However, that still leaves two isolated one-shots remaining, and they happen to be Masami Kurumada's first ever professionally published one-shot manga & his latest one (as of this piece, at least). Therefore, seeing as I no longer wish to do individual reviews of one-shots, like I did way back in 2012 & 2013 for Mabudachi Jingi & Shiro-Obi Taisho, let me combine these two unrelated stragglers together into what I generally call a "Special Feature" here on the blog, and while I'm at it I'll also toss in a bonus one-shot parody of one of Kurumada's works by someone else that was actually published alongside said work as it was in serialization.
Since I tend to go in chronological order when it comes to stuff like this, that means we begin with the first manga one-shot Masami Kurumada ever did as a professional mangaka (or "mangaya", as he'd call himself at the time), 1975's Mikeneko Rock, with "mikeneko" purposefully written a bit vaguely in Japanese ("みけ猫") so that it doesn't automatically translate to "Calico Cat", which is "三毛猫" in Japanese; as you can see, the fan translation goes with "Stray Cat". This 30-page one-shot appeared in the December 1975 issue of Monthly Shonen Jump, not long after the (true & final) cancellation of Sukeban Arashi that same year, and it would then get included at the end of Volume 2 of that manga in 1977 as a bonus; Wikipedia Japan says it was first published in 1976, but that's 100% incorrect. Mikeneko Rock looks to stay true to the style of Sukeban Arashi, as it starred a female delinquent with a penchant for getting into fights, a la Rei Kojinyama, so let's see if Kurumada learned some good lessons following Sukeban Arashi's cancellation, though still prior to the debut of Ring ni Kakero.
Tama is a young delinquent of a girl who lives with her older brother (who operates a motorcycle repair shop) & has already gotten expelled from five schools, due to her habit of beating up all the delinquents at each school. On her way to start her time at her sixth school Tama gets lost & tries asking a kid for directions, only to find herself in a fight with members of the biker gang Dirty Special. Tama manages to fight them off, but upon their escape the gang hit Yoshio, the kid that was helping Tama, and after bringing Yoshio to the hospital his father blames Tama for the injury. Yoshio was helping tend his father's farm but can't now due to the injuries he sustained, so Tama vows to help out in any way she can after school each day to prove that she's not just some violent delinquent, even promising not to ride her cherished Ducati motorcycle during the time by giving the keys to Yoshio's dad. The father, though, plans to work Tama ragged by having her work the potatoes, which have been planted in a field where it's nigh-impossible for anything to grow. However, Dirty Special continues to harass not just Tama but also the farm, but before she can finally deal with Dirty Special herself she has to prove to Yoshio's dad that she has the dedication & honor needed to make something grow in the field.
It makes perfect sense that Mikeneko Rock was included alongside the second half of (the revivial of) Sukeban Arashi in collected form, because this one-shot absolutely feels like a spiritual successor to Kurumada's debut manga. However, the biggest difference between Tama & Rei is that where Rei was continually trying to be a "better" girl than the delinquent she always had been, which in turn is where a lot of the comedy in that series would come from, Tama doesn't question who she is at all. She's a young girl who loves nothing more than riding her Ducati on the road, and has no qualms in beating up people who get in her way. Also, where Rei was often more impetuous in her actions, Tama doesn't simply get into fights on a whim, but rather seemingly tends to do so more for a reason. For example, the only reason she got into a fight with Dirty Special early on is because they started hitting on her & didn't care that they were being too loud, showing that they weren't going to respond to anything else but violence when push came to shove. There's also less outright comedy in Mikeneko Rock when compared to Sukeban Arashi, instead focusing on simply telling a story about a young girl who's willing to do what's asked of her in order to prove that she isn't what Yoshio's father thought she was, and when she's proven herself she then has the chance to finally deal with with the antagonists in her own way, though even that isn't simply beating everyone up & instead focuses more on her love of riding her motorcycle.
