Jitsuroku! Shinwakai: Forget the Greek Pantheon, THIS is the Real Deal!

No one should be too proud of themselves, and by that I mean everyone should be able to poke fun at themselves, to some extent. Ego is a natural thing to have, it's just basic human behavior, but having too much of an ego can make one look pompous & arrogant, to the point where it can be seen as abrasive & uncouth to others. Therefore, I think it's important that people should be able to take the piss out of themselves every once in a while, so as to show humility or (at the very least) give off the image that they don't take themselves too seriously. I bring this up because it can relate to mangaka Masami Kurumada, someone who's generally known for his intense, action-filled manga about "real men" proving themselves to not just their foes, but to the world at large, and while there is sometimes comedy here & there in his works it's all still told in a very serious & dramatic fashion.

However, when it comes to portraying himself & his assistants... Kurumada loves taking the Mick, for those who speak the Queen's English.

While I'm not sure when exactly it came about, though I imagine it was in part due to the ongoing success of Ring ni Kakero, Masami Kurumada eventually hired on a group of assistants, comprised of some combination of Jun Tomizawa, Toukichi Ishiyama, Tokumi Kawajiri, Takashi Urakawa, Masayuki Fujimoto, Chuutaro Numoto, Masashi Yamaguchi, & Ken Shiratori over the years. Kurumada would name this group "Shinwakai/The Gathering of Gods", and even listed Shinwakai alongside him for new chapters as they originally ran in Weekly Shonen Jump (as seen via the Ultimate Final Edition of Fuma no Kojirou); at the very least, he did this for both Ring ni Kakero & Fuma no Kojirou. While the concept of assistants that help a main mangaka out getting a collective name can arguably date back to Tokiwa-sou, the Tokyo apartment building that in the 1950s housed Osamu Tezuka & other legendary mangaka (some of which even initially worked as assistants to Tezuka, introducing the very concept), Shinwakai can be seen as the precursor to arguably the most well-known named group of assistants in Jump history: The Watsuki-gumi from the 90s who assisted Nobuhiro Watsuki on Rurouni Kenshin, which was comprised of Eiichiro Oda (One Piece), Hiroyuki Takei (Shaman King), Shin'ya Suzuki (Mr. Fullswing), the late Gin Shinga (who passed away in 2002 at only age 29), & Mikio Itou (who's probably most known for cameoing in his fellow Watsuki-gumi's works, like One Piece, as a travelling merchant).

However, as legendary/notorious as the Watsuki-gumi were back then, & (some) still are now, they never got to star in their own manga!

Between 1979 & 1983, Masami Kurumada & Shinwakai produced a quartet of (mostly) comedic one-shots that ran in four specific issues of Weekly Shonen Jump, and on August 15, 1983 they were collected together in a single tankouban titled Jitsuroku! Shinwakai/The Authentic Gathering of Gods!. Compared to the rest of Kurumada's catalog this collection of one-shots is almost unlike anything else he's ever done, with really the only thing even remotely similar being 2015's Ai no Jidai, but even that was primarily a character drama, with only the occasional bit of self-deprecating humor via the fictionalized self-insert lead. Unfortunately, when Kurumada's catalog was given a digital release via Shueisha in 2014 for his 40th Anniversary, Jitsuroku! Shinwakai was one of only a handful of titles to not be given this kind of treatment (alongside Sukeban Arashi & the Mabudachi Jingi one-shot collection), leaving it to this day a physical-only release, and there has never been a fan translation for it at all in any language (to my knowledge, at least). So, as part of this blog's year-long celebration of Masami Kurumada's 50th Anniversary, let's finally go over Jitsuroku! Shinwakai & see what kind of misadventures Kurumada & his "god"-like group of assistants got themselves into.

