50 Years of Masami Kurumada's (Mostly) Hot-Blooded Manga: A Career Overview

[Please Note: This is a piece that will continually be updated as I gradually cover more titles on the blog & fill in gaps. If anything, this likely won't truly be considered "complete" until Masami Kurumada truly retires from making manga or passes away.]

"That manga drawer on that day, even now, continues to run down the unmarked road"

- Masami Kurumada 23th Anniversary Illustrated Collection: Burning Blood, Page 5

Born on December 6, 1953 in Tsukishima, Chuo, Tokyo to a family of tobishoku (a Japanese variant to a steeplejack, but not quite a 1:1 equivalent), Masami Kurumada has always been someone who's been attracted to fighting. As a child he was a bit of a delinquent, often getting into fights, and while he was naturally a fan of reading manga he always felt that such an occupation was beyond him, as he was under the impression that only those with notable accomplishments could enter that career, like Osamu Tezuka having an actual medical doctorate. However, that all changed when he first read Otoko Ippiki Gaki Daisho in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump, a manga about a delinquent who becomes the leader of a gang of delinquents & heads to Tokyo to tackle societal issues, usually by beating people up, if need be. While Kurumada loved the manga itself, he was also enthralled by its creator, a young man named Hiroshi Motomiya... who himself was a relatively normal guy who had a history of delinquency & getting into fights as a child, just like Kurumada. Now with the assurance that you didn't need to be someone special to get into manga, Kurumada started practicing & honing his skills as an artist, and during his third year of high school submitted a one-shot to Shonen Jump, with hopes of winning the Young Jump Award for newcomers (now currently known as the Jump New World Manga Award). He didn't win the Award, nor was he even selected for an honorable mention, but instead of simply accepting defeat Kurumada did something a bit brazen: He went to publisher Shueisha's offices in Tokyo (since it was local), found the Shonen Jump Editorial Department, & straight up asked why he wasn't selected.

Masami Kurumada in the 70s vs. 2023,
via photos on his own website.

Seemingly impressed with the gumption he showed in doing this, Kurumada was offered the chance to work as an assistant to Ko Inoue, who at the time was drawing the baseball manga Samurai Giants for Weekly Shonen Jump, which was written by the legendary Ikki Kajiwara, author of instant classics like Star of the Giants & Ashita no Joe, two of Kurumada's favorites. There's also mention online of Kurumada working as an assistant for Hiroshi Motomiya & even Yoshihiro Takahashi at one point or another, but there's never been anything proving (or even disproving, to be fair) that either actually happened.  With newfound experience working under Inoue, Kurumada would eventually make his professional debut in mid-1974 in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump with Sukeban Arashi, and 2024 marks the 50th Anniversary of Masami Kurumada's debut as a professional mangaka. If you've been reading this blog for the past 13+ years (or at least look at the Master List section) you'll see that I've covered Masami Kurumada's works a decent amount, and that's simply because he is my favorite mangaka of all time. Therefore, to celebrate Kurumada's Golden Anniversary in manga, I have decided to make all of 2024 dedicated to the man's works, primarily his manga. Every month this year will feature at least one piece about Masami Kurumada, and while the majority of those will be manga reviews (to fill in as many gaps in his catalog that I haven't previously reviewed) there will also be non-review pieces dedicated to Kurumada's career & works, and of course the year will include various pieces (reviews, B-Sides/Lists, etc.) that won't be about Kurumada at all.

Starting things off, then, will be this overview of Masami Kurumada's career & the various manga that he himself has drawn (i.e. spin-offs by other artists will be acknowledged, but not focused on), so that those who maybe have only heard of the name but aren't all that familiar with his catalog can at least get a general idea of what Kurumada brought to manga, why he's so important to the industry as a whole, & why I feel he's worth dedicating an entire year to for his Golden Anniversary. So let's get started, shall we? Trust me, there's A LOT to go over...

It all began with Sukeban Arashi/Delinquent Storm, the story of Rei Kojinyama, a high school girl who tries to be a "proper" young lady after the death of her mother, but always winds up reverting back to her violent & delinquent nature, usually due to circumstances beyond her control. The manga had an interesting serialization history, as while it technically first appeared as a one-shot in Issue #33 of 1974, the effects of the 1973 oil crisis (known in Japan as the "Oil Shock") actually resulted in that initial one-shot needing to be republished two weeks later in Issue #35. After that Sukeban Arashi would start getting a weekly serialization with Issue #39... only to come to a sudden stop after just five chapters with Issue #43. According to Japanese Wikipedia these chapters (which were all self-contained stories, with only basic continuity between then) would also see irregular publication (as in being reprinted?) until Issue #12 of 1975, but I can't verify the accuracy of that; this was all likely another result of the oil crisis. However, Kurumada was then able to bring back Sukeban Arashi for a proper serialized run in Issue #22 of 1975, where he introduced a new rival character for Rei, a rich girl named Shizuka Ayanokouji, and eventually saw the two lead different school clubs in a soccer/rollerball match to see which one would have to be disbanded. Unfortunately, Kurumada's debut serialization would come to an early end in Issue #42, getting cancelled after only 20 chapters of this revival, and Sukeban Arashi wouldn't even get compiled in tankouban form right away, with Shueisha waiting until 1977 to release the 20-chapter revival across two volumes, while the initial six chapters (including the original one-shot) wouldn't get compiled until 1983 alongside two unrelated one-shots mad later on, where it wasn't even given the cover or title of the book itself.

After Sukeban Arashi's cancellation Kurumada would take some time to conceptualize his next serialization, though he did find time to create his first post-professional debut one-shot, Mikeneko Rock/Rock, the Calico Cat, which appeared in the December 1976 issue of Monthly Shonen Jump. Since it also starred a female delinquent, it made sense to compile it with Volume 2 of Sukeban Arashi in late 1977. Not long after Mikeneko Rock's publication, though, Kurumada would return to Weekly Jump with his next serialization, Ring ni Kakero/Put It All in the Ring. Deciding to take direct inspiration from Ashita no Joe (plus some Star of the Giants), the manga told the tale of Ryuji Takane, the son of a pro boxer who passed away before becoming world champion, and when his mother marries an abusive louse to keep them afloat his older sister Kiku takes him with her to Tokyo, where they promise to one day return for their mother after Ryuji becomes world champion himself. While Ryuji initially has no interest in boxing, he quickly finds a reason when he meets Jun Kenzaki, a young boxing prodigy who initially tries to buy the gloves Ryuji's dad used off of Ryuji, eventually leading to the two becoming rivals (combative at first, before later becoming friendly), before Ryuji later winds up becoming the representative for Tokyo in the Japan Champion Carnival, after Kenzaki goes down with an injury, which will crown the Japanese Jr. Boxing Champion. Debuting in Issue #2 of 1977, Ring ni Kakero initially start with Kurumada focused on telling a more grounded & semi-realistic character drama via boxing, though with the stylistic flourishes he would later be known & celebrated for, even to the point of turning supporting cast member Rokusuke "Rock/Roku-san" Ohno into almost a full-on deuteragonist, showing his journey of becoming a pro boxer. However, Kurumada seemingly decided that imitating Ashita no Joe so closely wouldn't allow his series to flourish & grow, so a little over a year in he started going in a notably different direction... and in doing so would effectively write what Shueisha, in 2014, would call the "Hot-Blooded Fighting Manga Bible".