More so than with Sukeban Arashi, Mikeneko Rock really does showcase the kind of story that Masami Kurumada would become most well known for, namely the kind where the main character(s) prove their worth by never giving up & completing their objective through sheer will & dedication, though here it's not simply by way of wild & crazy fights. Still, Tama definitely feels like a transitionary character between Rei Kojinyama & Ring ni Kakero's Kiku Takane, though Kiku herself is admittedly more akin to Rei in terms of personality at points, which in turn also makes Tama a step towards the likes of RnK's Ryuji Takane, Fuma no Kojirou's Kojirou, Otoko Zaka's Jingi Kikukawa, etc., etc. In terms of the artwork this is still very much Kurumada's earliest style as a professional, which tended to imitate Hiroshi Motomiya's style more, though it's still just that little bit more improved over Sukeban Arashi's art, with Kurumada's own style shining through a sliver more at points. In terms of the plot Mikeneko Rock is simply OK as the plotting could be a little awkward still, with Tama's conflict with Dirty Special & her challenge by Yoshio's father feeling somewhat merged together haphazardly in the latter half, but it's never confusing. It just honestly feels like two separate plots Kurumada thought up that he simply decided to combine together into one, so while the connection is there it does feel like there could have been a stronger reason as to why they're connected. Overall, though, Mikeneko Rock is a neat read if you've already read all of Sukeban Arashi (which is fully fan translated into English) & are curious to see how Kurumada transitioned from the more comedic style of that into the more character drama-focused (at first, anyway) Ring ni Kakero; however, it's very much a "for hardcore Kurumada fans only" recommendation.
Before we move on to the most recent isolated one-shot Masami Kurumada has done I figure we can veer off course slightly to cover a one-shot that wasn't drawn by Kurumada himself, but is still very much directly related. I've mentioned before that, when Kadokawa Shoten debuted Monthly Shonen Ace magazine in late 1994, B't X was instantly set up as the big flagship manga for it, taking the cover of the very first issue & being the first manga that Kurumada ever did for a publisher that wasn't Shueisha. Well, that kind of attention & importance continued on during B't X's run & in the June 1997 issue, alongside Chapter 31 of B't X (which happens to be where the B't X Neo OVA diverges away from the manga plot), Kadokawa Shoten decided to have a little fun. As part of a segment titled "Kurumada Juku/Kurumada Cram School", this specific issue of Shonen Ace featured a special "Kazuhiko Shimamoto Version of B't X", which in reality was a 16-page one-shot titled S't X, or "Shimamoto X" (though, if we consider that B't X is technically pronounced "Beat X", then that would technically make S't X "Sheet X"). As the name & description states, this was a one-shot drawn by Kazuhiko Shimamoto, the mangaka behind titles like Blazing Transfer Student, Blazing Ninjaman, Blazing Brush Spirit, Blazing Nobunaga - Warring States Side Story, Blue Blazes... and various other manga that don't have the term "Honou/Blazing" in their titles, but I think you get what I'm saying. Shimamoto had just finished up a two-year run in Shonen Ace with Onsenman that prior February, while the issue after S't X would see the debut of Shimamoto's next serialization for Shonen Ace, Otoko no Ichimai: Red Card, which also ran for two years there. So let's see what kind of manic & hot-blooded insanity Kazuhiko Shimamoto had with his "version" of B't X.
Teppei, Fou, & Hokuto are continuing their way through The Area & are currently in the midst of taking on the Seven Demon Generals guarding the remaining Points. However, taking into account the constant escalation of stakes & the continual threat of the foes they've faced, Fou warns Teppei that there might be something beyond just the "12" Points & the "Seven" Demon Generals... something "three", "40", or even "120"! With Teppei worrying that dealing with anything "120" would be well beyond a monthly serialization pace, Fou reminds Teppei of the power of the Five-Fold Phosphorescence that he can access via the Piece of the Sun within him. Therefore, Teppei decides that it's not enough to simply rely on a "Piece" of the Sun and wills out the power of the Entirety of the Sun... a power so immense that his B't ally X can't handle it, reconstituting himself into The Lord of Creation, a full-on power armor for Teppei to wear. With this absolute power at their control, Teppei & X are now ready to take on their true enemy: Editor-in-Chief Inoue!
Without a doubt, S't X is 1,000% a Kazuhiko Shimamoto one-shot. For more details you can read Volume 21 of Demo Disc, which included a look at the manga Gyakkyou Nine, but Shimamoto is a mangaka who knows how to handle something that's clearly a parody in a way that it can still be taken seriously. Make no mistake, S't X is filled with all manner of jokes, visual gags, & absurdity that fully establish that this is a joking parody of B't X, with the first page even being a pair of four-panel comics, the first being about Hokuto discovering that he has a "Piece of Jupiter" within him, while the second is the gag where Fou talks about there being three, 40, or even 120 more obstacles in their way. Later Masami Kurumada himself, in his self-parodic representation seen in Jitsuroku! Shinwakai, makes an appearance in place of Major Aramis when giving Misha a report, there are references to "tie-up" products like video games & anime, & of course there's the whole gag at the end that Shonen Ace's Editor-in-Chief is actually the main villain... all while Kotaro is still stuck in UnderHell, trying to figure out how B't X can continue to get proper tie-up productions. Finally, there's the absurd idea of Teppei harnessing the "Entirety of the Sun" & X turning into "The Lord of Creation", the latter of which is a reference to The Book of Documents citing that Man is the greatest of all living things, with Metal Face continually getting swatted away by Teppei, in response. Just utter, absurd, & self-aware nonsense seen throughout in S't X.