Since Jitsuroku! Shinwakai is a collection of four one-shots, there is no overarching story to synopsize, so let's instead just go over each one in order. Starting off we have Aidokushashou ni wa Te wo Dasuna!!/Don't Mess with the Reader's Award!!, which ran in Issue #13 of 1979 & appeared in the #3 slot, after chapters of Cobra & Susume!! Pirates. The title makes specific reference to the Reader's Award, which was something Shueisha did from 1973 to 1983 (plus a single revival in 1997) in which mangaka would make a 45-page one-shot that would appear in a random issue of Jump (decided by lottery, apparently) & the readers themselves would determine which one of the bunch was the best, with the winner earning a trip overseas; apparently, readers who submitted the best reviews would also earn a trip with the mangaka. Not just that, but Shueisha even opened up the contest to any & all professional mangaka, not just those who were currently making manga for Jump, though due to it being voted on by readers of Jump it was generally not considered worth the effort, as readers wouldn't necessarily be familiar with their work. Shinji Mizushima, Leiji Matsumoto, & Mitsuru Adachi were even asked to enter at one point or another, but none of them took up the offer due to "scheduling conflicts", though Mizushima & Adachi did at least contribute illustrations & comments to Jump apologizing for their lack of proper entries.

In reality, all four stories seen in Jitsuroku! Shinwakai were Kurumada & Shinwakai's entries for the Reader's Award for four separate years, and that very concept plays center stage for this first one-shot. Like most of the stories in this book, this one is split up into multiple mini-chapters (called "Targets", for this one), each of which ran from three to over ten pages long but help segment the story into focused parts. Target 1: Choujou Sakusen/Summit Operation details the basic concept, which is that Kurumada (portrayed like a mafia boss) feels threatened by all of the Reader's Award entries from his fellow creators, so he decides to have Shinwakai (his mafia lackeys) kill off all the competition so that they win by default & win their dream trip across Europe. Target 2: Kantou Shitou-hen/The Kanto Death Match Chapter sees members of Shinwakai kill off Osamu Akimoto (Kochikame), Saotshi Ikezawa (Circuit no Okami), Hisashi Eguchi (Susume!! Pirates), Shinji Hiramatsu (Doberman Deka), Tatsuo Kanai (Hole in One), & Yoshihiro Takahashi (Akutare Kyojin); Leiji Matsumoto is also killed off, despite having not submitted an entry or even working with Jump at the time.

Target 3: Kyoudai Otsu!!/Taking Down the Giant Whale!! deals with Kurumada himself leading a surprise attack on Norihiro Nakajima (Asataro-den), who survives both a knifing & a hail of magnum bullets before finally getting killed via bazooka; to match the mafia aesthetic, Nakajima is portrayed as a Don Corleone-esque man. Target 4: Densetsu no Gaki Daisho/The Legendary Boy's Gang Leader sees Kurumada & Shinwakai search for final target Hiroshi Motomiya (Sawayaka Mantaro), but are unable to pinpoint his location... but is he really just right under their noses? Target 5: Watashi no Don to Yobanaide/Don't Call Me "My Don" sees Shinwakai destroy Motomiya Pro, thinking that they've killed the man himself... only for Hiroshi Motomiya to crash the celebration party, kill all of Shinwakai, and then eventually decapitate Kurumada. Finally, Target 6: Nichiyoubi wa Stranger (Sorenishitemo Ishino Mako wa Kawaii...)/Sunday is a Stranger (Still, Mako Ishino is Cute...) reveals the entire story to be nothing more than a bad dream the real Masami Kurumada's having when he wakes up, as his assistants try to come up with a name for their planned Reader's Award entry.

Norihiro Nakajima would be forced to retire in 1985 after suffering
a cerebral hemorrhage, but didn't die until 2014, of colon cancer.
So, yeah, I guess he was tough enough to require a bazooka to take out.