While Kurumada was both working as an assistant to Ko Inoue & later making Sukeban Arashi, there was a baseball manga running in Weekly Jump called Astro Kyudan/Team Astro by Shiro Tozaki (writer) & Norihiro Nakajima (art). Unlike the numerous other baseball series running alongside it at the time (seriously, Jump would often have between two & four different baseball manga running simultaneously during the 70s), which were mostly grounded but occasionally had moments of sheer spectacle, Team Astro was all about the spectacle, starring literal "supermen" who played baseball games that sometimes felt like anything but, performing feats that were truly impossible by actual humans & would even break the laws of physics. While it'd eventually end in mid-1976 due to cancellation after 183 weekly chapters across 20 volumes, it still became notably popular during its run, with readers being "attracted" to it via its over-the-top & superhuman feats. It was this concept of "attraction" that Kurumada wanted to replicate with Ring ni Kakero, so he slowly started shifting the manga over from more grounded character drama to over-the-top action spectacle as the story moved on, & by the time Ryuji & his compatriots in Team Golden Japan Jr. (Kenzaki, the short but passionate Ishimatsu Katori, the quiet & serious Kazuki Shinatora, and the refined & pretty boy Takeshi Kawai) were competing in the World Tournament all of them (as well as their "World Rivals" representing other nations) had "Superblows" in their arsenal, powerful punches that had names to match their thematic stylings, like Shinatora's [Special] Rolling Thunder (consecutive straights that happen in a split second), Kawai's Jet Upper (an uppercut that imitates how jet fighters can use gravity to initially go down for quick upward speed), & Kenzaki's Galactica Magnum (a swing so powerful that it feels like a meteor strike), among many others. This change in style & execution would turn Ring ni Kakero into a hit title unlike any other in Jump up to that point, it's often cited as being the magazine's first megahit that helped bring readership to over 3,000,000, and Kurumada himself has even joked that sales were so strong that the manga alone apparently helped pay for renovations to Shueisha's headquarters back in the day, with staff allegedly nicknaming it the "Kurumada Building" & "RinKake Building". As of the early 00s, Ring ni Kakero has sold over 13 million copies, and while that's relatively minor compared to other Jump megahit sales (Kinnikuman, Dragon Ball, One Piece, etc.), it still shadows over some other titles of its time. For example, The Gutsy Frog only surpassed 3 million copies in 2018, while Toilet Hakase only ever passed 10 million, and both ran for longer than Ring ni Kakero did.

Therefore, when Ring ni Kakero finally came to an end in Issue #44 of 1981, after 242 weekly chapters across 25 volumes, Shueisha decided to give the final chapter special treatment. For the first time ever, a final chapter for a Weekly Shonen Jump manga not only lead the issue it appeared in (by this point, it was becoming more standardized that most final chapters would end their respective issues), but was also given both "Lead Color" (i.e. full-color opening pages) & "All Color" (i.e. the remaining pages were all done in a red-tinted color tone, which the mangaka could use for effect). Since then, only Dragon Ball & Slam Dunk would be given the same exact treatment for their final chapters in 1995 & 1996, while both Naruto & Kochikame in 2014 & 2016 would be given their own unique takes on the concept of a "full-color final chapter" that Ring ni Kakero introduced. As time went on, & action-oriented manga in general transitioned from being sports-based to being sports-less, action manga as a whole followed the format that Masami Kurumada really solidified with Ring ni Kakero, and while series like Fist of the North Star & Dragon Ball are now often cited as the origin of modern shonen action manga, both of them were unabashedly following the gospel that Ring ni Kakero wrote as the "bible" of that very type of story; Akira Toriyama himself even wrote the afterword for Volume 23 of Ring ni Kakero, espousing Kurumada's style. Naturally, expectations were now high for Kurumada's next work, but before we get to that, there are a few one-offs to go over.

While serializing Ring ni Kakero, Masami Kurumada also found the time to make a variety of one-shots, two of which would be compiled with the initial six chapters of Sukeban Arashi in the 1983 book Mabudachi Jingi: Masami Kurumada's Early Short Story Collection. First was the titular Mabudachi Jingi/The Duty of a True Friend, which ran in Issue #10 of 1978 & told the story of a delinquent who finds himself having to choose between saving his best friend from a fight gone wrong or keeping new girlfriend, who detests violence. The second was Shiro-Obi Taisho/The White Belt General, which ran in the February 1979 issue of Monthly Shonen Jump & told the story of a weak high school judoka finds himself being the leader of his new school's Judo Club & needing to prove himself as being worthy of the position. After those would be a trio of semi-related one-shots starring parodies of Kurumada himself & his team of assistants, collectively named Shinwakai/The Gathering of Gods, with each of them essentially telling comedic tales in which the gang would try to come off as tough guys, only to wind up looking utterly pathetic. The most notable of these would be Ring ni Kokero/Collapse in the Ring, which ran in Issue #18 of 1980 and saw Kurumada & Shinwakai get beaten up by Ring ni Kakero's Golden Japan Jr.; this one-shot would wind up being the most popular manga for that entire issue, according to reader surveys. Along with a fourth story in this style published in mid-1983, these one-shots would get collected into a single tankouban in 1983 titled Jitsuroku! Shinwakai/The Authentic Account of The Gathering of the Gods! (you can tell it's 100% accurate because of the exclamation point).

After finishing up Ring ni Kakero, Masami Kurumada would only take a 10-issue hiatus before debuting his third serialization, Fuma no Kojirou/Kojirou of the Fuma. While a prologue was first seen via a special issue of Shonen Jump released on "January 10", the series would properly debut in Combined Issue #3-4 of 1982 & showcase the battles involving the titular Kojirou, a young member of the Fuma Clan of ninja that had existed since the Warring States period. Though initially starting off with Kojirou helping a local academy's sports clubs, the manga quickly shifted focus exclusively on non-sports action, namely a battle between the Fuma Clan & the rival Yasha Clan, a mysterious Sacred Sword War between the forces of Cosmo & Chaos that occurs every 1,000 years, & then needing to deal with an attempted coup from within the Fuma Clan itself. Fuma no Kojirou was an interesting case in which the first & final story arcs were very much focused around mystical ninja techniques, showing how Kurumada was inspired by series like Sanpei Shirato's Legend of Kamuy, while the middle story arc about the Sacred Sword War was shockingly ahead of its time, due to its focus on fighting against nebulous concepts like pre-ordained destiny & reincarnation, instead of simply aiming to be the best or defeating "evil". Building off of Ring ni Kakero's popularity, Fuma no Kojirou was extremely popular during its run in Jump, but still wound up ending relatively early in Issue #49 of 1983, after only 96 weekly chapters across 10 volumes. However, this wasn't due to cancellation, but rather because Kurumada's father had passed away during serialization, which resulted in Kurumada no longer feeling in the mood to continue making it, & it would also likely explain why the final story arc was shockingly fatalistic; Kurumada also stopped smoking after his father's death. Kurumada would wind up taking the better part of an entire year off before returning with his next serialization, but before we move on to that there's a short series to quickly go over.

During the serialization of Fuma no Kojirou, Masami Kurumada also found the time to draw a new one-shot, though this time it'd appear in an issue of Fresh Jump, a bimonthly-turned-monthly offshoot magazine named after another newcomer manga award that Shueisha also would offer; while there were some serialized manga in Fresh Jump, it was mostly one-shots. Appearing in the February 1983 issue was Raimei no Zaji/Thunder Clap Zaji, the story of a mysterious young man named Zaji who's been trained by an organization called "Home" into one of their "Hitmen", but one day decides to suddenly abandon Home in search of his mother, who lives in Japan, & having to deal with his old compatriots being sent out by Home to kill him. Then, during Kurumada's long hiatus following the end of Fuma no Kojirou, a second chapter of Raimei no Zaji would appear in Weekly Shonen Jump in Issue #13 of 1984, and then four years later a third chapter would appear in Issue #6 of 1988; these three chapters would receive a tankouban release in 1993. Unlike Kurumada's usual stories, Raimei no Zaji was focused heavily on keeping Zaji himself a real mystery of a character, so much so that even Zaji didn't really remember much about himself (even questioning if he's just a cyborg at one point), giving the series a bit of a pulp-like feel; Zaji's design was also notably not just a direct variant of Ryuji Takane. After that, Kurumada wouldn't return to Raimei no Zaji for 26 years, before making an 8-page "special chapter", subtitled Haruka Kanata/Far Away, for the launch of Akita Shoten's online Champion Cross (now Manga Cross) in 2014, though it did little to advance the plot in any way; Kurumada promised that "Zaji will be back!!" at the end, but hasn't done anything since. Bringing things back to 1984, Masami Kurumada would finally return to Weekly Shonen Jump proper in the middle of the year... and this time he finally felt ready to truly make the manga he always wanted to make.

