However, come 1997 a shift would happen over at Shonen Gangan, one that went completely against what Hosaka had stated in interviews just a year prior. Now Gangan was going to go more in with "game-like" manga being serialized, as well as more direct video game adaptations, despite Hosaka stating that he had no intention of doing such a thing; of the 14 manga covered in this part five are game adaptations, three of which are Dragon Quest-related. This shift in focus looks to be what would eventually lead to a mass exodus of talent in the latter half of 2001... but, for now, we're still in what could be called a "united" era of Monthly Shonen Gangan, so let's see what notable manga debuted in the magazine right up until that very exodus was about the happen.
We start by jumping nearly an entire year ahead from Toki no Daichi's debut in early 1996, with the only stuff of minor note from that time being Mine Yoshizaki's Guardian Eight, a pre-Sgt. Frog series that has mostly been forgotten with time, & a short-lived Pokémon gag manga (which, again, emphasized Gangan's shift over to featuring more game-based manga). Instead, we start with Issue #4 of 1997, which saw the serialized debut of Renjuro Kindaichi... who was literally only 17 years old at the time & still in high school. The reason why Kindachi managed to find herself a serialization in Shonen Gangan as such a young age was due to a one-shot she submitted in 1996 that became the runner-up at the 3rd Enix 21st Century Manga Award, which she then expanded on for her serialized debut, Jungle wa Itsumo Hare nochi Guu/The Jungle Was Always Sunny, Then Came Guu, better known abroad as simply Haré+Guu. The manga told the tale of Haré, a young boy who lives with his widowed mother Weda in the jungle until, one day, Weda welcomes a young girl named Guu into their household. In reality, though, Guu is a highly sarcastic liminal being that's beyond true comprehension & is capable of all manner of things, from swallowing people whole (she even has a Japanese couple who essentially just live in her stomach) to causing natural disasters. Luckily for most, Guu simply just likes hanging out with Haré... and while Haré himself eventually comes to truly befriend Guu it's not as though his life will ever remain anything but simple after meeting Guu. Yeah, as you can tell from that concept, Haré+Guu was a surreal comedy manga that generally saw Guu creating some sort of havoc in Haré's life, though there were also story arcs involving things like Weda's relationship with a man named Clive who lives in the city, Weda becoming pregnant with a new child, Haré finding love in a girl named Rita, & all manner of various hijinks & insanity, including time travel shenanigans. Upon reaching 100 chapters (across 10 volumes) in the January 2003 issue of Shonen Gangan Haré+Guu technically ended... only for it to continue on in the very next issue under the new name HaréGuu (again, the OG Japanese title was much longer, but the change still makes a fittingly weird sort of sense with the simplified international title), and we'll get into that series next time.
While the Haré+Guu manga has yet to see official English release, there was a 2001 TV anime adaptation that actually did see release in North America via AN Entertainment (the short-lived licensing division of now-defunct anime retailer Anime Nation), which released the entire 26-episode TV series & the first OVA series (Haré+Guu Deluxe) via dual-audio DVD singles throughout 2006 & 2007; unfortunately, AN Entertainment never managed to release the other OVA series (Haré+Guu Final) in English.
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As mentioned last time, the very first issue of Monthly Shonen Gangan ever published back in 1991 saw the debut of Dragon Quest: Emblem of Roto (or The Mark of Erdrick, as it's known now in English), but eventually that series had to come to an end, which it did in Issue #8 of 1997. Still, Enix no doubt felt that a Dragon Quest manga was essential to Shonen Gangan (plus, once again, that renewed need for more game-based manga), so the very next issue after Emblem of Roto ended saw the debut of a new DQ manga, though this time around it was a direct adaptation of one of the games. Released on December 9, 1995, Dragon Quest VI: Maboroshi no Daichi/The Land of Illusion (though when it eventually saw official English release it was subtitled Realms of Revelation/Reverie, depending on the region) was notable for a number of reasons. It was the first DQ game to not be developed by Chunsoft (instead being developed by Heart Beat), it was the second & final entry to be first released on the Super Famicom, & it would be the last main entry to launch first on a Nintendo console for 14 years, a streak that wouldn't be broken until Dragon Quest IX on the DS in 2009. The main story of this game was that the "Hero" & his band of friends were all amnesiacs, and while searching to discover who they are find out that there's also a "Dream World" that exists alongside the "Real World", and that there's a great evil that wishes to rule over both realms.
