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98-457: City Hunter ( Japanese : シティーハンター , Hepburn : Shitī Hantā ) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tsukasa Hojo . It was serialized in Shueisha 's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1985 to 1991, with its chapters collected in 35 tankōbon volumes. The manga was adapted into an anime television series by Sunrise Studios in 1987. The anime series

196-454: A kissaten decorated with manga motifs, in Kichijōji , a neighborhood in the city of Musashino , Tokyo , was inaugurated on November 11, 2009. To expand its range the magazine also promotes a "silent manga" contest; first, in 2011, it was a national competition. Starting from 2013, it became an international contest, in which no dialogues were necessary. Open for professional and amateurs,

294-559: A pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has

392-400: A Hong Kong film starring Jackie Chan , and Nicky Larson et le Parfum de Cupidon , a French film), video games, and a live-action Korean TV drama . It also had a spin-off manga, Angel Heart , which in turn spawned its own anime television series and a live-action Japanese TV drama . The series follows the exploits of Ryo Saeba, a "sweeper" who is always found chasing beautiful girls and

490-624: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down

588-863: A certain amount of chapters are serialized in the magazine they are collected into tankōbon format and published under the Zenon Comics imprint. Parallel to this label, there is Zenon Comics DX that only publishes titles former released by other publishers such as Tetsuo Hara's Cyber Blue ( Weekly Shōnen Jump ) and Kōkenryoku Ōryō Sōsakan Nakabō Rintarō ( Bart 3230 ). This two titles composed Zenon Comics DX first line-up, while Zenon Comics one had Angel Heart: 2nd Season , Cat's Eye , Concierge Platinum , and Waraenu Warashi: 108 no Karma . Both imprints released its first titles on March 22, 2011. The Zenon Comics level also publishes manga released on Zenon ' s sister magazine, Web Comic Zenyon ( WEBコミックぜにょん ) . Published online since October 25, 2012, it

686-589: A complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )

784-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )

882-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as

980-479: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it

1078-416: A private detective who works to rid Tokyo of crime, along with his associate or partner, Hideyuki Makimura. Their "City Hunter" business is an underground jack-of-all-trades operation, contacted by writing the letters "XYZ" on a blackboard at Shinjuku Station . One day, Hideyuki is murdered, and Ryo must take care of Hideyuki's sister, Kaori, a tomboy who becomes his new partner in the process. However, Kaori

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1176-518: A section called "Zenon International" on the contest website to publish the SMAC! Web Magazine . They announced plans to translate all the series and offer them for free on their site based on demand—which is based on the readers' vote. At first they made available Ikusa no Ko: Legend of Oda Nobunaga , Nobo and Her? and Arte , and in December Angel Heart became part of the catalog. After

1274-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),

1372-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate

1470-438: A subscription service. ADV later released the series on DVD. The first series was released as two boxsets of 5 discs on July 29, 2003. City Hunter 2 was released as another two boxsets of five discs on October 28, and November 18, 2003. City Hunter 3 was released as a single boxset on December 2, 2003, and City Hunter '91 was released on December 16, 2003. On April 20, 2019, Discotek Media announced that they had licensed

1568-624: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of

1666-445: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,

1764-519: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing

1862-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number

1960-684: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider

2058-462: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto

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2156-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to

2254-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through

2352-722: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey

2450-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of

2548-489: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and

2646-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and

2744-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have

2842-403: Is very susceptible and jealous, often hitting Ryo with a giant hammer when he does something perverted. The story also follows the behind-the-scenes romance between Ryo and Kaori and the way they cooperate throughout each mission. Written and illustrated by Tsukasa Hojo , City Hunter started in Shueisha 's shōnen manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump on February 26, 1985, and ran until

2940-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns

3038-694: The City Hunter manga series had sold over 50   million tankōbon volumes worldwide. In addition, the series was circulated in an estimated 900   million copies of Weekly Shōnen Jump manga magazine between 1985 and 1991, with those Jump issues generating an estimated $ 2 billion . The series voted as the 19th "Most Powerful" series to have featured in Shonen Jump . On TV Asahi 's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150.000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, City Hunter ranked 57th. In Manga: The Complete Guide , Jason Thompson described

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3136-505: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in

3234-504: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than

3332-556: The Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from

3430-716: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of

3528-794: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to

3626-448: The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics ,

3724-518: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),

3822-461: The 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of

3920-582: The December 2, 1991, issue. Its chapters were collected by Shueisha in 35 volumes, under the Jump Comics imprint, between January 15, 1986, and April 15, 1992. In these volumes the series is grouped into 55 different stories or "episodes" instead of as their original individual chapters. Each story is centred on a different female character or "heroine". The series was an 18 volume edition by Shueisha from June 18, 1996, to October 17, 1997. A third edition of 32 volumes