Up to this point, Masami Kurumada would admit that he had only ever considered himself a "mangaya/manga drawer", rather than a true "mangaka/manga artist", despite the massive success he had already achieved with Ring ni Kakero (&, to a lesser extent, Fuma no Kojirou). However, from the very start of his career in manga, Kurumada had in fact been planning out a series, one that would truly make him feel like a proper "mangaka" & showcase the kind of storyteller he wanted to be, while also paying respect to the man who inspired him to enter manga, Hiroshi Motomiya. Maybe his father's passing made him realize that he shouldn't wait any longer, and maybe it was also to celebrate the 10th Annviersary of his debut with Sukeban Arashi (minus one issue), but Issue #32 of 1984 saw the debut of Otoko Zaka/Man's Hill, the manga that Masami Kurumada would essentially deem to be his magnum opus. The story was about Jingi Kikukawa, a teenager who was undefeated in fights his entire life... until he encounters Sho Takeshima, the "Don" of Western Japan's young gangs who gives Jingi his first loss, before heading over to New York to join the Junior World Connection, an international cadre of Dons. Jingi decides to become stronger so that he can defeat Sho when he returns, only for him to wind up becoming the "General" of Central Japan's gangs & later needing to unite all of Japan's regional gangs together under his leadership, as the JWC plan to invade & take control of Japan for themselves (all without Sho's knowledge, of course). As mentioned, Kurumada made Otoko Zaka to act as a giant homage to Motomiya's Otoko Ippiki Gaki Daisho, which by this point was recognized as Jump's first true hit manga & had even received a two-part revival a year prior in 1983, for Jump's 15th Anniversary. Jingi himself was modeled after Gaki Daisho's lead Mankichi Togawa, while other characters were directly inspired by Mankichi's crew (Wolf Akagi=Ginji Kubo, Tokichi Kuroda=Tetsuji Tsunamura, etc.), and the action & methodology driving the manga itself had almost none of the spectacle that Kurumada had established via Ring ni Kakero & Fuma no Kojirou, instead following the ethos of Gaki Daisho & other manga of that time, i.e. the late 60s & early 70s; this was "oldest-school" storytelling, pure & simple.

Unfortunately for Kurumada, the era of Shonen Jump that Otoko Zaka was debuting in was one that was very different from the era that Otoko Ippiki Gaki Daisho ran in... and the man arguably most behind that change was Masami Kurumada himself. In taking influence from Team Astro, Kurumada had more or less changed the way action manga were made with Ring ni Kakero, and even by 1984 numerous hit manga within that same magazine had followed its lead & reinforced it, such as Captain Tsubasa & Kinnikuman. In fact, right as Fuma no Kojirou was nearing its early end a series called Fist of the North Star would debut, which completely removed any & all pretense of sports and instead told a "pure" action-focused story, later being recognized as the manga that started the "Golden Age of Jump". Otoko Zaka was debuting in this "post-Fist" world of Jump, and with that any interest in the old way of doing action manga was more or less dead in the water; it certainly also didn't help that Dragon Ball would debut during Otoko Zaka's run. While Shueisha did give Kurumada special treatment to the extent it could, like letting the first three chapters open their respective issues of Jump with full-color opening pages & keeping its "placement" in the Table of Contents rather high for as long as it could reasonably do, eventually the writing was on the wall & unavoidable: Readers didn't care about Otoko Zaka. After 22 issues the manga suddenly dropped to the back half of Jump, where most series went to slowly die out, and would eventually see its last chapter in Issue #12 of 1985, ending after 30 weekly chapters across three volumes.

However, Kurumada would not simply accept being told that his magnum opus, the title that he had wanted to make the most since entering the manga industry, the manga that finally made him feel comfortable to call himself a "mangaka", was coming to an end when he had only really gotten it started. Therefore, in that "final" chapter's last pages, a two-page splash showing Jingi figuratively running up the "Never Ending & Distant Man's Hill", Kurumada refused to use the kanji 完/kan, or "The End/Complete", & instead used the kanji 未完/mikan, or "Incomplete". It was an act of utter defiance & showcased just what Kurumada was allowed to get away with due to what he had done for Jump, and this would instantly make Otoko Zaka a legend amongst notorious non-endings seen in manga. The final image would go on to be referenced & parodied by various other people, including other mangaka, in the decades since, while the concept of acknowledging a manga being incomplete would occasionally be snuck in for other cancelled manga, most notably in Shaman King, where Hiroyuki Takei included a mandarin orange in the (original) final page; in Japanese a mandarin is a "mikan". Still, Kurumada was more than likely feeling deflated after this, as this was the manga he had always wanted to do, and now he was told to stop making it because the readers themselves weren't interested in it.

Therefore, Masami Kurumada decided to, in a sense, get revenge on the readers... by making a manga that he knew the readers would want to read.

Spending the rest of 1985 to conceive of this next serialization, Kurumada first considered making a wrestling manga, before considering a karate or judo manga, but eventually decided to make it more of a generalized action series. However, as the main focus of this new manga was to appeal to a "mainstream" audience he wanted there to be an aspect of "fashion" to it, so he decided to give every one stylized armors to give it a cool look, and it'd wind up working well with his decision to add in a heavy Greek mythology & constellation influence. Originally given the working title of "Ginga no Rin/Rin of the Galaxy", Combined Issue #1-2 of 1986 saw the debut of Saint Seiya, the story of Pegasus Seiya, one of the Bronze Saints who fight for the Greek goddess Athena & winds up teaming with four of his brothers in arms (Dragon Shiryu, Cygnus Hyoga, Andromeda Shun, & Phoenix Ikki) to protect both Athena & the world itself from evil forces, even if that includes needing to fight against their fellow Saints or even the Gods of the Greek Pantheon. Since the primary goal for Kurumada was to create something that would appeal to as many readers as possible, Saint Seiya did admittedly have a rough start, as while Seiya was naturally the main character the remainder of the "five man band" that comprised the overall main cast was actually not set in stone before the series debuted. Instead, Kurumada decided to start things off with a tournament arc so that he could introduce a bunch of potential Bronze Saints & pretty much let the readers decide who would be chosen to fight alongside Seiya as the plot went on via reader surveys! This did initially potentially backfire & saw the manga start to dip into the back half, but once Kurumada introduced the idea of the Silver Saints, the hierarchy above the Bronzes, the manga would quickly find itself a resurgence in popularity, resulting in Saint Seiya easily becoming one of the Top 3 series in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1987 through 1989, especially once the Gold Saints, the highest hierarchy of all, were properly introduced.

As for the storytelling itself of Saint Seiya, what was most interesting about it was that a lot of elements that Kurumada used were simply taken from his prior hit manga, i.e. Ring ni Kakero & Fuma no Kojirou. Likely knowing that most people reading Jump at this point had likely only heard of those two manga but had not read them, Kurumada sometimes treated Saint Seiya as his way of taking the Osamu Tezuka Star System, in which character designs are reutilized in multiple manga as though they were recurring actors (something that Kurumada had already been using heavily, hence why most of his main characters look like Ryuji Takane, to some extent), but now using it for more than just character designs. For example, Capricorn Shura is a Gold Saint who wields the power of Excalibur in his right arm... similar to that of Shura from Fuma no Kojirou, a Chaos Warrior who wields a Sacred Sword, in this case Genmu Hishouken/Flying Ice Vision Sword. Elsewhere, the very concept of "Cosmo", the power within every living being that Saints (& the equivalents for their foes) can make use of to fight, shares its name with the side that Kojirou & his friends fought for in the Sacred Sword War. Likewise, Ring ni Kakero first utilized the concept of Greek mythology via the Twelve Gods of Greece, a group of junior boxers who act as avatars of the deities & legendary figures they are named after, while one of Saint Seiya's most popular special attacks, Leo Aiolia's Lightning Plasma, was first used as the name of the superblow for one of the Twelve Gods, Venus (yes, that's a Roman god; Kurumada mixed things up). However, this shouldn't be looked at as laziness, but rather a reminder that there's always a new generation of readers, so while long-terms fans of Kurumada's works would notice the callbacks to prior works, they're essentially brand new to everyone else who's reading; the fact that they're still (mostly) different from their source names was also cool.

