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Kodansha to Publish 1st Official English Release of Ashita no Joe Manga

Media news website ICv2 reported on Thursday that Kodansha will publish Ikki Kajiwara (pen name Asao Takamori) and Tetsuya Chiba's Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow's Joe) boxing manga in English with the name Ashita no Joe: Fighting for Tomorrow. The company will release the manga physically in eight oversized hardcover volumes as well as digitally, starting in December. The release marks the manga's first official English translation.

The manga ran in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 1968 to 1973, and it had 20 compiled book volumes. The series has remained a mainstay in Japanese popular culture for decades. The manga has inspired two television anime in 1970 and 1980, as well as two anime films in 1980 and 1981. The manga inspired a live-action film that opened in Japan in 2011 starring Tomohisa Yamashita. A stage play adaptation ran in Tokyo in 2015.

Ashita no Joe revolves around an orphan named Joe Yabuki who rises from the Tokyo slums under the tutelage of a former boxer. Takamori and Chiba's original manga is among the most critically acclaimed stories in Japanese popular culture, and Osamu Dezaki's television series added to the story's iconic status. The manga would later influence two generations of sports and shonen manga, including Hajime no Ippo (Fighting Spirit). A crucial twist in the Ashita no Joe television anime's plot made headlines in Japan as people marked the occasion with public ceremonies.

Most recently, the manga's story was re-imagined in a new sci-fi setting with new characters in 2018's Megalobox anime, which credits the original manga as its origin. The sequel series for Megalobox, Megalobox 2: Nomad, premiered in April 2021.

Source: ICv2 (Brigid Alverson)