Aidokushashou ni wa Te wo Dasuna!! is an admittedly weird thing for Kurumada & his team to submit to Jump as a Reader's Award entry, because it's very much a bit of an inside joke. In the author's notes of Ring ni Kakero's original tankouban release relatively early on, like the first nine volumes you can see translated here, Kurumada wound up becoming close friends with the likes of Akimoto, Nakajima, & Ikezawa, with some of them even joking about Kurumada being just one or two life choices away from joining the yakuza in an alternate universe, so this entire story is pretty much Kurumada having fun with those jokes & going full-bore into being a mafioso. I would imagine every mangaka that's killed off here agreed to being included due to their friendship, and while some kills are rather straightforward, there are others that are a little more unique or even thematic to the kind of manga they made, like Ikezawa being blown up in his car or Kanai getting decapitated by an exploding golf ball. Meanwhile, Nakajima & Motomiya are portrayed as being bigger fish than any other mangaka, which would match Kurumada's adoration & respect for each of them, as Nakajima's Team Astro was the manga which helped influence Kurumada to take Ring ni Kakero into the boxing spectacle that would make it a smash hit, while Motomiya was the man who inspired Kurumada to become a mangaka, in general. In a nice touch, Nakajima even refers to Motomiya as "Motomiya no Onii-chan" before dying, which is what Nakajima actually would call Motomiya in real life, as he looked at Motomiya as a big brother figure. Combine all of that with artwork that nicely mixes together a more serious aesthetic with some comedic bits at the start & end, and overall this is an amusing little short story, especially if you are at least somewhat familiar with some of the mangaka featured.

All that being said, though... it's easy to see why this didn't the Reader's Award back in 1979. Simply put, I don't think making a story where one mangaka decides to kill off other mangaka is something that would really appeal to most readers from a competitive standpoint, even if it is done in a somewhat farcical fashion. The selection of which mangaka are featured makes it obvious that it's done as an inside joke, as it's missing creators who were making manga for Jump at the time (no Buichi Terasawa, Masaharu Kojima, Biggu Joe, or Yoshinori Kobayashi?), as does the treatment of Nakajima (whose star had all but faded, by this point) & Motomiya being special (though, to be fair, Motomiya was still being given absurdly special treatment by Jump, at this point). Also, while the "it was all a dream" ending does make sense, I actually think it would have been a bit funnier had Kurumada simply ended the story with Motomiya cutting off his arm & head with a katana, followed by Motomiya literally quoting the title of the story itself while walking away, as a sort of warning to all future mangaka who submit Reader's Award entries; play fair, or Hiroshi Motomiya will just straight up kill you.

As an inclusion in a book like Jitsuroku! Shinwakai, which itself is pretty much aimed at hardcore Masami Kurumada fans who will likely get the inside jokes seen here, Aidokushashou ni wa Te wo Dasuna!! is a fun little short story, but also not quite one of Kurumada's best. As an entry for the Reader's Award, though, it's a really weird direction to go in.

Unfortunately, this was the only image of Kurumada
& Shinwakai that was in very good condition that I could find.

Up next is the most legendary of the stories in this book, Ring ni Kokero/Collapse in the Ring. This ran in Issue # 18 of 1980, once again appearing in the #3 slot, after chapters of Kochikame & Kinnikuman. Interestingly enough, this was the same issue where the original one-shot version of Captain Tsubasa by Yoichi Takahashi appeared, as well as the issue where the short-lived Futari no Derby by Tsukasa Tanaka came to an end after only 25 weekly chapters. Out of the four attempts made by Kurumada & Shinwakai, Ring ni Kokero wound up being the only time they actually won the Reader's Award, earning them a trip across Europe; Kurumada has photos from said trip, where he seemingly wears nothing but aviator shades the whole time, on his website.

In this case the mini-chapters here are called "Rounds", so Round 1: Valentine Day no Sangeki (Ah Ah Watashi no Shueisha)/A Valentine's Day Tragedy (Ah Ah, My Shueisha) sees Kurumada head to Shueisha's HQ to pick up all of the Valentine's Day chocolates sent to him by female readers... only for Ring ni Kakero's Jun Kenzaki himself to appear & inform Kurumada that all these chocolates are for him & Golden Japan Jr., not Kurumada himself. Pissed off at this, Kurumada challenges Golden Japan Jr. to a 5-on-5 battle at Toyo Ground in Shirataka, Yamagata (a local open-air field), gathering together four of his assistants to form "Golden Shinwakai". Round 2: Kessen!! Touyou Ground/A Bloody Fight on Toyo Ground!! is a mere three pages simply showing off Kurumada's group, positive they'll win out. Unfortunately, as the story's name implies, this is nothing more than an absolute trouncing, as Round 3: Ibushin Kintama!! Kawajiri Tokumin/Oxidized Balls!! Tokumin Kawajiri sees Tokumi "Tokumin" Kawajiri get instantly destroyed by Kazuki Shinatora's Special Rolling Thunder.