Without delaying the point, Saint Seiya would go on to become Masami Kurumada's most iconic manga in his entire catalog, selling over 50 million copies worldwide as of 2022; notice the word "worldwide". Yes, this would be the very first Kurumada work to ever see release outside of Japan, though in this case it was first via the 1986-1989 TV anime adaptation by Toei Animation (which debuted before the manga was even a year old), the first time a Kurumada manga was ever adapted into animation, starting with France in 1988; this is where the alternate name Knights of the Zodiac came from, as in France it was called Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque. The mixture of hot-blooded action, a passionate cast in their convictions, interesting visual aesthetic (which naturally made for obvious toys), & even the ability for it to appeal to female audiences due to the very "bishonen" art style (which, in turn, would help popularize the term "yaoi" via doujinshi that were made at the time) all helped make Saint Seiya a massive success around the world (except for "North of Mexico", which didn't receive it all until 2003 & has had a rocky release history, to put it lightly), but even that wasn't enough to stave off eventual drop in interest during its run in Jump. Meanwhile, the Saint Seiya anime ended in 1989 after 144 episodes & four movies, though Movic/Animate & CBS/Sony Group (now Aniplex) took advantage of that momentum to produce a trio of Fuma no Kojirou OVAs that adapted the entire manga up through 1992. Once 1990 hit the manga started to slowly find its way deeper & deeper into each issue, & in the end Saint Seiya would see its last chapter in Weekly Shonen Jump in Issue #49 of that year, though the actual final chapter would appear in the December issue of V Jump shortly afterwards; the final tally was 246 weekly chapters (plus that finale in V Jump) across 28 volumes, making it Kurumada's longest single series to date. While Fuma no Kojirou had ended early of Kurumada's own accord, Saint Seiya was definitely cancelled, as though the final story arc, the Hades Chapter, did give the manga a "proper" ending it definitely did feel a bit rushed in its last couple of volumes. Regardless, Saint Seiya would go on to be regarded as a highly influential & iconic manga from the Golden Age of Jump, with various later mangaka citing it as an inspiration to them, such as Tite Kubo & the CLAMP collective, similar to what Ring ni Kakero did for people like Takehiko Inoue & Yun Kouga. In fact, when you look at the actual publication dates (or thereabouts, at least), it can be argued that much of Dragon Ball's most iconic portion (i.e. the story arcs that what would be adapted to anime as Dragon Ball Z) was itself influenced by Saint Seiya, despite the manga as a whole debuting prior to it, like the Bronze Saints having a power up that gives them a golden sheen predating Goku going Super Saiyan by a couple of years; again, we already know that Toriyama was a fan of Kurumada.

Still, Saint Seiya was over, cancelled before Kurumada could have Seiya & crew encounter Zeus himself, which seemed to be eventual plan. Little did anyone know, though, that this would be the beginning of the end of Masami Kurumada's time with Weekly Shonen Jump... 

Before the end came, though, Kurumada did produce a pair of chapters that were seemingly meant to act as an "overture" to a possible new serialization, if the readers were interested. In the 1991 Spring Special of Shonen Jump was, at first, a one-shot titled Aoi Tori no Shinwa/Myth of the Blue Bird, which was about Aoi Tendo, a high school pitcher who wishes to strike out Shingo Ouki, who once hit 24 consecutive home runs at Koshien, the last of which was against Aoi's older brother, who died of cancer not long later. To help him with this goal a boy named Ai offers to be his catcher, despite having no experience with baseball & (unbeknownst to Aoi) having only one year left to live, as Aoi's pitches remind Ai of the legendary bluebird that brings happiness, which inspires him. Then, a little less than a year later, a second chapter of Aoi Tori no Shinwa appeared in early 1992 via that year's Winter Special, which saw Aoi & Ai learning how to throw a forkball to challenge Shingo's brother Ryugo, only for Aoi's forkball to do the impossible & zig-zag back & forth while in the air like a lightning bolt, giving it the name the Thunderball. It's very easy to see that this was Masami Kurumada paying direct homage to Team Astro, just like how Ring ni Kakero paid direct homage to Ashita no Joe, but unfortunately these two chapters were all that ever came out for Aoi Tori no Shinwa, so it's more than likely that readers just weren't interested in seeing Masami Kurumada tackle baseball. In fact, Aoi Tori no Shinwa wouldn't even receive a tankouban release until 1998!

At this point things tend to enter a bit of hearsay, speculation, & rumor as it's sometimes stated that what Kurumada did next was due to Shueisha requesting that he simply recreate the magic that made Saint Seiya a success, despite Shueisha having cancelled that manga two years prior. That being said, this tends to ignore Aoi Tori no Shinwa's very existence & acts as though Kurumada went directly from Saint Seiya to his next serialization. Regardless, Masami Kurumada's next "major" work would try to replicate what he saw so much success with, but with some changes to the aesthetics & concepts. Unfortunately, this next series would also wind up being the end of an era...

Debuting in Issue #35 of 1992, Silent Knight Sho told the tale of the titular junior high student who winds up finding himself getting involved in the battles against Neo Society, an mysterious organization comprised of humans who through "evolution" can access immense power & armor based on their own individual "roots" (i.e. various creatures & mythical beings), and now wish to eliminate the portion of humanity that have not figured out how to evolve. To combat them Sho realizes that his pet falcon Piitan is actually his own root, and upon Piitan's death "evolves" into a Silent Knight, which Neo Society considers the lowest class of evolved human, even below a lowly Pawn. Without a doubt, a lot of Silent Knight Sho was based on what made Saint Seiya unique, whether it was the basic concept of warriors clad in armor (only now called "Shelter" instead of "Cloth", & based on things like falcons, fairies, spiders, & even dinosaurs), the idea of said warriors being special & able to access powers that most humans couldn't ("evolution" vs. "cosmo"), and even the hierarchy found within Neo Society, though now it was based on chess pieces (Silent Knight, Midknight, Holy Knight, Pawn, Bishop, Sister, & Rook) rather than metal rank as determined by the Ages of Man. For all intents & purposes, Silent Knight Sho was simply Saint Seiya with a new coat of paint, though some would argue that Sho's Shelter designs were much more elaborate & detailed than any of the Cloths, Scales, & Surplices seen in Seiya. However, there's no doubt that the sheer similarity between the two series did more harm than good, as after a mere 13 weekly chapters Silent Knight Sho came to an early end via cancellation in Issue #48 of 1992, totaling two volumes; even Sukeban Arashi lasted longer.

However, unlike what had happened with Otoko Zaka, Masami Kurumada wasn't intent with simply calling Silent Knight Sho "incomplete". No, after what was now his third serialization in a row being cancelled within around eight years, Kurumada was seemingly fed up with Weekly Shonen Jump. On the final page of Sho's final chapter, one in which Sho himself defiantly stated how he'll continue fighting to protect his life... Kurumada sarcastically plastered "NEVER END" at the very bottom; the Volume 2 tankouban would move NEVER END to its own two-page splash, for added emphasis. Whereas Otoko Zaka was something that Masami Kurumada wanted to define his entire career in manga with, Silent Knight Sho was seemingly a series he made in an attempt to recreate the success he had with Saint Seiya, possibly re-enforcing the belief some had that it was Shueisha's idea in the first place... and now it was the quickest cancellation he ever had. There was no "Incomplete" this time around, defiantly telling everyone (both readers & Shueisha) that he refused to acknowledge that it was over. This time around, Kurumada was being defiant in another way, one that outright saw him telling everyone that this story will never properly come to a conclusion; while not quite as legendary as "Incomplete", NEVER END has been referenced once in a while by other people's works, as well. After thanking those who stuck with the series, Volume 2 of Silent Knight Sho ended with Kurumada literally saying "Good Bye", because this would be the last manga he would ever make for Weekly Shonen Jump, ending a roughly 18-year run with the magazine, one that saw him revolutionize action manga via a "bible" that's still followed to this day, before seeing even more success with a series that got him worldwide recognition, only for it all to end with what seemed to be a knock-off that might have been requested by the very same people who forced Kurumada to end the series that they wanted imitated.

However, this didn't quite mark the end of Masami Kurumada's time with Shueisha, at least not yet.