By early 1997 Dragon Quest VII had already been announced the prior year, initially for the Nintendo 64DD, but around this point in time Enix would announce that the game would instead be developed for the Sony PlayStation. Likely wanting to keep fan interest alive during the development of DQVII, which would suffer from many delays & wouldn't come out until August 26, 2000, it was seemingly decided that replacing Emblem of Roto in Shonen Gangan would be a manga adaptation of the most recent game. So, on Issue #9 of 1997, Dragon Quest: Maboroshi no Daichi by Masaomi Kanzaki debuted in the magazine, with Kanzaki already being a decade-plus veteran of the manga industry & having had prior experience in adapting a video game via his 1992 manga Street Fighter II - Ryu. Despite dropping the number in the title, Kanzaki's adaptation (with eventual assistance from writer Aki Tomato) was more or less a straight adaptation of the Super Famicom original, with the only major change being the Hero now having an actual name (Botts) & the addition of Kizubuchi, a spotted slime who now accompanied the party; when DQVI was later remade for the Nintendo DS a spotted slime was added as a companion monster. Kanzaki's manga take on Dragon Quest: Maboroshi no Daichi would run until January 2001 for 52 chapters across 10 volumes, ending roughly half a year after the eventual release of Dragon Quest VII in Japan, and in the very next issue a new DQ manga would debut to take its place, continuing the tradition... which we'll get to that at the end of this part of the series.
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The next notable Shonen Gangan manga was yet another adaptation of an RPG, but this time around it was based on a game that was released on non-Nintendo hardware. When Sony finally decided to enter the video game industry as a first-party hardware developer with the PlayStation it didn't take long for the company to know that one thing their first console would desperately need was an RPG. Therefore Sony Computer Entertainment was able to hire G-Craft (which was also developing the first Front Mission game for Super Famicom at the time) to put into production a strategy "RPG of Light & Sound" with voice acting, an orchestral soundtrack (allegedly the first one ever for a video game) composed by Masahiro Ando of jazz fusion band T-Square, & a main theme performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra. However, Sony wanted the game out in Japan six months after the PlayStation's launch, so G-Craft had no choice but the make June 1995's Arc the Lad a rather short experience, telling the story of the titular Arc fighting against the evil Andel, who took over Arc's home of Palencia & wishes to revive the godlike Dark One that can destory the world... and end with the adventure left unfinished, teasing a sequel. Said sequel, Arc the Lad II, would come out November 1996 & focus on Elc/Elk, a young man with a tragic past who works as a bounty hunter who finds himself caught up in Arc's battle against Andel, both fighting against & later alongside Arc. Arc the Lad II would go on to be considered one of the PS1's finest RPGs, with a mix of tough but engaging gameplay, memorable characters, & a hard-hitting storyline that never let up in delivering a dark & seemingly hopeless battle against ultimate evil.
Over half a year after Arc the Lad II's release in Japan, Shonen Gangan's Issue #16 of 1997 saw the debut of Arc the Lad II - Honou no Elc/Elc of Flame by Hideaki Nishikawa, who had initially followed up his debut work Z-Man with the short-lived Bakuryoku Bouken Megaburn, which unfortunately didn't even last a full calendar year in Shonen Gangan. As expected, Honou no Elc was a rather straight adaptation of Arc the Lad II, though Nishikawa's knack for darker storytelling elements was likely a good fit for the story of this game, which certainly wasn't afraid of never holding back in order to hit players with tragic situations, pyrrhic victories for the heroes, & general sense of foreboding. However, from what I can tell, the manga did wind up needing to speed through some of the later plot rather quickly as it went on, in particular when it came to the final two volumes. In the end Arc the Lad II - Honou no Elc would run until August 2001, totaling 53 chapters across 10 volumes, but unlike the Dragon Quest VI manga adaptation that it ran alongside for the most part it can certainly be argued that Nishikawa's Arc the Lad adaptation likely outstayed its welcome in Shonen Gangan. By the time Honou no Elc's final chapter appeared in mid-2001 the Arc the Lad series itself was in a bit of a lull. Arc the Lad III's October 1999 release was nearly two years old by this point, and though there was a TV anime adaptation of Arc the Lad II that aired on WOWOW throughout 1999 it was NOT an adaptation of Nishikawa's manga, instead being its own thing entirely. In that case I can certainly surmise that Nishikawa, while still allowed to finish his adaptation, was likely told to speed things up for its final year-plus of serialization due to people just not being as interested in the franchise by that point. Aside from a WonderSwan Color game released in 2002, which just happened to star Elc, the Arc the Lad franchise wouldn't truly return until Twilight of the Spirits came out for the PS2 in 2003. As for Hideaki Nishikawa, this would be his final manga for Enix, & he'd find more success over at Hakusensha with the series Shokugyou: Koroshiya/Operation: Hitman, which he made between 2000 & 2014.