Round 4: Ouotoko no Gyakushu!!/The Big Man's Counterattack!! is Masayuki "Zushimaru" Fujimoto getting trounced by Ishimatsu Katori's Hurricane Bolt, after Fujimoto pokes fun at the height difference between them. Round 5: Souzetsu!! Koutetsu no Satsujin-sha/The Sublime Steel Murderer!! has resident closet pervert Jun "Fuku" Tomizawa attempt a sneak attack on Takeshi Kawai by faking not wanting to fight, only to be instantly destroyed by a Jet Upper. Round 6: Hissatsu!! Hokkai no Kuma-koroshi/Special Technique!! Bear Killer of the North Sea is Takashi Urakawa vs. Ryuji Takane, with Ryuji actually trying to reason with Urakawa for a moment, but quickly realizes that beating him with a Boomerang Square is the only option. Finally, Round 7: Saraba Ougon no Shinwakai...!!/Farewell, Golden Shinwakai...!! sees Kurumada panic against Kenzaki, trying to find a way to not get hit with a Galactica Magnum... only for Kenzaki to simply kick Kurumada into a ring post, knocking him out instantly.

Naturally, Ring ni Kokero is a story that really works best for those who are fans of Ring ni Kakero & are familiar with its most iconic moments, in this specifically the end of the World Tournament, where Golden Japan Jr. fought Team Greece. That's because Kurumada full-on parodies the way each member of Golden Japan Jr. end their respective fights against Team Greece's members, right down to a narrator giving a run down of each person's stats (Name, Date of Birth, Date of "Death"), only this time instead of listing a superblow each member of Shinwakai get joke stats like their nicknames, hobbies, & the fact that each member is currently looking for a girlfriend. There is some word play seen here, too, like Kawajiri being called the "Ibushin Kintama/Oxidized Balls" because Shinatora's nickname is the "Ibushigin Tora/The Quiet but Superb Tiger", as "ibushingin" can also be translated as "oxidized steel", while "kintama", which uses the same kanji for "kin/gin" as "ibushigin", is slang for testicles. Meanwhile, Fujimoto is compared to Godzilla, likely due to his height & unkempt appearance; Godzilla himself even cries out in sadness over Fujimoto's defeat. Even the final two-page splash is a direct parody of the two-page splash that ended the World Tournament Chapter, except that Shinwakai lost every single fight, whereas Golden Japan Jr. won every fight. To go with that, the crowd (which is filled with all sorts of cameos, including Kamen Rider, Ultraman [both the Ultra Family & some villains], the family from Tensai Bakabon, Bruce Lee, [GeGeGe no] Kitaro, & too many more to count) eventually starts to cheer for Shinwakai to continue getting squashed by Golden Japan Jr., because they're having so much fun crapping on them. Similar to Aidokushashou ni wa Te wo Dasuna!!, Ring ni Kokero is a short story that's all one big inside joke... however, in this case, that's a good thing.

Why? Because you have to remember that Ring ni Kakero was a mega hit for Shonen Jump at the time, so everyone who was reading Jump back in early 1980 was in on the joke. Not just that, but Ring ni Kokero appeared only 12 issues (i.e. about three months) after the World Tournament had ended, so what Kurumada was parodying was still pretty fresh in fans' minds, resulting in this short likely being interpreted as one big gag where readers got to see the creator of one of their current favorite manga (& four of his assistants) get beaten up the leads of said manga in the style that RnK's prior story arc ended, all while Kurumada & Shinwakai are portrayed as a bunch of absolute idiots that everyone is all for seeing get beat up; also, unlike last time, this wasn't revealed to be a dream at the end. To go with that, this time around Kurumada & Shinwakai are portrayed as looking utterly helpless & pathetic from the get-go, complete with Kurumada himself having a hairdo that's seemingly a fusion of a bowl cut & helmet hair. When read on its own, Ring ni Kokero is still a very amusing short story that you can easily see is a parody, and it's a lot of fun seeing all of the various cameos in the crowd (in fact, I wonder if those cameos alone are why Jitsuroku! Shinwakai wasn't re-released digitally in 2014...), but if you're a fan of Ring ni Kakero you'll especially get more out of it & better appreciate it.