Despite being through with Shonen Jump, Kurumada was still willing to work with Shueisha to some extent, and for this next work he decided to aim for an older audience by making a seinen manga. Debuting in Issue #13 of 1993 in (the now defunct) Super Jump magazine, Akane-Iro no Kaze -Shinsengumi Keppu-ki-/Crimson Wind -The Shinsengumi's Bloody Wind Chronicles- told the story of Okita Soji, a member of the Tennen Rishin-ryu's Shieikan dojo in Tama, Bushu (now Musashi Province) who would later join some of his fellow dojomates, namely Hijikata Toshizo & leader Kondo Isami, in forming the group that would later become the legendary Shinsengumi; notably, Okita was the rare Kurumada main character who wasn't "played" by Ryuji Takane. A piece of historical fiction, Akane-Iro no Kaze wasn't afraid of sometimes playing up some of the rumors behind these real life people, like having Okita actually wield the katana Kiku-ichimonji (which is believed to not be true), & even the subtitle of the manga was likely a reference to long-running jidaigeki Shinsengumi Keppuroku. In fact, even most Japanese sources (including Wikipedia) actually get the subtitle wrong, using the kanji "血風録/Keppuroku" or "血風記録/Keppu Kiroku", despite the manga itself using the kanji "血風記/Keppu-ki"; Kurumada likely couldn't use the name of an actual TV show for the subtitle. Despite Super Jump being a biweekly magazine, Akane-Iro no Kaze ran irregularly, only ever seeing six chapters published until Issue #22 of 1994, upon which it seemed to end; while it doesn't seem to have been outright cancelled, the collected release in 1995 (a wideban) did call itself "Volume 1".

Akane-Iro no Kaze would be the last new manga Masami Kurumada would publish with Shueisha for close to six years, though Saint Seiya did receive an aizouban re-release between 1995 & 1996, while Ring ni Kakero would receive a bunkoban re-release between 1998 & 1999, both via Shueisha. Instead, Kurumada would go elsewhere for his next serialization, where he'd be the star pickup for a newly debuting magazine.

To go over what led to the creation of Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Shonen Ace magazine would require an entirely separate piece (which, luckily enough, you can read via this link!), but for the purposes of this overview the main thing was this: Newly-appointed president Tsugihiko Kadokawa wanted a major name for the new manga magazine he was launching, and Masami Kurumada was ready to just be done with Shueisha, at least for the time being. The end result of this was B't X (pronounced "Beat X"), which was the lead series for the very first issue of Shonen Ace in late 1994, just in time to technically be Kurumada's 20th Anniversary work. The series followed Teppei Takamiya, the younger brother of science prodigy Kotaro, as he finally reunites with his brother after years of being apart... only for Kotaro to be kidnapped by the mysterious Machine Empire, an organization that has created an army of "B'ts", animal-themed robots with human-level intelligence & work in tandem with their "donors", right down to the two sharing the same blood. The Empire wants to use Kotaro's scientific expertise to finalize work on Raphaello, a monstrous B't that could be the savior of humanity & turn the Machine Emperor himself into a god... if not becoming the cause of humanity's very extinction. Luckily for Teppei, he was trained for this very moment by Karen, a former Spirit General/Spiritual Guardian (depending on the translation) for the Empire who found out firsthand how demonic Raphaello & the Emperor really were & managed to escape, coming across Teppei & getting him ready for the day Kotaro gets kidnapped. Shortly after managing to hitch a ride to The Area, the Empire's secret base in the Gobi Desert, Teppei accidentally manages to revive X, the B't that used to work alongside Karen (& had sacrificed himself to allow Karen to escape), since Teppei's own life was saved via blood transfusion from Karen.

On the surface level B't X seemed very similar to Saint Seiya, namely in that the entire manga was focused around one giant rescue arc, with Teppei & X needing to take on various forces of the Machine Empire (first Point Guards, followed later by the Seven Demon Generals) along the way, just like how the Bronze Saints continually had to rescue Athena from danger by making their way through enemy territory & defeating foes along the way; also, Teppei would don "Battle Gear", which was similar to a Cloth. However, now fully unshackled from the Shonen Jump formula, Masami Kurumada used that surface level similarity to actually address a lot of what his prior success stories were focused on, to the point where one could possibly consider B't X a deconstruction of Kurumada's own style. His hit manga in Jump all featured characters who were willing to push themselves beyond their limits to succeed, even if that meant death, since they were at least dying for their convictions. B't X, though, showcased the flaws in that way of thinking, first in seeing Teppei initially treat X as mostly a battle chariot & not a living being, which was another thematic element regarding the B'ts themselves. This was followed by later emphasizing the tragedy of war & death, to the point where none of the main cast actually wanted to die in battle, resulting in later fights sometimes not involving any traditional combat. Similarly, Kurumada directly addressed the common trope of "defeat=friendship", as Teppei never actually defeats any of the characters who wind up joining his side, namely Foh Rafine, Lon/Ron, & Hokuto, i.e. the remaining Spirit Generals. Rather, it's Teppei's undying will to save Kotaro, his "radiance" (as the Sun winds up being a major thematic point), that slowly encourages them to mutiny against their Emperor & side with Teppei, despite him either losing or (at best) coming to a draw against them in battle. Likewise, Kotaro himself is not a mere damsel in distress equivalent, but rather uses his brain to figure out Raphaello's weakness, even when he's cast down into an inescapable underground prison for refusing to help, which in turn inspires others to assist him.

In the end, B't X would go on to be a tentpole series for Shonen Ace during the 90s, and in a magazine mostly known for its anime tie-ins (Crossbone Gundam, Macross 7 Trash, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Escaflowne, etc.) it was nothing like those & essentially defined Masami Kurumada's career for the decade. B't X would eventually see a TV anime adaptation in 1996, this time via TMS & featuring a bit of an all-star voice cast, which would end after 25 episodes, but in 1997 an OVA continuation titled B't X Neo would start coming out that added another 14 episodes & would deliver an original ending, as the manga was still running by this point. That being said, though, B't X Neo & the manga would feature very similar plot beats for their respective endgames, so either Kurumada let the staff at TMS know what his plans were, or Kurumada might have been inspired somewhat by the OVA. Regardless, B't X would eventually come to an end in the Feburary 2000 issue of Shonen Ace, totaling 63 chapters across 16 volumes, and unlike with Saint Seiya Kurumada was able to fully make the entire story he had planned to tell. B't X would also see released abroad, including an English release by TokyoPop that was announced shortly after DiC announced that it had licensed the Saint Seiya anime (&, in turn, that Viz would release the manga). It's entirely possible that it was pure coincidence, but it's also likely that TokyoPop managed to hear early word of DiC getting Seiya, so they grabbed B't X in an attempt to ride any potential momentum; spoilers: the B't X manga utterly bombed in English, just like Saint Seiya did for Viz. The B't X anime would also see official English release, but it involved a horribly handled (& unfinished) initial release by Illumitoon Entertainment before Anime Midstream managed to give it a proper (& complete) release in 2018 & 2019. Though Saint Seiya is the most popular of Kurumada's work by a large margin, there are some who would argue that B't X is the strongest overall series in his entire catalog, if not at least the strongest overall narrative.

Since he was now free from being exclusive to Shueisha, Masami Kurumada didn't just make B't X for Kadokawa Shoten, though that was his only long-running serialization. In early 1996 he worked with Enix to publish a short, two-part story in the pages of Monthly Shonen Gangan, resulting in Evil Crusher Maya. Appearing in the February & March issues of that year, the short told the story of Maya, a young man from the "Land of Dark Night" who protects humanity from demonic creatures called "Evils". This particular tale, subtitled Emiria no Kyoukai/Emiria's Church, saw Maya come to a town that is run by Emiria, a seeming holy man who once saved the town from disease only to now ask for young girls to be delivered to him, or else he wouldn't protect the populace from harm, but now there's been no word from the girls sent to him so there's worry that Emiria might be working with Evils. While there were, once again, some similar elements as seen in Saint Seiya (with even one of the Evils wearing a Cloth-like armor), Evil Crusher Maya still managed to feel unique enough with its concept & execution to give it its own style; Maya's specialty being arrows that he can fire from an expanding bracelet/bow certainly helped, as well. Also unique to Evil Crusher Maya was that, unlike Raimei no Zaji, Aoi Tori no Shinwa, or even Akane-Iro no Kaze, it was a fully self-contained story, as while there were elements that obviously could have been expanded on with future stories, the two chapters serialized in Shonen Gangan told a complete tale. In this writer's opinion, Evil Crusher Maya was the strongest of Kurumada's short works up to this point, and of them all is the one that really should be revived in some way. It'd receive a tankouban release in 1998, though published by Home-Sha (a division of Shueisha), and on December 12, 2001 Shueisha would release a pair of bunkoban titled Never End Heroes, which collected Kurumada's four short works together in pairs; Volume 1 was "Raimei no Zaji with Aoi Tori no Shinwa", while Volume 2 was "Akane-Iro no Kaze with Evil Crusher Maya".