OK, enough video game adaptations for the time being, so let's move over two issues after Arc the Lad II - Honou no Elc's debut for our next notable Shonen Gangan manga. Debuting in Issue #18 of 1997, PON! to Chimera by Rin Asano (another alum of the Dragon Quest four-panel gag strips who had made her serialized debut in Gangan with 1995-1997's Choko Beast!!) told the story of Hachiman Kasagi, a young boy who one day finds an egg that fell from the sky, which hatches into a "Divine Beast" that imprints onto Hachiman as its mother. Alongside a girl named Cyan, who had accidentally dropped the egg from the floating continent she was living on, Hachiman now has to raise & protect his new friend "Ponta" from those who want a Divine Beast for their own purposes. Compared to some of the other titles covered so far in this overview, PON! to Chimera looked to have been (mostly) a lighthearted & fun little series, one where the focus was primarily on Hachiman simply having to now live a life where he has an adorable (though still sometimes dangerous) Divine Beast as a pet, while also learning how to get along with a new female roommate in Cyan; Hachiman & Cyan don't ever look to be romantically linked, but they do learn to appreciate each other. PON! to Chimera would last until June 2001, totaling 51 chapters across seven volumes, and while it never received a "proper" anime adaptation it was given a short promotional anime in 1998 by Tokyo Kids, as part of joint project between Shonen Gangan, G Fantasy (represented by Tokyo Oniko Heidan TOGS), & Shonen Gag-Oh (represented by Goiken Muyou!).
Rin Asano was also serializing another manga in Gangan Wing, 1999's Pangea, but in 2001 joined in the mass exodus & left Enix to move over to Mag Garden, where she'd eventually revive both Choko Beast!! & Pangea, but PON! to Chimera looks to be 100% done; currently Asano has been making the manga Deaimon in Kadokawa's Young Ace since 2016.
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Speaking of the Shonen Gag-Oh manga Goiken Muyou!, our next title was actually made alongside that manga by Natsuki Yoshimura. Yet another graduate of the "Dragon Quest Four-Panel Club", Yoshimura made their Shonen Gangan debut in Issue #24 of 1997 with Satomi☆Hakkenden, and if one is familiar with Japanese literature then they can easily see that it's related to the iconic epic novel Nanso Satomi Hakkenden by Kyokutei Bakin, which he wrote (& later dictated to his daughter-in-law after going blind) from 1814 to 1842. The novel, which literally translates to "The Tale of the Eight Dogs of the Satomi in Nanso", was the story of eight warriors who were all born at the same time, & all share the same birthmark somewhere on their bodies, & wind up gathering together by destiny as "spirit children" of a Satomi clan princess, and told their battles as defenders of the Satomi in the Nanso region. Yoshimura's manga, though technically based on Bakin's iconic work, was true to her own style by being a comedy manga that altered the story so that instead of taking place in the Nanso region (which is now Northern Chiba) it took place in Awa (just south of Nanso) & starred Shino Inuzuka, a young girl who was raised as a boy & was chased out of Awa by the invading yokai army of the Demon King Tamazua. Now armed with the sword Murasame, Shino looks to find allies in fighting back, though all done with a comical twist. Satomi☆Hakkenden would run in Shonen Gangan until November 2001, when Yoshimura was yet another of the mangaka who left Enix during the mass exodus, ending "Part 1" of the manga at six volumes.
Yoshimura would move over to Mag Garden & revive this series as Shinsho/Remodeled Satomi☆Hakkenden in Comic Blade Masamune, but after only five chapters this revival came to a sudden end. Shinsou Satomi☆Hakkenden has never been physically re-released, but the manuscript was sold as a PDF at the 6th J-Comi Fan-ding. Yoshimura would go on to make other manga, but in 2015 finally returned to their unfinished work by completely reimagining it via publisher Takeshobo as Satomi☆Hakkenden REBOOT, which was now a mostly serious & straight adaptation of Kyokutei Bakin's original story, but starring the characters Yoshimura had created back in 1997. After two years Satomi☆Hakkenden REBOOT went from physical serialization to digital, but eventually Yoshimura was finally able to tell a full version of Satomi☆Hakkenden, ending the series in 2023 with a total of 13 volumes. While Satomi☆Hakkenden (in any of its forms) has never received an anime adaptation it did receive both a drama CD & novelization in 2000, before Yoshimura had left Enix.