Yeah, I can easily see why Kurumada & Shinwakai won the trip across Europe this time around.

Third up is Sayonara-bashi/Bridge of Farewells, which ran in Issue #11 of 1981, once more appearing in the #3 slot, after chapters of Tennis Boy & San-nen Kimengumi; I'm starting to sense a trend here for these Reader's Award entries. It begins with Bridge 1: Tabidachi-bashi/Bridge of Departure, where Haruhiko Suzuki (Kurumada's real-life editor during RnK) comes to Kurumada's apartment to wake him up so that they can catch their flight to Hakata, Fukuoka for the Jump Manga Festival. Bridge 2: Deai-bashi/Bridge of Meeting has Kurumada encounter a beautiful young woman on a bridge whose high heel needs fixing, and while Kurumada tries his best to fix it the woman is accosted by some ruffians (portrayed by members of Shinwakai, of course). Kurumada tries to fight them off, only to get beat up, but he & the woman spend the day walking about Hakata, with the woman wishing she could go to Tokyo herself one day. Kurumada says that he'd be happy to take her there and hopes to see her the next day at the Festival; at 17 pages this is one of the longest mini-chapters in the entire book. Bridge 3: Namida-bashi/Bridge of Tears starts later that same night with Kurumada being taken to club by his handler, only to see that the woman works there as a hostess that gladly plays around with patrons; ashamed at him finding out, the woman escapes, crying. During the Festival Kurumada makes his scheduled appearances but is visibly despondent about the night before, even getting whacked by Suzuki over it. During a hectic autograph session, though, the woman stops by, watching Kurumada from afar without him knowing.

Bridge 4: Sayonara-bashi/Bridge of Farewells sees the two reunite on the bridge, and while the woman would understand if Kurumada hates her, he still offers to bring her back to the Tokyo with him; she thinks he's lying, but he assures her that he's being 100% honest. However, Suzuki notices the two & secretly offers the woman money to keep away, as Kurumada is his "golden egg" that will make Jump more money in the future. Saddened & annoyed, the woman declines the money & leaves a message to Kurumada that she's sorry for having toyed around with him, leaving Kurumada trying his best to hide his tears on the plane ride back after being told; however, the woman looks to be ready to leave Hakata, on her own. Finally, just as in the first story, Bridge 5: Mezame-bashi/Bridge of Waking reveals the entire thing to be a dream Kurumada was having, with Suzuki once again waking him up for the trip to Hakata. However, while taking in the sights on a bridge, Kurumada comes across a beautiful young woman trying to fix her high heel shoe...

As you can tell from the synopsis, Sayonara-bashi is almost unlike anything else from Masami Kurumada, as it's a straight-up dramatic love story with absolutely no action or fighting to be seen at all. The closest we get is Kurumada accidentally kicking Suzuki in the face while being woken up at the start of Bridge 5, and also Kurumada performing a Galactica Magnum in Bridge 2... only to reveal that it didn't hurt the ruffians at all, because Kurumada's weak. There's also no real comedy, either, instead focusing strictly on the storytelling as we see Kurumada (seen here drawn the closest to Ryuji Takane as he'd ever get, since Kurumada tends to draw himself more like Ishimatsu Katori) encounter love at first sight with a woman, deal with the revelation as to who she may really be, resolve to still want to be with her, and finally suffer the pain of loss when she decides to not come back to Tokyo with him. To be fair, Kurumada doesn't seem to demonize the woman for being a more "playful" hostess, her shame seems to come more from her own worry that he'd hate her for it, though I guess there still is a potentially inadvertent element of him (or, at least, his in-story avatar) "saving" her from such a job in bring her back with him to Tokyo; I'd chalk that up more towards the time this story was made in, i.e. the early 80s, personally. Really, in regard to the short story itself, there's not much else to say about it. For a type of story that he's not really known for, & the closest he'd get to doing anything remotely similar would maybe be 2022's Seiya ni Kane wa Naru/The Bell Tolls on the Holy Night, Sayonara-bashi is a straightforward, maybe somewhat simple, short love story that's told well enough, but I can certainly see why this didn't win Kurumada & Shinwakai another overseas trip.

