have been physically wrecked by the fights they engaged in all those years ago, especially the members of Golden Japan Jr., often leaving them with utterly damaged bodies that (in some cases) even lead to multiple deaths over the course of RnK2. In essence, with Ring ni Kakero 2 Masami Kurumada directly attacked the concept of rose-tinted nostalgia & instead showed the realistic results of the intense & hard-hitting matches of the original Ring ni Kakero, portraying the attitudes the OG cast had when it came to never giving up & instead being willing to throw their very lives away for the sake of victory as a well-intentioned but misguided endeavor that only results in self-destruction over time, if it didn't kill you right away. In turn, the next-gen cast have to learn how to become proper successors to their progenitors, while avoiding the mistakes those who came before them made.

For the tagline of my Ring ni Kakero 2 review I quoted the notorious line Kylo Ren spoke in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, "Let the past die; kill it, if you have to". The line itself was writer & director Rian Johnson wanting to make a statement about how he felt fans of Star Wars put too much veneration on the past, despite those characters being just as flawed as anybody else. However, in the end it wound up ringing mostly hollow, because the Star Wars sequel trilogy really had no real interest in following through on that sentiment, even within The Last Jedi itself to an extent. However, Kylo's quote absolutely fits Ring ni Kakero 2 because Kurumada was unfiltered in doing the same exact thing to the cast of his first hit manga, but in this case (& well over a decade prior to TLJ) he was able to follow through with it until the very end; Kurumada was more than willing to let the past die, & showed no hesitation in even killing it, if need be. When comparing Kurumada's two sequel manga there's really no competition, as Ring ni Kakero 2 is by far the superior follow-up over Saint Seiya: Next Dimension. While it still maintains the same overall intensity of action as seen in the original, & pays homage to it in numerous ways, RnK2 also manages to stand tall as its own work because its overall theme of "don't let what came before you define who you are tomorrow" is one that is universal. Still, personally, I can't put it above Kurumada's most iconic works, so Ring ni Kakero 2 winds up at the bottom of the Top 5. Yeah, maybe that's a bit cheap, but this is my personal ranking; Top 5 is still really damn good, though.

#4

Saint Seiya

For years I have always stated that, while I've constantly had what my #1 favorite Masami Kurumada manga is in place, I could never decide on what second place is, instead preferring to leave it as an eternal tie between two (& later three) manga. Well, it's time I finally put my foot down & properly rank them (at least... for now), and coming in at #4 might surprise some people, simply because it's the title everyone thinks of when they hear the name "Masami Kurumada". After Otoko Zaka failed to find popularity & was cancelled, Kurumada decided that his next manga would be aimed at the "mainstream"... and that gambit eventually paid off big for him. Saint Seiya would be the first of his works to ever see international release, first via the TV anime adaptation by Toei, & while Ring ni Kakero was definitely super popular for its time  there is no doubt that Saint Seiya is what's defined Kurumada as a mangaka ever since, & will continue to define him after he passes on. The story of Pegasus Seiya & his fellow Bronze Saints as they fight against evil to protect the world as warriors of the goddess Athena (reincarnated as the human Saori Kido) has influenced people the world over, with some highly successful mangaka like Tite Kubo & CLAMP being known & admitted fans of Saint Seiya when they were younger. And, to its credit, Saint Seiya is a lot of fun to read, with a seemingly "up to 11" mentality powering the entire thing from start to finish. Essentially nothing is off limits in this series, and Kurumada made sure that intensity was the prime directive here, resulting in an sheer action spectacle that few have truly managed to surpass, if even duplicate, though many have tried.