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Up next is a title from another newbie mangaka, though this would be someone whose entire career would be related to Enix, & in particular Shonen Gangan. At the 4th Enix 21st Century Manga Awards the runner-up spot would go to Akinobu Uraku, which resulted in his one-shot getting published in the February 1997 issue of G Fantasy. Following that, Uraku would make his serialized debut in Issue #1 of 1998 of Shonen Gangan with Tokyo Underground, which told the story of Rumina Asagi, a high school freshman who (alongside his friend Ginnosuke Isuzu) winds up discovering the existence of the "Underground" a literal secret underground society that exists beneath Tokyo that's filled with people who have the ability to control various "elements" (fire, water, gravity, magnetism, etc.), due to secret experiments that were performed years ago. Rumina heads down into the Underground to help rescue Ruri Sarasa, the "Maiden of Life" who had been brought up to the surface by her bodyguard Chelsea Rorec, only to be recaptured by "The Company" that runs the Underground, as they wish to use Ruri to revive the "Ron", mysterious beasts of massive power that nearly destroyed the Underground when they were last unleashed. Uraku, then only 20 at the time of this manga's debut, was definitely a rookie in many ways when it came to making manga, resulting in some early roughness in his art & storytelling, but Enix's editors clearly saw potential in him, & apparently even had Tokyo Underground alternate issues with Mammote Shugogetten!, seemingly so as to give Uraku (& Minene Sakurano, I imagine) more time to find his footing. There are reports that this alternating pace came to an end due to the mass exodus in June 2001, but (as mentioned last time) Mamotte Shugogetten! ended its run in Shonen Gangan in February 2000, over a year before that exodus happened. Regardless, Tokyo Underground would move on to a proper monthly pace at that point & continue running until March 2005, totaling 84 chapters across 14 volumes, with Uraku handily improving both as an artist & storyteller. Uraku would return to Shonen Gangan in 2007 with one last manga before (seemingly) retiring for good, and we'll get to that in the next "era" of the magazine.
Tokyo Underground would receive a series of drama CDs starting in 2000, as well as a promotional anime trailer in 2001 by Tokyo Kids as part of a different joint effort, this time also involving Gangan Wing (represented by Nightmare Children), G Fantasy (represented by E's), & Stencil (represented by Bus Gamer). However, in 2002 came the "main" adaptation by way a 26-episode TV anime by Studio Pierrot that aired in prime time on TV Tokyo & covered the first eight volumes. It's a solid adaptation that even made some slight changes that arguably improved some of the early story in minor ways, though today it's probably best known as essentially being the warm up project for the staff that would then follow up with the anime adaptation of Naruto. A few months after Tokyo Underground's debut Shonen Gangan would end its run as a bimonthly/"every two weeks" magazine & return to being Monthly Shonen Gangan with the April 1998 issue; the magazine has remained monthly ever since.
Next up is yet another video game adaptation, though this time we're back to another Enix-owned IP. After development finished on Namco's 1995 Super Famicom RPG Tales of Phantasia, a number of staff at developer Wolf Team would leave the studio due to creative differences & start their own studio, which would be called Tri-Ace, & they'd make their debut on July 19, 1996 with the release of Star Ocean for the Super Famicom, which was published by Enix. An RPG that was notable for its fusion of medieval fantasy & sci-fi space opera, Star Ocean would be followed up two years later with 1998's Star Ocean: The Second Story for the PlayStation, which came out on July 30 that year. Likely to help promote The Second Story's incoming release, Shonen Gangan debuted Star Ocean: Soshite Toki no Kanata he/To the Far End of Time by Ataru Cagiva, a highly truncated manga adaptation of the first game that ran from April to October 1998 & totaled a single volume. Maybe it was because Enix wanted to strike while the iron was hot, but the end of Gangan's first Star Ocean manga adaptation would be immediately followed-up the very next issue in November 1998 with Star Ocean: The Second Story by Mayumi Azuma.
A former assistant to Kozue Amano that had also won the Big Rookie Ward back in 1993, Azuma already had three serializations prior to Star Ocean: SS, one of which was itself a video game adaptation (for Capcom's Vampire Savior) & was actually still running over in Gangan Wing. In terms of adaptation Azuma's Star Ocean: The Second Story still told the same general story as the RPG, detailing the adventure of space officer Claude C. Kenny after he finds himself stranded on a medieval-style planet, becoming looked at as a legendary hero of destiny who can save the planet from evil. However, beyond that (& certain major plot points) Azuma was allowed to essentially tell her own original story with the manga, and since the game itself was only four months old when the manga debuted it honestly made perfect sense to do so. The manga version of Second Story was seemingly a big hit for Shonen Gangan, as on April 3, 2001 the TV anime Star Ocean EX debuted, which itself was actually an adaptation of Mayumi Azuma's manga, instead of the video game itself, though it also wound up having its own unique elements; this anime would then get released in English by Geneon Entertainment & (later) Discotek Media. Azuma was even hired to do the character designs for Star Ocean: Blue Sphere, a Game Boy Color sequel to Second Story that came out on June 28, 2001... right around the time the mass exodus was happening over at Enix's book publishing division. Yep, Mayumi Azuma would wind up being one of the mangaka who also left Enix, though she would at least stay around until October 2001, bringing the Second Story manga adaptation to an end after seven volumes, though not a proper finale as the manga only adapted about halfway through the RPG. Azuma would move over to Mag Garden & debut Elemental Gelade (a.k.a. Erementar Gerad) in the April 2002 issue of Monthly Comic Blade, which would be the manga she became most known for.