4018-454: The English dub of the movie at Otakon 2019, and released it on Blu-ray on May 26, 2020. Another film was announced in 2022. City Hunter: Angel Dust was released on September 8, 2023. Shinjuku Private Eyes made around 1.53 billion JPY at the box office (equivalent to roughly $ 10.5 million US), while Angel Dust made around 1.06 billion JPY (equivalent to roughly $ 7 million US). Three television movies were produced: The Secret Service

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4116-482: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,

4214-724: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently

4312-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand

4410-639: The Takarazuka Grand Theater from August 7 to September 13, 2021 and then at the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater from October 2 to November 14. The musical starred Sakina Ayakaze as Ryo Saeba and Kiwa Asazuki as Kaori Makimura. City Hunter video game was released by Sunsoft for the PC Engine in March 1990. Ryo appears as a playable character in the crossover fighting game Jump Force . By 2016,

4508-555: The Vicious Criminal Ryo Saeba with all films previously licensed by ADV in a Blu-ray collection on January 31, 2023. Saviour of the Soul (九一神鵰俠侶 Gauyat sandiu haplui ) is a live-action Hong Kong film from 1991 that uses the characters from City Hunter but changes the plot. In 1996, Mr. Mumble kept the concept of City Hunter but changed the characters' names. In 1993, a live-action Hong Kong theatrical adaptation of

4606-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which

4704-427: The discs comprising the four series were then released individually between December 19, 2007, and August 27, 2008. 30,000 box sets were sold, grossing ¥3 billion ( $ 38 million ), in Japan. For the 30th anniversary of the original manga, buyers of all 12 volumes of City Hunter XYZ edition were entitled receive a "motion graphic anime" DVD. The DVDe adapted a special Angel Heart chapter entitled "Ryo's Proposal" and

4802-459: The drop of Shinchosha 's Weekly Comic Bunch circulation numbers, Coamix , which edited the magazine, announced Bunch ' s discontinuation. Coamix marked August 27, 2010 as the day of Bunch ' s last release, and started to consider to launch a new magazine. In October 2010, Coamix announced a partnership with North Stars Pictures and Tokuma Shoten , stating that the new magazine Monthly Comic Zenon would debut on October 25, 2010. At

4900-423: The early 1990s. A replica of Kaori's "100-ton hammer" raised ¥1.832 million ($ 17,150) on Yahoo Auctions in 2007. It was the biggest selling charity item of the year for the service. In 2012, the characters of Ryo, Kaori and Umibozu appeared in a video for the virtual musician Mana . Mana is a collaboration between Hojo and Tetsuya Komuro of TM Network . The cover for the 2015 Chris Brown single " Zero "

4998-564: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there

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5096-410: The entire City Hunter animated franchise, including the 2019 movie, Shinjuku Private Eyes . The first 26 episodes of the first series were released on February 25, 2020, and City Hunter '91 was released on April 26, 2022. Three theatrical movies were released in 1989 and 1990: .357 Magnum was released on June 17, 1989, Bay City Wars was released on August 25, 1990, and Million Dollar Conspiracy

5194-491: The film, respectively. The Kisugi sisters of Cat's Eye appeared in the film as a crossover. Teruo Satoh and Takahiko Kyōgoku served as episode directors, while Kumiko Takahashi designed the characters and Taku Iwasaki composed the music. The film debuted No. 4 at the Japanese box office, where it has grossed ¥1,404,747,320 ( $ 12.16 million ) as of March 17, 2019. The film earned ¥1,502,665,440 ( $ 13,691,712 ) by April 15, 2019, in two months since its release, becoming

5292-512: The focus of the judgment was the performance of the works through art rather than exposition. The judges were manga authors Tsukasa Hojo ( City Hunter ) and Tetsuo Hara ( Fist of the North Star ), then editor-in-chief Nobuhiko Horie and the magazine editorial team. The best five received prize awards while the top three had their works published in the magazine. The first international edition received 514 submissions from 53 countries, while in

5390-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had

5488-453: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system

5586-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of

5684-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,

5782-436: The manga stories as "well told and entertaining". Writing for Mania.com, Eduardo M. Chavez describes the series as "funny, sexy, action packed and at times just plain whacked" and praises the mix of action and comedy. Patrick King of Animefringe described the series as "not the most intellectually stimulating piece of fiction I've experienced lately" but called it "a blast to read". In a 2005 poll held by TV Asahi , City Hunter

5880-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by

5978-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with

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6076-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,