After finishing B't X, Masami Kurumada had a short period in 2000 where he didn't have any manga currently in production, the last time he'd be in such a situation as of present, but after being away from Shueisha for the past six years (Saint Seiya aizouban, Ring ni Kakero bunkoban & Evil Crusher Maya tankouban releases notwithstanding) he felt it was time for him to return to making new manga with the publisher he made his name with... and he decided to return with something he had never done before: A sequel. While he wouldn't return to Shonen Jump, Kurumada did make his return to Super Jump with Ring ni Kakero 2/Put It All in the Ring 2, which debuted in Issue #4 of 2000. To put it simply, Masami Kurumada wasn't really a mangaka who told stories that were really sequel friendly, as when given the opportunity to tell a story to proper completion (Ring ni Kakero, Fuma no Kojirou, B't X, & even Evil Crusher Maya) he tended to give them very definitive finales, i.e. major characters (if not the leads themselves) are dead. However, two years prior Kurumada's friends Yudetamago (the duo that created Kinnikuman) debuted Kinnikuman II-Sei (a.k.a. Ultimate Muscle), which starred the children & students of the original cast & quickly became a smash hit, later inspring a sequel manga boom focused on next-generation casts. Kurumada decided to go with that angle for Ring ni Kakero 2, having it star Rindo Kenzaki, the son of the original series' Jun Kenzaki & Kiku Takane (who slowly revealed their feelings for each other as that story went on) & nephew of Ryuji Takane. While Rindo would be the primary lead character there were other offspring of the old cast that also saw heavy focus, namely Iori Shinatora (son of Kazuki), Ran Shadow (son of Shadow Sousui, a former rival of Golden Japan Jr.'s), & Kyou Kawai (nephew of Takeshi). Naturally, these new characters would interact with & fight the children of the World Rivals from the original series, while the surviving cast of Ring ni Kakero would appear in supporting roles, like Ishimatsu now being Rindo's surrogate father figure... because Kenzaki, Kiku, & even Ryuji were all dead before the beginning of the manga.

That's the thing about Ring ni Kakero 2: Despite generally being more willing to be comical & light-hearted (Rindo tended to be more relaxed a character than both his father & uncle), this sequel showed no hesitation in deglorifying the original series' entire cast. Where a series like Kinnikuman II-Sei tended to showcase the "Legends" as simply having aged, sometimes for a gag, Ring ni Kakero 2 often portrayed the prior generation as now being broken & damaged, generally physically (to emphasize how intense their fights were back in the day) but also sometimes psychologically. Not just that, but Kurumada also didn't hold back in even killing off some of the old cast when appropriate, usually because their bodies just finally gave out from the damage they had accumulated decades prior. Likewise, while Rindo & his friends carried on their predecessors' legacies by way of inheriting & learning superblows & fighting styles (sometimes even improving on them), they all eventually came to the same conclusion: They live their own lives & they shouldn't let what came before them define who they will go on to be. By this point in Kurumada's career he had been making manga for over 25 years, and it looked as though he truly wanted to showcase that he wasn't content with simply relying on what worked back in the day, but instead wanted to show that he had evolved, while still giving readers the overall style they had come to know him for. This manga also marked the start of Kurumada's modern art style, which is visibly different in some ways from the style he was most well known for during the 80s & 90s; the latter part of B't X was where he first showed the change, but it was more pronounced here. If B't X was a deconstruction of the kind of action manga that Kurumada had made for Shonen Jump, then Ring ni Kakero 2 was Kurumada directly addressing the idea of rose-tinted nostalgia for the old days. Just like Akane-Iro no Kaze, Ring ni Kakero 2 would end up running irregularly in Super Jump until Issue #24 of 2008, where it ended after 206 chapters across 26 volumes, his second-longest single series to date; however, collectively the entire Ring ni Kakero duology remains Kurumada's longest overall series, at 51 volumes.

Masami Kurumada's return to Shueisha also brought with it a revitalization of him, as a brand. While Ring ni Kakero 2 was being serialized Shueisha would also give Ring ni Kakero a new "Deluxe Edition" release between 2001 & 2002, now under the title Ring ni Kakero 1 (complete with a new logo based on the sequel's), and Kurumada took this opportunity to fine-tune his first hit manga, fixing up the dialogue, giving some characters & items new names so as to avoid referencing real life people & products (so that he could later reference them in Ring ni Kakero 2), some minor artwork updates, & removing sections of the early story (including a handful of entire chapters) so that the plot can move on to the "main" portion quicker & more succinctly (like removing all of Rock-san's pro journey), effectively creating a "Director's Cut", of sorts, that's now pretty much the canon version of the manga; Kurumada even technically considers this its own overall series, listing it separately from the original version. When Ring ni Kakero 1 was released digitally in 2014 Kurumada even went through the trouble of removing all imagery of the Nazi Swastika, as he had used that imagery for Team Germany back in the day as an easy way to showcase them as "villains" (a common thing seen in manga at the time, to be fair), but felt that it deserved being updated/fixed for a more modern readership. Shueisha would also re-release B't X in bunkoban form in 2002 via Home-Sha (& today effectively has full licensing rights to the entire thing, including the anime), but the real revitalization came for Saint Seiya. In 2002 alone there was a new (non-canon) novel story written by Tatsuya Hamazaki in Saint Seiya: Gigantomachia, a new prequel manga starring a young Leo Aiolia by Megumu Okada (Shadow Skill) in Saint Seiya: Episode.G, and the return of the anime via the Saint Seiya Hades Sanctuary OVA series, which would finally start the adaptation the Hades Chapter. There was even a Fuma no Kojirou sequel, subtitled Yagyu Ansatsucho/The Yagyu Assassination Pledge, that debuted in 2003 & was drawn by Satoshi Yuri, but that went on indefinite hiatus in 2006 after three volumes & will never be finished.

This would all come to a head in 2004, which marked Masami Kurumada's 30th Anniversary & saw two anime productions to celebrate. The first was Saint Seiya: Tenkai-hen Jousou ~overture~/Saint Seiya: Heaven Chapter ~overture~, the fifth theatrically released movie for the franchise, but unlike the prior four films from the 80s (which were all non-canon standalone stories) this was actually intended to be the start of a full-on sequel to the original manga, detailing what happened after the Hades Chapter. To help promote it, Kurumada himself drew Saint Seiya: Tenkai-hen Jousou ~overture~ introduction, a 10-page full-color short that appeared in Issue #4 of Super Jump that year (alongside Chapter 97 of Ring ni Kakero 2) that simply acted as a quick teaser for the film; it was also included in the 2004 art book Sora - Saint Seiya: Masami Kurumada Illustrations. The other half of the 30th Anniversary anime productions was a TV anime adaptation of Ring ni Kakero 1, which mostly skipped over the early portion of the manga (though covering the most important moments via flashbacks) so that it could start at the "main" portion of the manga; i.e. the point where the rest of Golden Japan Jr. were introduced. It'd eventually receive a total of four seasons, comprised of 36 episodes that adapt up through the World Tournament (leaving the last three story arcs unadapted), that were made through 2011; as of this overview it's the last manga of Kurumada's to ever receive an anime adaptation.

Unfortunately, the Saint Seiya: Tenkai-hen movie would apparently wind up not pleasing Masami Kurumada, diverging too much from the plans he had for the next part of the overall Saint Seiya story. This would result in various changes to both the staff & even voice cast for the remainder of the Saint Seiya Hades OVAs throughout the 00s, but this overview is about Kurumada's manga catalog & he would decide to continue the story on his own.