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After Star Ocean: The Second Story's debut there wouldn't be another new manga in Shonen Gangan until February 1999 with the debut work of Sakura Kinoshita, The Mythical Detective Loki. This manga starred the literal trickster god of Norse mythology, who has been cast down to the human realm by Odin (who simply had enough of his excessive "playfulness") & turned into a child, with the only way for him to return back being to gather the evil aura of demons that find their way into human hearts. Loki decides that the only way to reliably do this is to open up a detective agency that specializes in the paranormal, finding help in the form of a young girl named Mayura Daidouji, his literal serpent son Jormungand (now taking the form of a young man named Ryusuke Yamino, ironically acting as Loki's caretaker), & various other Norse deities who wind up on Earth, like Fenrir (now a pet dog), Hel (now a yandere daddy's girl), & Spica (now a quiet, & quite voracious, giant of a dojikko). Naturally, more of the Norse pantheon also got involved as the story moved on, eventually moving over from traditional detective stories to something more involving the gods themselves & even Ragnarok itself. Mythical Detective Loki would run in Shonen Gangan until December 2001, when Sakura Kinoshita decided to join the mass exodus from Enix, moving over to Comic Blade & continuing the series over there, now under the title Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok.
The original Gangan run would last 34 chapters across seven volumes, while the Blade run from 2002 to 2004 would last another 25 chapters across five more volumes. In 2011 Kinoshita would return to her debut series with Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok: Gods of the New World, which saw Loki needing to deal with a new cadre of Norse deities & ran digitally in Mag Garden's WEB Comic Beat until 2015, adding six more volumes for a total of 18 volumes for the entire franchise. ADV would release the 2003 TV anime adaptation (which, despite using the Ragnarok name, looks to only adapt the original Enix run) in English throughout the 00s, and while ADV also released the manga in 2004 & 2005... it looks to be that they only released the later Ragnarok run, not the original Enix run, and only made it two volumes in, to boot.
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The next long-running Gangan manga would appear in May 1999 with yet another debut serialization, this time Shinsengumi Imon/Strange Tale of the Shinsengumi Peace Maker by Nanae Chrono. Inspired to make manga by titles like Papuwa-kun & Shonen Sunday's Ushio & Tora, Chrono made a one-shot that became a runner-up in the Monthly Gangan Cup & was published in the January 1999 issue of Shonen Gangan before making their serialized debut with Peace Maker, the story of Tetsunosuke Ichimura, a young man who follows his brother Tatsunosuke in joining the Shinsengumi to become stronger, after their parents were killed by Choshu samurai. After initially being denied admittance due to his short stature & bad attitude, "Tetsu" manages to get approval by Okita Souji & is initially assigned as a page to Hijikata Toshizo. While certain specific historical details were naturally changed for the sake of the story Chrono told, Peace Maker still followed the general historical story of the Shinsengumi, & by September 2001 had covered up to the Ikedaya incident, i.e. the moment the Shinsengumi first truly gained notoriety amongst the public for their skills, both in investigation & combat. However, much like numerous others covered already, Nanae Chrono was another mangaka who joined in the mass exodus from Enix, also moving over to Mag Garden & continuing their Shinsengumi story over in Comic Blade under the new title of Peace Maker Kurogane; the original Enix run lasted six volumes.