As for why Kurumada went in this direction, I can only really speculate. When this short appeared in Issue #11 of Jump in 1981, Ring ni Kakero was nearing the end of the Ashura Chapter, with only four more weekly chapters left to go for it. The final story arc of RnK, the World Title Match Chapter, would see Kurumada put more focus on the love story between Kenzaki & Ryuji's sister Kiku, complete with Ishimatsu fighting Kenzaki over it right before Kenzaki's match against Bantamweight World Champion Jesus Christ (yes, but he's from Monaco & looks like Char Aznable), as Ishimatsu also had an earnest love for Kiku. With that in mind, I think it's entirely plausible that Sayonara-bashi was Kurumada testing out his abilities to actually tell a dramatic love story as a focus of some sort, instead of giving little moments at points, and any & all responses/criticisms he received from its appearance in Jump were then taken into consideration for Ring ni Kakero's final story arc, so that he could tie up the best dramatic love story he could for Kenzaki & Kiku in a bow. Of course, I could be totally wrong about this speculation, but none of that really matters when it comes to simply reading Sayonara-bashi & enjoying it on its own.

Finally, we end with Nekketsu Manga no Densetsu/The Legend of Hot-Blooded Manga, the only story to appear post-Ring ni Kakero, running in Issue #19 of 1983, just over two years after the last one; naturally, this came out during Fuma no Kojirou's serialization. Just as before, this final Shinwakai story appeared in the #3 slot, after chapters of Kinnikuman & Dr. Slump. This story has the fewest mini-chapters at only four, & it all starts with Battle 1: Shinwakai Taidou!!/Shinwakai's Quickening, which sees a disheveled Tokumi Kawajiri try to enter a club in Ikebukuro owned by Ukyo Hanabusa, a romantic comedy mangaka who Kawajiri feels is the "cancer of the manga world" due to his "soft" manga & behind the scenes trickery. Kawajiri's about to get beaten down until a just-graduated high school student named Masami Kurumada appears & takes out the harassers, before Hanabusa himself arrives to talk about how someone like Kurumada isn't capable of succeeding in manga. Not liking his attitude, Kurumada decides to take up Kawajiri's offer to enter the manga world. Battle 2: Aidokushashou no Inbou/The Reader's Award Conspiracy has Kurumada quickly recruit Masayuki "Zushimaru" Fujimoto, Masashi "Mako" Yamaguchi, and Toukichi "Auschbitz" Ishiyama, & after a few years manages to achieve some popularity in Jump, becoming the #2 pick for 1975's Reader's Award. While Hanabusa isn't worried at all, feeling that Kurumada's "hot-blooded manga" isn't what young men want to read, Kurumada & Shinwakai work to near death in order to make the deadline for their submission; Ken Shiratori's name is also seen in the potential rankings as the #3 entrant.

Battle 3: Shinwakai Houkai!/Shinwakai Collapses! has Kurumada & Shinwakai finish their submission, with Editor Suzuki rushing to get it to Shueisha... only for Suzuki to get stabbed by one of Hanabusa's goons, left to die, & the manuscript torn to pieces; meanwhile, Kurumada & Shinwakai's studio gets blown up... with all of them inside. Finally, Battle 4: Tatakai Tsuzukeru Toki/When the Battle Continues starts with Hanabusa beginning to accept the Reader's Award at a ceremony, only for Kurumada & Shinwakai to crash the party & reveal that they're still alive. Hanabusa & his goons try to fight back, only for all of them to get defeated. When attendees try to call out Kurumada for simply being a sore loser who got disqualified for not getting his submission in on time, he yells at them all about how that kind of attitude is what defines "soft" manga, and that "hot-blooded" manga represents the true dream of all mangaya/manga drawers (Kurumada didn't actually feel like he was a "true" mangaka/manga creator until he debuted Otoko Zaka in 1984), as it's all about making the impossible possible, and he'll continue to stand true to that ideal.