And yet, in true Shimamoto fashion, the way it reads & flows feels as though it could still be taken seriously, in some way. The idea of starting with a pair of four-panel gag strips, only for the entire plot of the one-shot to actually play off of the second strip, is honestly kind of brilliant, & in true Shimamoto fashion the one-shot actually has a plot that makes a sort of sense, in its own wild & insane way. Shimamoto is a fully avowed superfan of Masami Kurumada ever since Ring ni Kakero, so not only does Shimamoto's art actually imitate Kurumada's rather well (though Shimamoto's style is still readily noticeable throughout), but the general mood & feel of it imitates Kurumada's style as well. While the idea of the Entirety of the Sun admittedly feels a bit more like Saint Seiya in concept than B't X, since Seiya was the series that continually showed increases in "power levels" (Cosmo, Seventh Sense, Power of Gold, Eighth Sense, God Cloths, etc.), it honestly isn't wholly unbelievable to think that a fan back in the late 90s likely considered it to be something that Kurumada would have pulled in B't X during serialization. Like any good direct parody, S't X is embracing the very concept of the work it's parodying while also simultaneously taking the piss out of it, and while it's a one-shot that really only works if you're already familiar with B't X, I would say that it's worth hunting down scans of & reading if you are a fan of that series... now if only it was available in English, as there isn't even a fan translation of it out there.
Moving back to Masami Kurumada proper, following Mikeneko Rock's appearance in Monthly Jump in 1976 Kurumada would continue to make the occasional one-shot here & there, though by 1983 he mostly stopped making those, or at least stopped making ones that were true one-&-dones. From 1983 to 1996 the only real "one-shots" he would make would wind up being multi-parters in the form of Raimei no Zaji & Aoi Tori no Shinwa, while Evil Crusher Maya was created as a two-parter from the start. After that, any further one-offs that Kurumada would make would all be related to Saint Seiya in some form, i.e. the various bits & pieces I mentioned at the start that I still haven't covered here, so it was actually rather surprising when in late 2021 it was announced that the February 2022 issue of Akita Shoten's Champion RED magazine would host a brand new, 100% standalone & isolated one-shot manga by Masami Kurumada; due to how issues of Champion RED are labeled, this issue came out December 2021. Titled Sei'ya ni Kane wa Naru/The Bell Tolls on the Holy Night (I added an apostrophe in the romaji to make sure there was no confusing Sei'ya/聖夜/Holy Night with Seiya/星矢/Star Arrow), this was a Christmas-themed, 20-page, full-color one-shot that Kurumada himself stated had been in his mind for a while, & deemed it a "new frontier of Kurumada romance", so while it's no longer the Holiday season anymore let's see how Masami Kurumada's latest (as of this piece, at least) original work fares, as a one-shot.
It's Christmas Eve in a town & a teenage boy named Ken is being chased after by his girlfriend, Meg. Annoyed that he still can't afford to buy an engagement ring for Meg, no matter how hard he tries to do it through hard work, Ken decides to accept a job by the head of the gang he works for: Kill the head of a rival gang with the 45mm handgun he was given, and he'll get the money he needs for an engagement ring. Naturally, Meg doesn't want Ken to go through with this job, because if he gets caught he'll still wind up with at least 4-5 years in prison, and all Meg wants is to be with Ken. While arguing the two wind up in front of an old church with a bell tower that hasn't rung in decades, and sitting on its snowy steps is an old man named Joe who handily disarms Ken of the gun, since the safety was on & Ken wasn't even gripping it right anyway. Joe clearly knows what Ken is up to, so he tells the story of how he killed a rival gang leader 40 years ago for the same reason Ken has, only to wind up on the run & eventually going to prison, unable to fulfill the promise Joe made to his fianceé Alice that they'd meet up again at the steps of the church they're at. Joe finally remembered the promise decades later, & even bought Alice an engagement ring, but there's no way Alice has waited for Joe after all these decades... right?
Sei'ya ni Kane wa Naru is a rather straightforward & simple story, with it playing out mostly how you'd expect from the synopsis I wrote above (with maybe only one little twist at the end), but it is unique amongst Kurumada's other works by being a straight drama. There's no wild action, no proclamations of never giving up from Ken or Joe (if anything, it subverts that idea by having Joe forget about his promise to Alice for a long time), and not even a single panel of any real action is seen whatsoever; even Joe doing his killing is done off-panel. No, this is simply a story about a young man being convinced to not take what seems to be the easy (but highly dangerous) path & instead take the path that's hard & unsure, but at least he won't be alone while taking that path. Unlike Mikeneko Rock, which still came from a time before Kurumada had established his take on the Tezuka Star System, Sei'ya ni Kane wa Naru does rely on some past "actors" of Kurumada, with Ken very much looking like his current take on Seiya (or Tenma from Next Dimension), while Joe is literally just Shinatora (right down to the pompadour) but with white hair.