Unfortunately, after an initial three year run from 2002 to 2005, Kurogane's serialization would become known for its numerous hiatuses, not helped by Chrono debuting other serializations in between (Vassalord & Senki Senki Momotama, both of which they managed to eventually finish); Peace Maker Kurogane is currently stalled at 17 collected volumes. On March 12, 2023 Nanae Chrono would announce on Twitter that Kuorgane was on indefinite hiatus due to depression & a third instance of burnout, so who knows if Chrono's debut serialization will ever see completion; that said, Nanae Chrono's mental health is more important than a manga. As for Peace Maker's history in English, ADV first released the TV anime from 2003 (which, like Loki Ragnarok, used the Kurogane name due to copyright but was technically an adaptation of the OG Gangan run) during the mid-00s, followed by FUNimation giving it a new release in the 2010s; Crunchyroll would then stream the two anime movies that were made in 2018. As for the manga, ADV would attempt a release of Kurogane in 2004/2005 (skipping the OG run), but only made it two volumes in, but then TokyoPop would give the manga a second chance, first releasing all of the OG run across five volumes before moving on to Kurogane, but only made it four volumes in before stopping, due to TokyoPop's own financial problems at the time.
This marks the end of Shonen Gangan being affected by the mass exodus for this overview, as all future manga that will be covered stayed with the magazine to their respective ends.
Even though Shonen Gangan already had a "case files"-style mystery manga with Mythical Detective Loki, the September 1999 issue still saw the debut of a second notable mystery manga with Spiral: Suiri no Kizuna/The Bonds of Reasoning by novelist Kyo Shirodaira (making his manga debut) handling the story & fresh new mangaka Eita Mizuno handling the art. However, Spiral was able to offer something different by being a series focused around a central mystery, namely Ayumu Narumi wanting to figure out what happened to his older brother Kiyotaro, a famous detective & pianist, with his only lead being the phrase "Blade Children" that Ayumu heard in his last phone call with his brother. With the help of Hiyono Yuizaki, a journalist at his school, & Madoka Narumi, Ayumu's sister-in-law who also wants to find her husband, Ayumu slowly discovers the identities of the six Blade Children, who are all "cursed" geniuses with cat-like eyes & a missing seventh rib bone, & how they relate to Kiyotaka's sudden disappearance. Similar to Loki, though, as the story continued on Spiral would slowly be less about the central mystery & eventually focus more on Ayumu needing to directly take on the Blade Children, as more about them became revealed. Still, it would run until November 2005 & total 77 chapters across 15 volumes, & it would even receive a prequel/spin-off in the form of Spiral Alive, done by the same duo of Shirodaira & Mizuno. Debuting in 2001 in Gangan Wing, Spiral Alive initially started life as a romantic comedy that simply took place in the same world as Spiral, only two years prior, but after a hiatus that ended in 2006 (following Spiral's finale), Spiral Alive would move over to Shonen Gangan itself & continue as a psychological thriller starring two of the Blade Children, before ending June 2008 after 28 total chapters across five volumes.
Both Kyo Shirodaira & Eita Mizuno would continue working with Shonen Gangan, though no longer as a duo, so we'll see both again in later parts of this overview. Meanwhile, Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning would first see English release via its 2002 TV anime adaptation, which FUNimation released between 2004 & 2005. While TokoPop did initially plan a release for the manga in 2005, it'd be Yen Press that would eventually release the entire series between 2007 & 2011, followed by a digital re-release in 2014; Spiral Alive has never seen official English release, however.
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We finally reach the new millennium for Shonen Gangan, but despite the start of a new century there must still be a Dragon Quest manga for the magazine, & April 2000 would see the debut of Dragon Quest Monsters+ by Mine Yoshizaki, who had already made a name for himself the year prior with the debut of Sgt. Frog over in Kadokawa's Monthly Shonen Ace (&, as mentioned at the start of this part, had a prior serialization in Shonen Gangan with Guardian Eight). As the name (subtly) indicates, this wasn't a direct adaptation of the 1998 game Dragon Quest Monsters: Terry's Wonderland for the Game Boy Color, but rather was a sequel that took place after the game's events, though was still more or less a standalone story. After Terry (the lead of the GBC game) & his monster Watabou mysteriously disappear, a boy named Kleo from another world is teleported to the land to help train monsters for a new dark force on the horizon, all while trying to figure out what exactly happened to Terry. Technically, this was the second manga based on DQM to run in Shonen Gangan, but was came before was a series of four-panel gag strips based on the game that ran throughout 1999, as the OG Dragon Quest four-panel strips had left the magazine back in 1998. No, DQM+ was a proper serialized story that saw Kleo become a true Monster Master & have adventures in a world unlike anything he had previously known before, all while Yoshizaki showed his skills in ways that he normally couldn't with Sgt. Frog, which was more of a straight comedy focused around otaku culture & the like.
Dragon Quest Monsters+ would run until February 2003 & total five volumes, and while it certainly took a while the manga would eventually see release in English when Seven Seas released the entire run throughout 2019.