But then why is it only at #4 in my personal ranking? That's because it also has some very notable flaws, both in its storytelling & in its very design. First & foremost, Saint Seiya easily has the roughest start of any of Masami Kurumada's long-runners, beginning with a tournament arc that comes off more like a way for Kurumada to determine who gets to be part of Seiya's main character crew via reader responses than anything truly substantial, followed by our "Five-Man Band" needing to deal with what are effectively evil doppelgängers before it finally starts getting truly good. This results in the first three volumes being a very mixed bag, with Volume 4 managing to improve on things simply by going whole hog with the "up to 11" mentality. It's not until the battle with Phoenix Ikki & (especially) the fights with the Silver Saints afterwards that Saint Seiya truly starts hitting its stride, and that results in the strongest case of "just stick with it; it gets better!" in any Kurumada manga; I mean, reading 4-5 volumes of manga before it truly gets good is a bit of an ask. Second, this can honestly be a rather repetitive manga, as literally every single story arc follows the same general storytelling structure of antagonists attack heroes, resulting in heroes needing to enter enemy territory & defeat a series of foes in order to make their way to the final stronghold & fight the head honcho, all while Athena/Saori finds herself in mortal danger, & some moments/characters within individual story arcs can be very similar to others in prior story arcs; as I said in my review of the manga, it can be easily described as "One story arc repeated three times over, with minor changes". Third, the overall plot to Saint Seiya, though nowhere near incomprehensible, does have its share of forgotten or simply ignored beats (Mitsumasa Kido being the biological father to 100 orphans, including all of the Bronze Saints, is pretty much ignored once it's revealed to our heroes, while Seiya's goal of finding his sister Seika is near-forgotten about for the longest time until the very end), and it takes until the end of the second story arc (i.e. 18 volumes in, out of a total 26) for all of the backstory explaining why everything since the beginning makes complete sense. Without a doubt, there is definitely a feeling that, at points, Kurumada was just kind of winging it when it came to writing this series.

Still, there's no denying that Saint Seiya is a very fun, exciting, & unforgettable manga to read. Though the rough & uneven start is unfortunate, once it finds its stride it remains an absolute blast for the entire remainder, and its impact & influence on other anime & manga is completely undeniable; I mean, it literally created an entire genre of anime imitators. There's good reason why I had previously kept Saint Seiya in that "eternal tie for second place", because there can be times where, despite its flaws, I might consider it Kurumada's second-best manga, and despite me not giving it a medal position in this specific ranking that feeling remains true; think of it as a photo finish. However, in a scenario like this where I have to remove all instances of ties, those aforementioned flaws do hold it back just enough against the other two manga I tend to have it tied with for second place. Trust me, I was very close to putting Saint Seiya down as #3, but the rough start, repetitive storytelling, & sometimes scattershot plotting were enough to keep it just out of the Top 3.

#3

Otoko Zaka

This is easily the most interesting ranking of them all, and that's due to the fact that Kurumada was able to revive the series decades later. Possibly realizing after his father's passing that life is short, & maybe also to celebrate his 10th Anniversary as a mangaka, Kurumada decided that his follow up to Fuma no Kojirou (ignoring the second Raimei no Zaji "chapter" made in between the two) would be mid-1984's Otoko Zaka/Man's Hill. In Kurumada's mind this was to be his magnum opus, the work he had been planning out ever since he made his debut back in 1974 with Sukeban Arashi, the manga that would finally make him a true "mangaka/manga artist" (as he had always referred to himself as simply a "mangaya/manga drawer" up to that point), and his way of paying direct homage to Otoko Ippiki Gaki Daisho, the Hiroshi Motomiya manga that inspired him to become a mangaka. Unfortunately, after only 30 weekly chapters, Otoko Zaka would wind up getting cancelled in early 1985, unable to match up against the likes of instant megahit Fist of the North Star, the newly debuted Dragon Ball, or the continued success of Kinnikuman & Captain Tsubasa... but part of that was because of Kurumada himself & the kind of action manga he helped innovate with Ring ni Kakero & Fuma no Kojirou, which in turn helped inspire those very manga he was now competing with. In comparison, Otoko Zaka's tale of Jingi Kikukawa wanting to prove himself as the roughest, toughest kid in all of Japan in order to organize all of Japan's gangs together to take on the incoming invasion of the Junior World Connection felt ancient in its execution, an homage to a manga that dated back to the late 60s in a magazine that had been changed forever, in part, by Kurumada's prior works. The end result was a cancellation that Kurumada himself did not want to see happen, so much so that he used the cachet he has earned to emblazon on the final page that Otoko Zaka was "Incomplete", rather than "Finished", an act of defiance that has come to immortalize the manga ever since. That being said, those three volumes of Otoko Zaka that were serialized in Shonen Jump are still really damn good, and you can definitely tell that this was a manga that meant a lot to Masami Kurumada. If those three volumes were all that ever got made I'd still heartily rank Otoko Zaka at #6, just above Fuma no Kojirou, simply because of the quality of those volumes alone; these chapters were nowhere near as rough as Silent Knight Sho or Sukeban Arashi.