Nekketsu Manga no Densentsu is, in my opinion, the weakest of the short stories seen in Jitsuroku! Shinwakai. While part of that comes down to my own personal weakness when it comes to Japanese (the first two mini-chapters actually required me to use Google Translate on my phone just to get the finer details of what's actually happening), it's also just a weaker story, on the whole. Conceptually, I actually find the idea of a seriously-told comedic tale about "Hot-Blooded Manga vs. Romcom Manga" to be a very cool idea, but there's honestly very little of that to be found here, as nothing about Ukyo Hanabusa's romcom pedigree is really shown in any way, instead focusing more on him having all the money & influence, though still resorting to cheap tactics in order make sure he wins the Reader's Award. The idea that Masami Kurumada also seemingly saw romcom manga as being "soft" also feels a bit out of touch, as by 1983 the genre was pretty prevalent in Jump, with series like Stop!! Hibari-kun!, Kick-Off, & Gal ga Rival already running by this point, while titles like Cat's Eye, Wingman, & even Kimengumi included some element of romcom alongside their primary genre (action &/or comedy). While I'm sure it wasn't meant to be taken seriously in any way, as this story is still meant to be taken comedically, it does come off just a tad like the real-life Kurumada might have been a little bit jealous of how popular romcoms had gotten around this time. Likewise, it's easy to see why this didn't win the Reader's Award in real life, either.

However, that's not to say that there's nothing good to be found in this final story. Battle 3 is easily the highlight, as it's the closest we get to Kurumada actually taking the "Hot-Blooded vs. Romcom" concept to an appropriately ridiculous extreme, and Ukyo Hanabusa (as simple of a character he is) works well enough as a villain here; seeing Kurumada break Hanabusa's sword with just his arm in Battle 4 was also a great visual. The implementation of Shinwakai is amusing in the first two mini-chapters, too, as Kawajiri is portrayed almost like an equivalent to Ashita no Joe's Danpei Tange, Fujimoto is a straight up delinquent, & Ishiyama is a boxer-in-training, making them being recruited to be assistants to a manga artist who seemingly has no experience at all in drawing feel fittingly absurd; in comparison, Yamaguchi is the seemingly "normal" member of Shinwakai. Granted, I don't really get the logic behind giving Ishiyama the boxer the nickname "Auschbitz" (Kurumada changed a single katakana, but we all know what he's referencing), and while Haruhiko Suzuki's real life nickname is actually "Kunta", I kind of doubt that it was because he came from Kenya, Africa, like the in-story Suzuki states. That being said, however, I don't know why Suzuki is actually nicknamed "Kunta" in real life, so maybe he used to joke around often & say that he came from Kenya, for a laugh, & it just stuck.

Should this count as Jitsuroku! Shinwakai getting adapted into anime?
No, I don't think so, either.

I should note, too, that Masami Kurumada's cameo in Episode 1 of the Ring ni Kakero 1 anime in 2004 saw him represented via two forms from Jitsuroku! Shinwakai. He's first shown looking like his "real life" portrayal seen at the end of both Aidokushashou ni wa Te wo Dasuna!! & Sayonara-bashi (as well as most of Ring ni Kokero), before saying his final line looking like he does in Nekketsu Manga no Densetsu; he even wears a sash that says "Shinwakai" on it.