Overall, Sei'ya ni Kane wa Naru isn't anything really groundbreaking, even from Kurumada, but it is a well told & enjoyable little short story. It's connection to Christmas Eve is admittedly a bit tenuous, as the story really could have been told at any point of the year, but the concept of the "Christmas Miracle" does exist for a reason. When a new one-shot was first hinted at by Champion RED in 2021 everyone (including myself) naturally assumed that it was going to be something Saint Seiya related, as Kurumada still hasn't done a new short story relating to the Hades Chapter, as he had previously done for both the Sanctuary & Poseidon Chapters, but when it was confirmed to be a completely unrelated & original one-shot I thought that was neat to see from Kurumada. Having now read it I can see why he wanted to have it done for an issue that was coming out during the Holiday season, but unless you're simply rabid for one-shots this is similar to Mikeneko Rock in that it's mainly "for hardcore Kurumada fans only". It also has never been re-released in a compiled book yet, just as with S't X, & I honestly don't see it happening anytime soon. A new collection of all of his non-Seiya one-shots & shorts, complete with all of the original color pages kept intact, would be really cool, though, & allow Sei'ya ni Kane wa Naru to finally see a new release. I mean, it's not like the Mabudachi Jingi one-shot collection, Jitsuroku! Shinwakai, & the various short multi-parters are still physically in print in Japan, anyway.
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| The covers of the three magazine issues these one-shots appeared in. I marked the spots on the first two covers that mention Mikeneko Rock & S't X. |
One-shot manga is definitely an interesting thing to cover, as it's neat to see how mangaka try to fit an entire story into a limited amount of pages, but at the same time they're kind of tricky to really critique for those very same reasons. Sometimes you get one-shots that you'd like to see expanded on & turn into a longer-form serialization, but other times you get stories that truly do end in that short length, and the latter is definitely true of the two Kurumada-drawn one-shots covered here. Mikeneko Rock is neat in how it has some of the same elements as Sukeban Arashi, but executed in a way that manages to make it feel different enough from its predecessor, and I thought it worked as an interesting transition from the more comedic story that Sukeban Arashi was to the more serious & dramatic story that Ring ni Kakero would be. As for Sei'ya ni Kane wa Naru, it admittedly wasn't anything special from a storytelling perspective, but it was still executed well for the story it did want to tell, and it is unique for a Kurumada manga by being strictly a pure character drama without any of his usual stylistic flourishes, or even the occasional comedy Kurumada goes with. I mean, even Ai ni Jidai still saw Masami Higashida act like a Kurumada lead here & there, since he was a literal stand-in for Kurumada himself, and while Ken in this one-shot had the inclinations of a standard Kurumada lead it was Joe that managed to prevent Ken from actually becoming one.
As for S't X, I included that here mainly for completeness' sake, as while it wasn't drawn by Kurumada himself it was (for all intents & purposes) an officially licensed parody of B't X. In true Shimamoto fashion the one-shot managed to simultaneously poke fun at the title it was parodying while also executing itself in a fashion that still stayed true to Kurumada's general style. The end result is a one-shot that's equal parts satirical & respectful, which I feel is when a parody like this truly works. Admittedly, none of these are really anything I'd recommend to newcomers curious about Kurumada, as while Mikeneko Rock & Sei'ya ni Kane wa Naru are both fine enough self-contained stories neither really give a definitive inclination when it comes to Kurumada's general style. Meanwhile, S't X is absolutely only for those familiar with B't X beforehand, as otherwise the one-shot's humor will likely fly over newcomers' heads. However, having already written up reviews & the like for all of Kurumada's other "main" works, these isolated one-shots were really just notable gaps that I wanted to fill in, coverage-wise.
Having covered them I've now read & written about every manga Masami Kurumada has ever professionally drawn from his debut in 1974 all the way up to 2004 (when the Seiya Tenka-hen prologue one-shot came out), and while his catalog from 2004 to now still has a handful of gaps left for me to fill in I do hope to get to all of them... eventually.
Mikeneko Rock © Masami Kurumada 1976
S't X © Masami Kurumada/Kazuhiko Shimamoto 1997
Sei'ya ni Kane wa Naru © Masami Kurumada 2021
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