However, Otoko Zaka would get revived in 2014, nearly 30 years after it had been cancelled. With that much time having passed, though, Masami Kurumada himself had changed... and with that Otoko Zaka had also changed. While the end goal (i.e. uniting all of Japan's gangs together against the JWC) remained the same the ideals behind it changed, and likewise Jingi himself would change. While he was still more or less the same ready-to-fight guy he was at the start of the newly-created Volume 4, as this revival continued on Jingi would learn that the way he operated wasn't a good one, and that instead of simply fighting everyone to side with him he could instead do so peacefully, and if there truly was no option other remaining then he could fight as a last resort; he learned that "small fights" didn't require violence to resolve. Sure, there were still fights to be had in Otoko Zaka's revival, which would eventually add another eight volumes to the series & result in a total of 11 volumes, but they were primarily via Jingi's supporting cast, with Jingi himself only really getting into three throughout the entire revival (four, if you count a sumo challenge as a "fight"), naturally climaxing with Jingi's final fight with Sho Takeshima, the man who gave Jingi his first ever loss at the very beginning of the manga. While I felt the original Shonen Jump run of Otoko Zaka came off as Masami Kurumada showing what he felt was a "true Kurumada manga" at that time, the revival run that happened in Weekly PlayNews & later Shonen Jump+ showed how much Kurumada himself had grown as a person in the literal decades since that original run in the mid-80s. In turn, Jingi himself grows as a person throughout the entire manga, and the young man that he is in the actual final chapter that came out in late 2023 truly feels like someone that learned how to become a better person, one that will still fight should the need absolutely arise but now realizes the value of peaceful unity, and that that ideal is what should be aimed for, rather than conquest through sheer force. While he had to change it for the final collected tankouban release in 2024, Masami Kurumada originally had the penultimate chapter quote the song "Imagine" by John Lennon, and it really does exemplify how strong of a series Otoko Zaka wound up becoming, when all was said & (finally) done.

In all honesty, the only reason why Otoko Zaka (in its fully completed form) wins the bronze medal for me simply comes down to the fact that there was a ~30-year gap between Volumes 3 & 4. That's because while I absolutely love the manga it wound up being, which I fully believe is due in strong part to the change in ideology Kurumada himself went through during all that time, I'll always wonder just how the rest of Otoko Zaka would have fared had Kurumada been able to continue making it during the 80s. The end result we did get is truly one of Masami Kurumada's absolute best manga, & I wish it had an English translation of any sort because I feel it must be read, but that eternal question of "Was this shift in thematic direction always what was planned?" will forever add an ever-so-slight wrinkle to the overall narrative... something that I absolutely can't say the same of for the manga that wins the silver medal.