Before we finish up, I should go over what happened to each member of Shinwakai itself, if possible, since they were an important part of this manga. The one who went on to have the most success would be Jun Tomizawa, who went pro in 1981 with Commander 0 in Shonen Jump & is now best known for Business Commando Yamazaki (about a middle-aged salaryman who's revived as a cyborg for corporate espionage), which ran in Super Jump from 1993 to 1998 for 12 volumes & received both a live-action film adaptation in 1995 & a standalone OVA adaptation in 1997; the OVA could always one day get covered via Oh Me, Oh My, OVA!. Tomizawa's second Jump manga, 1984's Gakuen Jouhou-bu H.I.P. (think Sket Dance, but in the 80s), also received a one-off live-action TV drama in 1987, as part of Fuji TV's Monday Drama Land series. Today, Jun Tomizawa acts as a consultant/judge for Coamix's yearly Silent Manga Audition. After him would be "chief assistant" Toukichi Ishiyama, possibly the namesake for Otoko Zaka's Toukichi Kuroda, who went pro in 1986 with Toushin Saito in Shonen Champion & is best known for 1987's Chicken Club (a two-part action series, totaling 17 volumes) & 1990's Danki/Man Flag (a series about a cheering squad that totaled 18 volumes), which both also ran in Shonen Champion; he later moved on to pachinko manga & now looks to be retired. Takashi Urakawa (or, at least, someone with the same last name in kanji, but first name in hiragana) looks to have only made one manga after going pro, 1984's Warugaki/Bad Boy Rhapsody in Shonen Magazine (which ran for four volumes), before leaving the industry; at the very least, the timeline fits.

As for Tokumi Kawajiri, Masayuki Fujimoto, Chuutaro Numoto, & Ken Shiratori, I can't seem to find any info about them outside of Jitsuroku! Shinwakai, so it's entirely possible that none of them ever went pro & were content with simply assisting Kurumada with his manga, before leaving the industry; not all assistants go on to be big names, or even go pro, after all. Finally, Masashi Yamaguchi actually wound up staying with Kurumada for the long term, eventually becoming General Manager of Kurumada Pro & working as late as the mid 00s, as seen via the Wayback Machine when Yamaguchi issued a statement on Kurumada's original website in late 2005 regarding the recasting of the Saint Seiya voice cast for the Hades Inferno OVAs; it's entirely possible that Yamaguchi still works at Kurumada Pro to this day.

I had hesitated in covering Jitsuroku! Shinwakai for a long time, and that was simply because I was worried that, due to it being a collection of comedic shorts, the lack of any proper translation would make it hard for me to enjoy these as much as I probably should. Luckily, with the exception of the last one (& even that only required assistance for the finer details), that really wasn't as much of an issue as I was dreading, as I was able to enjoy these stories for what they were, on the whole: Entrants for Jump's Reader's Award that (mostly) are not meant to be taken seriously at all. Of the four, my favorite is easily Ring ni Kokero, and that's not simply because I love Ring ni Kakero, as it's a very fun & parodic story where a mangaka (& his assistants) simply get their butts whupped by his own creations, and that's a general concept that I think anyone can find amusement in. Coming in second would be Sayonara-bashi, which shows that Kurumada can do something like a dramatic love story if he really wanted to, and while the story told here is pretty simple & straightforward it's still executed very well; makes me really want to get my hands on Seiya ni Kane wa Naru one day, honestly. Getting the bronze would be Aidokushashou ni wa Te wo Dasuna!!, which unfortunately kind of requires the reader to be at least somewhat in on the joke being told, but is still an enjoyable read overall. Finally, clocking in last is Nekketsu Manga no Densetsu, which I feel doesn't really take full advantage of the concept Kurumada had for it, resulting in a bit of a weak overall execution; it's not bad, but it's not great, either.

As mentioned at the start, though, Jitsuroku! Shinwakai is one of the handful of Masami Kurumada manga that's never received an official digital re-release (though it's obviously been ripped online for years already), which in turn kind of makes it feel like even more of a curiosity than it really is. While I imagine the various cameos seen in Ring ni Kokero is likely the actual culprit for why it remains physical-only today (you just can't get away with that kind of stuff today, for the most part), it is also mostly a "For the most hardcore Masami Kurumada fans only" kind of book. While people with only a basic knowledge of Kurumada can get by to some extent depending on the story read (Sayonara-bashi is easily the most "newbie" friendly, in that regard), this really is something meant primarily for those who fully know, understand, & love Kurumada's ethos & attitude when it comes to making manga.

Manga © Masami Kurumada