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Up next we have a very interesting case, as this was an example of a manga that actually was produced well in advance before it finally debuted in Shonen Gangan, & it was due to how Enix itself produced its manga magazines. In 1998 an 18-year old Masahiro Totsuka took his one-shot gag manga Neko Punch to Enix, where one of the manga editors encouraged Totsuka to make another one-shot for the 8th Enix 21st Century Manga Awards. That second one-shot became the runner-up, which got it published in the February 1999 issue of Shonen Gag-Oh, & Totsuka was given the chance to debut a serialization. However, due to how Enix planned these things out in advance, Totsuka wouldn't get his serialized debut until a year later so he did the most reasonable thing: Draw storyboards for 50 whole chapters of an expanded take on his second one-shot, as well as draw 1,000 pages worth of storyboards for another series (Green Line) that sadly never turned into an actual manga; he even drew another one-shot that got him an Honorable Mention at Shueisha's 51st Akatsuka Awards. Totsuka would eventually make his serialized debut in Shonen Gangan in April 2000 with 1/N no Yuragi (which was very shot-lived, but was later revived in Gangan Powered), but what we're here to go over is Totsuka's second serialization, Kiyomura-kun to Suginokouji-kun to/Kiyomura & Suginokouji &.... Debuting in September 2000, "Kiyosugi to" (as it's abbreviated as in Japan) detailed the life of Ono Kiyomura, a third-year high school student who one day is encouraged to join the soccer team by its captain, Takachiho Suginokouji. While initially hesitant, Kiyomura eventually agrees, since he once had a passion for the sport back in the day... only to find out that the team only has five members (plus an animal), meaning that they really can't play soccer in any regular fashion. So, instead, Kiyomura is often just dragged around by Suginokouji, where the two find themselves in a variety of situations, scenarios, & the like, with Kiyomura often being the butt of Suginokouji's pranks; once in a while they actually do get to play soccer, though.
Yes, Kiyosugi to was in reality a silly gag manga, with only the occasional venture into actual soccer playing, with one of the recurring gags being that Suginokouji's pranks were often so harsh & physically violent that Kiyomura would eventually gain superhuman strength & even regenerative abilities in response. As mentioned, Totsuka had pre-planned 50 chapters of Kiyosugi to in advance of its actual serialized debut, and those 50 chapters would wind up being the total run of the manga in Shonen Gangan, which ended in January 2002 & totaled four volumes; Totsuka even made a bonus 51st chapter due to reader support. We'll see Totsuka again in this series with some later work in Shonen Gangan, but as for Kiyosugi to it actually made two different returns, first from late 2002 to mid-2005 in Gangan Powered as Kiyomura-kun to Suginokouji-kun yo (a.k.a. Kiyosugi yo), which added another two volumes, before returning yet again in Shonen Gangan in the late 00s... and we'll get that in due time.
One issue after Kiyosugi to's serialized debut we have out penultimate manga debut for Shonen Gangan's "Original [United] Era", and in a surprising twist it's from a writer/artist duo where there's way more information about the writer than there is about the artist. Tetsuya Kurosawa has been writing ever since the early 80s, back when he was a student writer for magazines like Popeye & Pia, where he wrote movie reviews & columns. He eventually got a regular job as a writer for Keibunsha in 1982, but in 1984 went freelance, eventually becoming a regular writer for Weekly Shonen Jump's Famicom Shinken column from 1987 to 1989 under the pseudonym Tetsumaro. Kurosawa would eventually start writing manga in 1989, working most often with artist Kei Satomi, while also working as Editor-in-Chief for Nippon Shuppansha's military-themed manga magazine Monthly Combat Comic. We jump ahead to October 2000 when Kurosawa finally made his Shonen Gangan debut with artist Souka Ashiro (who, from everything I can tell, only ever made this one manga) with Magic Master, the story of Tsukasa Fujiwara, a young boy who has a knack for seeing through various magic tricks, which in turn initially turned him off from it, but eventually becomes interested in learning magic tricks himself. With supervision from Masahiro Yanagida, a member of The Magic Castle in Hollywood, Kurosawa & Ashiro, Magic Master aimed to not only entertain readers with its variety of realistic magic tricks from Tsukasa & his friends/rivals, but also educate readers on how these tricks are performed, with the idea being that Ashiro's art showcased the tricks without too many visual flourishes. That way readers could naturally infer the solutions visually, while the later compiled volumes included explanations of each magic trick shown throughout each respective book.
Magic Master would run until February 2005, totaling 11 volumes, and while Souka Ashiro has seemingly disappeared from the industry entirely since then Tetsuya Kurosawa has remained a part of the manga industry. While his work as a manga author mostly stopped in the 2010s, Kurosawa has been a regular columnist for the official Osamu Tezuka website since 2009, while in 2016 he became the Editor-in-Chief of Shogakukan Creative's comics department, a role he seemingly still has to this day, while also co-authoring numerous non-manga books & the like.