#2

B't X

Winning the silver medal in my ranking is a title with some personal nostalgia, as the anime adaptation of this manga was the very first Kurumada title I ever experienced, due to how unappealing DiC's Knights of the Zodiac looked to me back in 2003 when it started getting advertised on Cartoon Network; that being said, the ranking itself isn't purely due to nostalgia. Having decided that he was done with Shueisha for the time being in the 90s, though still allowing the publisher to re-release both Saint Seiya & Ring ni Kakero during his absence, Masami Kurumada would team with Kadokawa Shoten to debut B't X ("Beat X") in the debut issue of Monthly Shonen Ace in late 1994, just barely managing to make it his 20th Anniversary work. Detailing the journey of Teppei Takamiya as he & the titular X (a robotic kirin that Teppei's mentor Karen once rode) make their way through the evil Machine Empire's homebase of "The Area" in order to rescue Teppei's older brother Kotaro, who the Empire kidnapped for his genius level intellect with robotics, B't X is (in my opinion) Masami Kurumada's strongest overall narrative. In fact, I even did an entire deep dive about why I think that, but here's a basic explanation for the purposes of this ranking. First, unlike almost any other long-running Kurumada manga, B't X wastes absolutely no time in setting up the overarching plot, introducing the characters that need to be known ASAP, & establishing the general stakes more or less instantly. Second, while there's only a single story arc told in B't X's 16 volumes, it follows the three-act structure (or Japan's equivalent, kishontenketsu) extremely well by perfectly fitting the entire story across what truly does feel like three distinct acts, and each of those individual acts themselves follow that structure well, in their own rights.

However, where B't X truly shines & makes me feel that it's truly worthy of the silver medal is in the story itself, both in the literal as well as the thematic & even metatextual. When B't X begins it can, in some ways, feel like a futuristic Saint Seiya, complete with Teppei's Battle Gear reminding one a little bit of a Cloth. Not just that, but there's also the concept of the story itself, which is all about entering enemy territory & taking on a succession of foes in order to rescue someone. However, as that first act continues on, Kurumada slowly shows his hand this this manga. While Teppei's bullish "punch first, ask questions later" mentality does work out in the short term early on it's only at the third foe that it becomes obvious that what worked for Kurumada's leads in the past will no longer work for Teppei in the long term, and that X is not simply a robotic chariot for Teppei to ride on. While I'm not exactly a big fan of the term "deconstruction", as it's a concept that's become highly diluted over time, I do feel that it fits B't X well, because Kurumada very clearly tears down the kind of action manga he had become so synonymous with back in Jump. Plus, as the manga continues on it becomes more & more of a tale about the futility of constant conflict, the tragedy of self-sacrificial behavior, and that it's more important to "shine bright" so as to inspire others than it is to simply fight until you can do so no more. Yes, there are still fights to be had here & there, but the majority of the second half of B't X actually tends to see Teppei & his allies the Spirit Generals/Spiritual Guardians (depending on the translation) try to avoid direct conflict unless absolutely necessary, with Hokuto vs. Dr. Poe remaining my all-time favorite fight in any anime/manga due to Hokuto literally never throwing a single punch to defeat his old friend-turned-foe. While I am glad that TokyoPop did manage to fully release B't X in English back in the day (& I do wonder if my incessant asking about the final volume on their forums played a small factor), I hate that it's so inaccessible to read today, due to some of the later volumes now going for absurd prices. B't X is my very first Kurumada title, but over 20 years later I can also say that it's a great entry point for newcomers, as it works excellently on its own & remains one of his absolute best stories. Then, revisiting it after reading Kurumada's other works makes you appreciate it all the more because of the metatextual aspects.

In some ways, B't X is a spiritual precursor to the themes & ideals that Kurumada would later utilize in Otoko Zaka's revival, but the main reason why B't X ranks above Otoko Zaka in the end is simply because of publishing consistency. While there was that ~30-year gap for Otoko Zaka, B't X seemingly was serialized monthly without ever missing a single issue of Shonen Ace, and because of that I get the feeling that Masami Kurumada was able to tell the story that he had always planned B't X to be from the very beginning... and it is an excellent one.