6174-475: The previously licensed ADV Films film releases and Death of the Vicious Criminal Ryo Saeba television movie, and released them in a Blu-ray collection on January 31, 2023. A theatrical movie produced by Aniplex, titled City Hunter the Movie: Shinjuku Private Eyes , set in present-day Shinjuku, premiered in Japan on February 8, 2019, after Sunrise and Kenji Kodama returned to animate and direct

6272-477: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as

6370-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning

6468-408: The same time Shinchosha launched Monthly Comics @ Bunch , a replacement for Weekly Comic Bunch , but edited without Coamix's involvement. As a result, many of the manga artists from Bunch have been moved to Zenon . The magazine's name is based on "Kanzeon Bosatsu" ( 観世音菩薩 ) —the Japanese name of bodhisattva Guanyin —, specifically the "Zeon" ( 世音 ) part, which means to "hear the voice of

6566-502: The second people from 65 countries submitted 609 works. Molico Ross, a winner of the domestic competition, wrote Nobo and Her? between 2012 and 2017, and Shinigami ni Datte, Ai wa Aru (published since 2017) is based on "Thirty and a Half Minutes", a work by the 4th international contest winner, Vietnamese female writer Snippy MJ. In another action to expand its public, in August 2015, Coamix and The Silent Manga Audition Committee created

6664-508: The series for the American comic market during the 1980s; however, Hojo insisted the manga should be released in the right-to-left format. In 2002 Coamix created an American subsidiary, Gutsoon! Entertainment . City Hunter was a flagship title in their Raijin Comics anthology. Raijin switched from a weekly format to a monthly format before being cancelled after 46 issues. In 2012, the series

6762-416: The series was released. The film was directed by Wong Jing and starred Jackie Chan as Ryo Saeba, Wang Zuxian as Kaori, and Japanese idol Kumiko Goto . During filming of the movie, Chan dislocated his shoulder. The movie has been criticised by Chan. Fortune Star and 20th Century Fox later released it on R1 DVD along with other budget classic HK films. In 2016, a new Chinese film based on City Hunter

6860-475: The star, playing the title character Nicky Larson (as Ryo Saeba is known in the French dubs of the anime series). In December 2022, Netflix announced a live-action film adaptation in the works with lead actor Ryohei Suzuki as Ryo Saeba and Misato Morita as Kaori Makimura. Directed by Yūichi Satō , the film premiered on the streaming service on April 25, 2024. A planned live-action television series of City Hunter

6958-797: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this

7056-473: The streaming service Hulu . In 2014, there was a Chinese television series based on City Hunter , with the title Cheng Shi Lie Ren ( Chinese : 城市猎人 ). In 2015, the spin-off manga Angel Heart received its own live-action Japanese TV drama adaptation. In 2021, the Takarazuka Revue produced a musical version titled City Hunter: Nusumareta XYZ ( CITY HUNTER－盗まれたXYZ－ ) . It was performed at

7154-476: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This

7252-480: The third top-grossing Japanese anime film of 2019 up until then, and it had grossed ¥1.53 billion ( $ 14 million ) in Japan by the end of 2019. Shinjuku Private Eyes was released in France on June 13, 2019. Philippe Lacheau , the director and star of the French live-action film adaptation Nicky Larson et le Parfum de Cupidon , was involved with the French distribution of Shinjuku Private Eyes . Discotek Media premiered

7350-547: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Monthly Comic Zenon After

7448-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,

7546-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of

7644-472: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It

7742-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending

7840-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or

7938-475: The worldwide". The "Z" from "Zenon" was chosen with the meaning of "ultimate" since it is the last letter from alphabet. In order to approach more readers, Monthly Comic Zenon is published in both, print and digital editions. The website "Zenon Land" was launched, publishing the Zenon ' s manga series only for smartphones . A YouTube channel was created to disclose Zenon -related media. Also, "Cafe Zenon",

8036-544: Was allegedly copied from one of Hojo's City Hunter sketches. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes

8134-481: Was announced in 2008, to be produced and distributed by Fox Television Studios and South Korean media company SSD. Jung Woo-sung , was scheduled to play Ryo alongside Hollywood-based stars, with location filming in Seoul and Tokyo . In 2011, the series was adapted into a Korean television series of the same name by SBS , starring Lee Min-ho and Park Min-young . The series is available to watch with English subtitles on

8232-408: Was announced to be in development. It was announced that it would be directed by Hong Kong filmmaker Stanley Tong and star Chinese actor Huang Xiaoming as Ryo Saeba. A separate French action comedy film Nicky Larson et le Parfum de Cupidon (lit. "Nicky Larson and Cupid's Perfume") was released in France on February 6, 2019. The French adaptation has Philippe Lacheau as director as well as