Masami Kurumada would get the chance to finally make the canon Saint Seiya sequel he had wanted to do in 2006 with Saint Seiya: Next Dimension - Meio Shinwa/Myth of Hades, which debuted in Combined Issue #36-37 of Akita Shoten's Weekly Shonen Champion (the same publisher putting out Episode.G & Yagyu Ansatsucho) & was originally made concurrently with Ring ni Kakero 2 for Shueisha. With Seiya incapacitated following the events of the Hades Chapter, Athena & Shun (later joined by Hyoga, Shiryu, & Ikku) find a way to go back in time 200 years, to the prior war between Athena & Hades, in an attempt to save Seiya in the present... only for Athena to reincarnate as a baby & requiring Shun and Co., alongside newcomer Tenma (the Pegasus Saint of that era), to make their way up the Twelve Temples of Sanctuary again & deal with a new cadre of Gold Saints. Things only got more complicated later on when the long forgotten 13th Gold Saint Ophiuchus Odysseus is resurrected in the past. Next Dimension's debut was considered a major deal upon launch, with Akita Shoten initially serializing the entire thing in full-color (this would later be dropped, though the collected tankouban are still in full-color), but even from the synopsis it's plain to see that, unlike Ring ni Kakero 2, the Saint Seiya sequel seemed to come off a little like an old, iconic band reuniting to play its greatest hits for the nostalgic pop. Now, to be fair, considering the fact that it involves time travel shenanigans one can make the argument that Kurumada's going for a "time is cyclical" concept, but when compared to the sequel to his other big hit being all about directly addressing nostalgia it did make Next Dimension feel like a "safe" follow-up; that being said, every volume of Next Dimension has sold very well upon release, so fair play.

However, things got a little awkward when, just two issues later, Weekly Shonen Champion would debut ANOTHER series, Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas - Meio Shinwa, in Issue #39. Drawn by Shiori Teshirogi, the seeming original plan was for Lost Canvas to tell an alternate take of the same story as Next Dimension, this time from the perspective of Pegasus Tenma & his two childhood friends Sasha (the past reincarnation of Athena) & Alone (the past reincarnation of Hades), but by the time these two manga both debuted it was decided that Lost Canvas would instead be a non-canon, alternate universe story that simply showed the events of the prior war between Athena & Hades. While Lost Canvas would appear weekly & become a massive hit (running for 25 volumes, getting a 16-volume side story series, & even a two-season OVA adaptation by TMS), Next Dimension very quickly entered heavily irregular serialization, even after Ring ni Kakero 2 ended, and as of this overview is still being made, though from all indications looks to truly (finally) be ending soon as part of Kurumada's 50th Anniversary celebration, possibly totaling 16 volumes & around 120 chapters, more or less.

After Ring ni Kakero 2 finished up in 2008, Saint Seiya: Next Dimension was really all that Masami Kurumada would continue to make on & off for the next six years, until his 40th Anniversary came in 2014; there were also more Saint Seiya spin-offs during this time, namely 2012's Saint Seiya Omega (an alternate universe next-gen sequel anime by Toei) & 2013's Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho (a side story/midquel series starring Athena's all-female group of warriors, named Saintia; Seven Seas would release this officially in English). With his ruby anniversary coming, Kurumada decided to do something extremely unexpected to celebrate: Bring back Otoko Zaka. With it being nearly 30 years since its cancellation in 1985, Masami Kurumada was now in a position where he could essentially make whatever manga he wanted, especially since Saint Seiya (& its sequel & various spin-offs) were making more than enough money for him, so he was able to do something most mangaka could never do & bring a manga back from cancellation. So on June 9, 2014, Shueisha's Weekly PlayNews (the web-based version of Weekly Playboy magazine) put up the first new chapter of Otoko Zaka since early 1985, and via three collected runs (two in 2014 & one in 2016), the Weekly PlayNews run of Otoko Zaka would comprise Volumes 4 to 6, doubling the length of the manga. After that the series would move over to the web-based Shonen Jump+ in 2017, effectively bringing the manga back home after 32 years, where after another five collected runs (in 2017, 2018, two in 2020, & 2023) Masami Kurumada would finish his magnum opus, with the final chapter of the Shonen Jump+ run of Otoko Zaka (i.e. the true final chapter of the entire manga) appearing on November 11, 2023 (almost 40 years after the first chapter debuted in mid-1984), with this revival running for a total of 60 chapters; overall, Otoko Zaka would total 72 chapters (90, if you go off the original run's weekly chapter count) across 11 volumes. Finally, Otoko Zaka was "Incomplete" no more.

As for the story told in these two runs, the Weekly PlayNews run would detail Jingi's efforts to recruit three leaders of Japan's various regional gangs to his side (Ken Kamui from Hokkaido, "Julie of Hama" from Kanagawa, & Kyosuke Takasugi of Hagi), while the Shonen Jump+ run would detail the recruitment of the last two gang leaders (Ryoko Domoto of Shikoku & Daisaku Nango of Kyushu), followed by an assault on Sho Takeshima's homebase in Kyoto to truly unite all of Japan for the final part of the series, the "Sekigahara of the Showa Era" against the JWC itself. Most notably, though, Otoko Zaka's revival also showcased just how much Masami Kurumada had grown as a person, because while the original Shonen Jump run in the mid-80s was an absolute encapsulation of Kurumada's style at that time, these eight volumes were almost as much a response to that original ideal. In the first three volumes, Jingi was arguably the most pure distillation of Kurumada's old style, where characters would be willing to put everything into whatever they did, with Jingi even literally jumping off a cliff to prove how dedicated he was to training under a local legend, simply because said local legend told him to do so to prove that not even death scared him. In comparison, the Jingi of the later eight volumes had now become a much more reasonable & reflective young man, coming to realize that not everything needs to be resolved via conflict, though sometimes there really is no other option. For a man whose catalog was filled with action-packed titles where sacrifice was expected, the decades-long hiatus for Otoko Zaka wound up with it being transformed into a story that emphasized pacifism & figuring out how to resolve conflict without needlessly sacrificing people to achieve that goal. In that regard, it truly seemed like a continuation of how Kurumada had previously ended both B't X & Ring ni Kakero 2, and all three even included literal quotations of scripture or song espousing peace (either outward or personal) in their final volumes, namely "For Everything There is a Season" in B't X, "Amazing Grace" in Ring ni Kakero 2, & "Imagine" in Otoko Zaka. It makes one wonder if Kurumada always had this direction in mind for Otoko Zaka back when he debuted it in 1984, but today the series shows the evolution of the man himself over time.

However, reviving Otoko Zaka & continuing Saint Seiya: Next Dimension weren't all that Masami Kurumada had in mind for his 40th Anniversary celebration. 2014 would also see the debuts of both Kurumada Suikoden: Hero of Heroes by Yun Kouga (a crossover between Kurumada's various manga that remains unfinished after just one volume) & Saint Seiya: Episode.G Assassin by Megumu Okada (the sequel to the original spin-off series), as well the all-CG movie Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary, but the finale of Kurumada's 40th Anniversary celebration (despite debuting in the following year) would be Ai no Jidai -Ichigo Ichie-/Indigo Period -Once in a Lifetime-, which ran for a single volume betwee Issues #33 & 41 of Weekly Shonen Champion in 2015. Kurumada's first new work (that wasn't a sequel) since Evil Crusher Maya almost 20 years prior, Ai no Jidai was a piece of autobiographical fiction detailing the journey of Masami Higashida, a young man in the late 60/early 70s who comes across the manga Otoko Ippiki Gaki Daisho by Hiroshi Motomiya, which in turn inspires him to follow his childhood dream of being a mangaka, eventually getting his chance via Weekly Shonen Champion with a one-shot he comes up with titled Ring ni Hoero/Shout in the Ring. Obviously, this was designed to mimic the way Kurumada himself got into manga, though with obvious changes for artistic license, like Higashida failing to get into Jump & never becoming an assistant, instead going straight to making one-shots, though the inspiration itself was still Gaki Daisho (& some other titles that are directly referenced, too). Through Higashida, Kurumada essentially described his methodology behind the kind of manga he loves to make, including the idea that "manga is entertainment".