#1

Ring ni Kakero

Finally, we make it to what I feel remains the best manga Masami Kurumada has ever made, Ring ni Kakero/Put It All in the Ring. There are numerous reasons for why I hold this series in such high esteem, and it's a mix of both historical relevance as well as simple personal enjoyment. Starting off there's the historical relevance of RnK, one that's (understandably) not really acknowledged much due to a mix of its age (it ran from 1977 to 1981), lack of any anime adaptation until 2004, lack of any real reach outside of Japan, being overshadowed by Saint Seiya, & simple ignorance by anime/manga fans who try to come up with any excuse to keep what they want to believe is true intact. For example, some try to argue that RnK can't possibly be an influential action manga because it's technically a sports manga (a.k.a. a "spokon")... despite the simple fact that a lot of the concepts of action manga ever since the 80s are built off of concepts that are naturally inherent to sports manga, i.e. the drive to be the best, pushing oneself beyond their limits, finding inspiration via rivals from other regions (or even nations), etc. For anyone to think that shonen action manga like Fist of the North Star or Dragon Ball came to be without any influence from works like Ring ni Kakero or Kinnikuman (which itself was very obviously influenced by RnK in its own ways) is nothing short of purposeful ignorance solely because they don't want what they felt was true to be proven wrong.

Even beyond that, though, RnK's influence on action manga is hard to really deny just from simply looking at it. While the story is technically all about Ryuji Takane deciding to one day become a world champion boxer (& the early portions & final arc of the manga do focus on that aspect more), the majority of it winds up being about Ryuji forming a "Five-Man Band" of fellow Japanese Jr. boxers that take on a variety of foes, mostly inside the boxing ring but on a couple of occasions outside, essentially forming what would become the (mostly) standard format for action manga moving forward. RnK also innovated the way many tournament arcs would be handled in the future, as while boxing is a one-on-one sport the manga eventually focused on team-based tournaments, where each individual fight added up to a total whole, long predating real-life equivalents like Team Combat Boxing, the now-defunct World Combat League, & even "team battle" modes in one-on-one fighting games by literal decades. RnK also helped establish the idea of the "Rescue Arc" as we tend to think of such a thing today, while the Ashura Chapter is literally the blueprint for Saint Seiya's entire modus operandi. While a lot of these elements certainly predate RnK itself, & were obviously influences that Kurumada himself looked toward while making the manga, it's the execution of all of those elements together that makes this such an influential & important manga. There's good reason why Shueisha continues to advertise Ring ni Kakero as the "Hot-Blooded Fighting Manga Bible" ever since 2014, and while such a nickname is undoubtedly marketing speak it's still something that's used exclusively for this title, and I think that alone speaks volumes.

But that's just one half of my reasoning behind placing this at #1, because once you get past all of the historical elements to Ring ni Kakero... you still get Masami Kurumada at his absolute very best. The characters are all instantly memorable, whether it's Ryuji, Kenzaki, Tsujimoto (an early foe of Ryuji's), Ishimatsu, Shinatora, Kawai, Black Shaft, Shadow Sousui, Don Guiliano, Napoleon Baroa, Skorpion & Helga, any of the various Greek boxers, & even the Char Aznable cosplayer himself Jesus Christ (from Monaco); even some of the Ashura Clan are admittedly memorable. Yes, the World Rivals are heavily based on international stereotypes, & Team Germany being associated with Nazi iconography is unfortunately something that was just common to see in manga at the time (though credit to Kurumada for removing literally all of the swastikas for the 2014 digital release), but like any good storyteller (most of) these characters wind up being more than their stereotypes over time, which in turn helps make them all the more memorable. Plus, it's fun to see stuff like Team France be a giant Rose of Versailles homage, or Team Italy be a tribute to The Godfather, or Black Shaft be a fun blaxploitation reference who's not drawn in the minstrel style that was still commonly seen for black people in manga at the time, thereby making his design age insanely well all these decades later. The boxing action is also top notch, transitioning from a more grounded & realistic (if still overly dramatized, at points) style to the sheer action spectacle it'd become renown for in a way that actually makes sense. While the matches themselves can often be rather fast-paced & arguably over a little too quick at times once it switches over to "SF Boxing", as it'd be referred to in Japan, that's really more a sign of the times than a flaw or a case of rushing towards a conclusion. Same as with American comics, manga would see a shift over to more decompressed storytelling over time, which in turn would result in titles emphasizing individual moments more.