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Finally, we reach the last major manga to debut in Shonen Gangan prior to the mass exodus that would happen throughout the second half of 2001; the last one to debut at a time when Enix's publishing division was still one big, happy(?) "family". Fittingly, it would be the last Dragon Quest manga to ever debut in Monthly Shonen Gangan, while also marking the return of one of the magazine's first iconic mangaka. As mentioned at the start of this part, once Dragon Quest: The Emblem of Roto finished in Issue #8 of 1997 that manga was immediately replaced with Dragon Quest: Maboroshi no Daichi, a direct adaptation of DQVI done by Masaomi Kanzaki... but what happened to artist Kamui Fujiwara? Well, he stayed with Shonen Gangan for his next series, Color Mail, but that didn't even last a full year before ending, & after that Fujiwara moved over to other publishers for the next couple of years. Fujiwara would return to Shonen Gangan in February 2001, though, to take the place of Kanzaki for the next manga based on Enix's iconic RPG series, Dragon Quest: Eden no Senshi-tachi/Warriors of Eden. As the subtitle indicates, this was a manga adaptation of Dragon Quest VII for the PlayStation, which came out only half a year prior &, due to its infamous length of 100+ hours, I imagine still wasn't completed by a decent portion of the players in Japan. The manga told the story of three kids (Arus [I guess Fujiwara just really likes that name?], Maribel, & Prince Kiefer) who live on the island of Estard... which, to everyone's knowledge, is the literal only piece of land in the entire world. However, after uncovering some ancient tablets the three discover that the world was once much larger, but due to a series of tragic incidents everything except Estard was destroyed, and now it's up to them to change the past & slowly recover the various part of the world.
Unlike Masaomi Kanzaki's DQVI manga, which looked to be mostly accurate to the original game, Kamui Fujiwara's Warriors of Eden manga featured a number of original elements, including characters, spells, & even a more pronounced romance between Kiefer & Maribel, while Fujiwara specifically made sure to remove the inclusion of DQVII's job system, which he felt would have been difficult to properly implement. An amusing addition, though, was a small lizard named Geregere that would accompany the cast, & even learn to speak, as the original cover art for DQVII showed a similar lizard atop the Hero's hat, but only in the manga would it actually play a factor. Dragon Quest: Warriors of Eden would run until January 2006, with the 59th chapter marking the end of "Part 1", which saw Kiefer leave the party, as he did (temporarily) in the game... only for the manga to never return again; to be fair, Fujiwara had also been working on the Emblem of Roto sequel manga by that point. Yeah, the Warriors of Eden manga would go on indefinite hiatus, stopping at 14 volumes, and it would stay that way for 20 years when, to tie-in with the release of Dragon Quest VII Reimagined (a complete redo of the game meant to make the story shorter, & more friendly, for people to experience), Kamui Fujiwara debuted Dragon Quest Eden in Issue #2 of Young Gangan in 2026. This is the direct continuation of the Warriors of Eden manga adaptation that's adding in elements of Reimagined, like an adult Kiefer that rejoins his still-kids friends for the adventure.
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And with that we've made it to the 1/3 point of this overview of Monthly Shonen Gangan's history by way of its most notable manga so far (from what I can tell, at least). Unlike when I did The Ages of Jump, which had a point that was literally called a "Golden Age" for me to work off of when defining the other "Ages", there doesn't really look to be any such agreed upon "Golden Age of Monthly Shonen Gangan", hence why I'm calling these "Eras" instead. However, while I initially used the life of a single major work to arbitrarily define the three "Eras" of Shonen Gangan it actually did work out really well for this "Original [United] Era", because in between the debut of Dragon Quest: Warriors of Eden (plus two other short-lived manga) & the debut of what is likely the most important manga in Shonen Gangan's entire history there was a single major moment that really does create a definitive divide between the first two "Eras": The Enix Family Dispute in June 2001.
Yes, the "mass exodus" I kept referring to has an actual name given to it and we'll go over what exactly happened, plus how it affected Enix's various manga magazines, at the start of the next part. While Shonen Gangan honestly wasn't affected too much it would ravage a couple others, even eventually resulting in the complete cancellation of an entire magazine. However, after such a major event would come an era of "rebirth", and luckily just one month after the Enix Family Dispute started Monthly Shonen Gangan would see the debut of a manga whose entire existence would arguably define the magazine's next era... and it led the way with a right arm made entirely of "metal".
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