However, Kurumada also decided to have some fun at his own expense with Ai no Jidai, like having Higashida be forced to use the pen name "Masami Kurumada" due to a typographical error in the kanji, and the end result of all of this actually being the exact opposite of what would happen in real life, befitting the subtitle "Once in a Lifetime". Most amusingly, Higashida gets the inspiration to make Ring ni Hoero by literally seeing Ryuji & Kiku analogues do some training outside of their gym, though some changed kanji for the names of both Ryuji ("竜次" instead of"竜児") & the gym ("Komura" instead of "Omura") prevent Ai no Jidai from literally taking place in the Ring ni Kakero universe. Kurumada also added in some bonus character drama, namely in regards to Higashida's two best friends, one of which becoming deathly ill & the other becoming a member of the local yakuza, in imitation to the Ken Takakura films they all loved to see in the theater. In a career known mainly for hot-blooded action manga, with the occasional bit of comedy here & there, Ai no Jidai was almost unlike anything else in Masami Kurumada's catalog, making it truly unique. In terms of anime 2015 also saw the initial streaming debut of Saint Seiya ~soul of gold~, a midquel starring the Gold Saints, though its canonicity is vague due to it also acting as a sequel to the anime-only Asgard Chapter.

It's at this point that the overview kind of goes into a trend towards short runs, instead of anything "major", since Masami Kurumada was still doing the occasional run of either Saint Seiya: Next Dimension or Otoko Zaka up through 2023. Kurumada would make a trio of Saint Seiya prequel/midquel short series (no more than three chapters, max), 2018's Saint Seiya: Episode Zero, 2019's Saint Seiya: Origin, & 2020's Saint Seiya: Destiny, each of which acting as a prologue to the first two story arcs of the original manga, the Sanctuary Chapter & Poseidon Chapter; it's within reason to believe a prologue short series will eventually be made for the Hades Chapter. These were seemingly made for a new re-release of Saint Seiya, deemed the "Final Edition" that's published by Akita Shoten (& is currently coming out in chunks), but as of this overview only Episode Zero has so far been collected alongside the original series, appearing in Volume 1. 2018 would also see a 10-episode anime adaptation of Saint Seiya: Saintia Sho, which was produced by Toei but animated primarily by Gonzo. Then, in late 2019, Masami Kurumada brought back Fuma no Kojirou for the first time since Yagyu Ansatsucho, though this time doing the art himself, for Fuma no Kojirou: Jou no Maki/Prologue Chapter, a three-chapter prequel story which, just like the Saint Seiya shorts, was made to go with a new release for the original series, titled the Kyukyoku Saishuban/Ultimate Final Edition, which was published by Shogakukan Creative & collected across three thick tomes the entire manga (with all of the original color pages & promotional text from the original magazine serialization maintained), Jou no Maki, & even a brand new & exclusive Itsu no Maki: Kaze no Yukue/Epilogue Chapter: Whereabouts of the Wind, 12-page epilogue that gave the original series a more fitting farewell than the sudden one it originally had back in late 1983. 2019 also saw the debut of Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac, an all-CG reboot of the original manga written by an American staff (resulting in a... "mixed" reception, to put it politely) that is still coming out in season chunks; currently there are two 12-episode seasons out, with a third season on the way. Then, 2022 saw the debut of Saint Seiya: Meio Iden/A Different Tale of Hades - Dark Wing in Champion Red, a new spin-off by Kenji Saito (story) & Shinshu Ueda (art) about a young man who finds himself in the Underworld & is told that he has been chosen to be the new Wyvern Specter, one of Hades' 108 Specters & specifically one of the three Judges of the Underworld.

This brings us to the present time, with the two most recent works from Masami Kurumada both first appearing in 2022, at least sort of. Due to how monthly magazine issues are always two months ahead of their actual release date, the one-shot Seiya ni Kane wa Naru/The Bell Tolls on the Holy Night technically appeared in December 2019, but the issue itself was the February 2022 issue of Champion Red magazine, the home of the original Episode.G, Saintia Sho, & Kurumada Suikoden. Despite what it reads in romanized lettering this was not related to Saint Seiya (in this case it's 聖夜, i.e. "Holy Night" or Christmas Eve, not 星矢), but rather was a Christmas-themed story about a couple coming across an old man (with possible yakuza connections) in front of a church where the bells don't ring to celebrate the holiday season. This would mark the first true one-shot (i.e. no more than a single chapter) from Kurumada since Shiro-Obi Taisho back in 1979, 40 years prior, and seemingly to celebrate the entire thing was published in full-color; as of yet this has not been collected in a book, so it can only be read via the February 2022 issue of Champion Red. According to reports when it was first announced, Seiya ni Kane wa Naru was a story that Kurumada had wanted to tell for a long time & eschewed his penchant for wild action by instead being 100% character drama. 

As for the other 2022 debut, this one would be more than just a one-shot. Seemingly made to celebrate Fuma no Kojirou's 40th Anniversary, Masami Kurumada would debut Fuma no Kojirou Gaiden: Asuka Mumyouchou/Kojirou of the Fuma Side Story: The Asuka Avidyā Book in the October 2022 issue of Champion Red. As the title would indicate, this was a side story to the main series focusing on Musashi Asuka, the for-hire warrior hired by the Yasha to fight Kojirou & the Fuma in the first story arc, & later become one of the Cosmo Warriors for the Sacred Sword War, fighting alongside Kojirou. Namely, Asuka Mumyoucho detailed aspects of Musashi's personal life leading up to the battle between Fuma & Yasha, giving extra development to the character that wasn't around before. After a couple of chapters Kurumada would put this side story on hiatus, but brought it back at the end of 2023, this time moving things to the lead up to the Sacred Sword War & better establishing Musashi's relationship with his Sacred Sword, Ougonken; this return of Asuka Mumyouchou would also be the first part of Kurumada's 50th Anniversary celebration. Meanwhile, 2022 would also see the debut of Saint Seiya: Kaiou Saiki/The Sea God's Comeback - Rerise of Poseidon by Tsunakan Suda in Champion Red, a spin-off starring the Sea God Poseidon & his Mariners, as they have to become the heroes to protect the world while the Bronze Saints & Athena are still combating Hades' forces in the Underworld. Finally, 2022 would also see yet another Seiya spin-off, this one being Saint Seiya: Time Odyssey by Arnaud Dollen & Jérôme Alquié, two French writers/artists who tell the non-canon(?) story of Seiya & his friends taking on Chronos, God of Time, & saving not just the world but all of time itself. Notably, this was serialized first in Japan via Champion Red before seeing release in France by Kana, & is currently coming out in English by Ablaze Publishing. Also, Jérôme Alquié had previously made a fan animation of Saint Seiya back in around 2000 that adapted portions of the Hades Chapter, using the Drama CD that had come out in the 90s for the audio, and it's often stated that Alquié's fan animation is what helped inspire Toei to start producing the Saint Seiya Hades OVAs, in the first place.

Finally, 2023 also saw the release of Knights of the Zodiac (Saint Seiya: The Beginning in Japan), a Hollywood-produced live-action movie adaptation of Saint Seiya directed by Tomek Bagiński & starring Mackenyu as Seiya. It would go on to receive, at best, a mixed reception critically, though the fight scenes choreographed by Andy Cheng were generally well received.

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This bring us to the start of 2024, which celebrates 50 years of Masami Kurumada manga. Since this entire year will be dedicated to Kurumada (at least once a month), I felt that going over his entire career up to this point was the best way to get started. Yes, it is a long, long, looooooooong overview (& if you've made it this far I thank you), but I wanted to be as definitive as I could be. So, please, join me for the rest of this year & celebrate the career of a mangaka who truly helped revolutionize an entire style of manga, and has continued on ever since. Since I started with the quote from the start of Kurumada's 1996 artbook, I figure I should end with the quote from the end of that same book...

"How far will you run? How long will you keep running? What's at the end of the road? When will you get an answer? Ask the wind..."

- Masami Kurumada 23th Anniversary Illustrated Collection: Burning Blood, Page 97

Manga © Masami Kurumada