Not just that, but the shift over to spectacle would bring with it the concept of "superblows", and with them Kurumada was able to showcase his skills as an artist excellently. Spectacular one & two-page spreads showing characters hitting their foes with powerful punches (or, at least, the immediate aftermath of said punch) that range the gamut from hooks to straights to cross counters to (especially) uppercuts... and even some jumping attacks, because (again) this is "SF Boxing"; also, Ashita no Joe did it first with Harimau. To help illustrate their sheer force Kurumada would add in visual effects to accentuate their ferocity (though whether or not the visuals are meant to be taken literally is really up to interpretation; I say that they're merely there for effect, not literally appearing), all while each character shouts out their superblow's name. This definitely wasn't the first manga to do that, & such a concept allegedly dates back to Wong Fei-hung in the 19th century, but it most certainly solidified it as a must-do from then on out in any action manga. And the names of said superblows are some of Kurumada's best: Boomerang Hook, Rolling Thunder (Hi, Street Fighter!), Hurricane Bolt (Hi, Kazushi Sakuraba!), Jet Upper (Hi, Street Fighter... again!), Galactica Magnum, Galactica Phantom (Hi, King of Fighters!), Devil Propose, Cosa Nostra, Black Screw, Heart Break Cannon, God Dimension, Cyclone Maelstrom, Neo Bible, Winning the Rainbow... the list just goes on & on & on. The end result remains, I feel, some of the absolute best shonen action ever made, and the faster pacing that was common at the time means that there's very little fat to it; this is 95% lean meat. However, said 5% "fat" in RnK would mainly be the Ashura Chapter, the penultimate story arc, which definitely does feel like Kurumada was forced to continue making more of the manga before starting the final arc, and it does show in many ways. It's not bad but it's absolutely extraneous, & in RnK2 Kurumada even emphasizes how superfluous the Ashura Clan was by revealing the truth about them. Finally, the final fight between Ryuji & Kenzaki remains the strongest finale Kurumada has ever made, capping off an absolutely outstanding manga.

Sure, some of Kurumada's later works may have a stronger & more consistent narrative, or grander stakes to the events at hand, or more wild imagery, or delve into deeper & more existential subjects, or showcase the evolution of the man himself through his characters & the story being told about them. However, Ring ni Kakero is the purest distillation of Masami Kurumada's style, even nearly 50 years after its debut in 1977, and is the absolute best overall package in his entire catalog. There's good reason why it became the first ever manga to have its final chapter not only lead its issue of Shonen Jump (which only Dragon Ball, Slam Dunk, Naruto [technically], & Kochikame have since duplicated), but also have said final chapter be 100% colorized in some fashion (DB & SD would do the same exact thing as RnK, while Naruto & Kochikame would do it differently). Ring ni Kakero's importance as the "bible" of shonen action really should be more widely known & respected, but it's also just one of the finest examples of the genre in general, too.

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And there you have it. Numbers 2, 3, & 4 could always swap around to some extent depending on how I feel on any given day, but that's how I personally would rank all of Masami Kurumada's "major" works. He eventually became my all-time favorite mangaka as I continued to check out his stuff, and even now he remains in that spot. I can only hope that, one day, more of his work can be more readily available for others to read in English, because there is much more to him than just Saint Seiya, and once people realize that I truly believe that he can start to be better appreciated... I just really wish it could happen before he passes away, because at 71 there's definitely way less time now that he'll still be around to continue making manga & be appreciated for that.

All Manga © Masami Kurumada