8330-499: Was available to read in Japanese as an iPhone application by Rainbow Apps. However, by October 31, 2016, the service was officially terminated. In 2001, Hojo started a spin-off series titled Angel Heart . The series takes place in a universe parallel to City Hunter , where the character of Kaori Makimura is killed and her heart transplanted into Xiang-Ying, Angel Heart ' s protagonist. A spin-off manga titled Kyō Kara City Hunter ( 今日からCITY HUNTER , Today from City Hunter)

8428-535: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular

8526-464: Was broadcast between April 28 and October 10, 1991, and released on 6 VHS cassettes between February and July 1992. The series was later reissued as 20 video compilations. A 32-disc DVD boxset, City Hunter Complete , was published by Aniplex and released in Japan on August 31, 2005. The set contained all four series, the TV specials and animated movies as well as an art book and figures of Ryo and Kaori. 26 of

8624-462: Was broadcast for 51 episodes between April 6, 1987, and March 28, 1988, and released on 10 VHS cassettes between December 1987 and July 1988. City Hunter 2 was broadcast for 63 episodes between April 8 and July 14 and released on 10 VHS cassettes between August 1988 and March 1990. City Hunter 3 was broadcast for 13 episodes from October 15, 1989, to January 21, 1990, and released on 6 VHS cassettes between November 1990 and April 1991. City Hunter '91

8722-560: Was broadcast on January 5, 1996, which was followed by Goodbye My Sweetheart on April 25, 1997, and Death of Vicious Criminal Ryo Saeba on April 23, 1999. ADV Films released Goodbye, My Sweetheart as City Hunter: The Motion Picture in North America on VHS on November 18, 1998 as their first release from the franchise, later releasing it on DVD on July 23, 2002. They released The Secret Service on VHS on December 5, 2000 and on DVD on June 25, 2002. Discotek Media released Death of

8820-718: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,

8918-584: Was launched in Tokuma Shoten's Monthly Comic Zenon magazine on July 25, 2017. It is centered around a 40-year-old unmarried woman who is a fan of Ryō Saeba and the City Hunter manga, and suddenly dies in a train accident and is reincarnated into the world of City Hunter . In 2022, Coamix's MangaHot service began publishing City Hunter manga in English digitally. The series was adapted into an anime series produced by Sunrise , directed by Kanetsugu Kodama and broadcast by Yomiuri Television . City Hunter

9016-465: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )

9114-588: Was popular in numerous Asian and European countries. City Hunter spawned a media franchise consisting of numerous adaptations and spin-offs from several countries. The franchise includes four anime television series, three anime television specials, three made-for-television animated films, two animated feature films for theatrical release ( Shinjuku Private Eyes in February 2019 and Angel Dust in September 2023), several live-action films (including City Hunter ,

9212-411: Was published by Tokuma Shoten from December 16, 2003, to April 15, 2005. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series, a fourth edition City Hunter XYZ edition is being published by Tokuma Shoten across twelve volumes. The first volume was published on July 18, 2015. The eighth volume was published on October 20, 2015. Takehiko Inoue was an assistant on the series. Attempts were made to license

9310-455: Was released on August 25, 1990. ADV Films released .357 Magnum on VHS on August 10, 1999 and on DVD on April 8, 2003. They released Bay City Wars and Million Dollar Conspiracy on VHS on October 12, 1999 and January 25, 2000, respectively, and later released a DVD containing them as well as a bonus television episode, "The Lady Vanishes", on June 3, 2003. During their panel at Otakon 2022, Discotek Media announced that they licensed all

9408-590: Was voiced by the original City Hunter cast. The series was licensed by ADV Films for release in North America; they announced their acquisition in May 1998 at Project A-Kon 9 . The first City Hunter series was released on the ADV Fansubs label in March 2000. The aim of this label was to provide cheaper subtitled-only VHS releases at a faster pace than usual. The series was scheduled for 13 tapes, consisting of four episodes each. The tapes could be ordered individually or as

9506-402: Was voted 66th out of the 100 most popular animated TV series, as voted by TV viewers. A TV Asahi web-poll voted City Hunter 65th. The characters Ryo and Kaori proved popular with fans. In the reader voted Animage Anime Grand Prix Saeba Ryo was voted second in the "Best Male Character" section in 1988. In 1989, 1990 and 1991 he was voted first. In 1992, he was voted sixth. Kaori Makamura

9604-437: Was voted fifteenth in the "Best Female Character" category in 1988 before climbing to eighth in 1989. She then placed fifth in 1990 before falling to sixth and eleventh in 1991 and 1992, respectively. The Motion Picture has been praised for the quality of its English dub but criticised for changing the characters names. The anime series was also popular in France, where it was dubbed as Nicky Larson and 140 episodes aired in

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