119-617: Rurouni Kenshin: The Hokkaido Arc ( Japanese : るろうに剣心 ─明治剣客浪漫譚・北海道編─ , Hepburn : Rurōni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Roman Tan Hokkaidō-hen ) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Nobuhiro Watsuki . His wife, Kaworu Kurosaki, is credited as a story consultant. It is a direct sequel to Rurouni Kenshin and follows Himura Kenshin and his friends in 1883 Japan as they traverse Hokkaido in search of his father-in-law. It has been serialized monthly in Shueisha 's shōnen manga magazine Jump Square since September 2017, with
238-417: A shōnen protagonist often also faces internal conflicts, typically focused around maturity and growing older. In contrast to shōjo manga, which often focuses on the thoughts and interior monologue of the hero, shōnen typically advances plot through dialogue and action. Happy endings are common in shōnen manga, but are not obligatory, with writers expressing the happy ending fitting for
357-624: 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
476-404: A category of manga aimed at an older male audience in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and many shōnen artists associated with the realist gekiga movement migrated to seinen manga. The demise of the kashi-hon (rental manga) market led many kashi-hon artists to move into magazine publishing, including shōnen manga, bringing their distinct themes and style with them. As
595-697: A common trend in other Weekly Shōnen Jump protagonists like Luffy and Naruto Uzumaki , who are against the idea of killing their enemies, indicating that for The Hokkaido Arc Kenshin will continue sparring them. On November 4, 2016, Watsuki began a two-chapter spin-off titled Rurouni Kenshin Side Story: The Ex-Con Ashitaro ( -るろうに剣心・異聞- 明日郎 前科アリ , Rurouni Kenshin Ibun: Ashitarō Zenka Ari ) in Jump Square . The two chapters were inspired by buddy films with Watsuki remembering
714-414: 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 )
833-457: A general sense and was used by the Japanese publishing industry until the end of the 19th century to designate publications aimed at children and young people. The word shifted to its current usage of referring specifically to media aimed at adolescent boys, beginning with the practice of segmenting periodicals (especially manga magazines) by sex and age-specific target groups, which was established at
952-419: 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
1071-479: 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
1190-423: A literal form in the form of henshin ( 変身 , lit. 'transformation') , where the hero is able to switch between two personas with different appearances and personalities; examples of this device include Yu-Gi-Oh by Kazuki Takahashi and Samurai Deeper Kyo by Akimine Kamijyo . Transformation abilities are often linked with bonds to a spirit, monster or robot. A major narrative device in shōnen manga
1309-409: A little while longer? That's how I feel at the moment." Although he said he had not yet decided if he would write it as a manga again. The fact that the original manga ended with Kenshin as a family man bothered Watsuki as he was not sure if Kenshin should fight again now that he is happily married. Originally, he planned to include a "Final Chapter" (which was the initial draft of what would later become
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#17329525883821428-449: A major manga series in a given magazine, for example, advertisements for a video game adaptation of the series or articles about an animated film adaptation of the series. Children's magazines with sex-segregated readerships have existed in Japan since the early 1900s. While early youth magazines were ostensibly unisex – Shōnen Sekai was the first youth magazine in Japan in 1895, targeting
1547-500: A manner that is attractive to the male target audience as so-called bishōjos (literally "beautiful young girls"). They exist as objects of romantic or sexual desire not merely for the male characters, but also for the ostensibly heterosexual male reader as a form of fan service . While these objectifying tropes have persisted in shōnen manga, women have also developed more active roles in these fan service-oriented stories. A common romantic comedy trope in shōnen manga since
1666-404: A medium defined by one-off comic strips. Science fiction stories about robots, space travel, and heroic space-faring adventures enjoyed popularity during this period; many sci-fi stories took themes and concepts from war comics and re-imagined them with pacifist ideals, such as Tetsujin 28-go by Mitsuteru Yokoyama . One of the first new shōnen manga magazines of the post-war period
1785-406: A notable example of the latter. Samurai appeared frequently as idealized role models for boy readers in early shōnen , analogous to representations of cowboys in western comics; samurai stories shifted to comedy and sportsmanship in the post-war period, before returning to themes of idealized themes of good versus evil. Though shōnen manga typically attempts to convey a message of peace,
1904-598: A public backlash, it did not lead to the decline for the industry: series with anarchic, offensive humor became popular in shōnen and seinen manga alike, with Crayon Shin-Chan by Yoshito Usui becoming an internationally famous example of this phenomenon. Manga artist Go Nagai originated the sexually-charged ecchi genre with Harenchi Gakuen , which was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump . The stylistic and thematic differences between shōnen and shōjo began to narrow considerably beginning in
2023-429: A readership of both boys and girls – in practice, the editorial content of these publications largely concerned topics that were thought to be of interest to boys. This provoked the emergence of first exclusively shōjo (girls) magazines in 1902, and shōnen magazines subsequently began to exclusively target a male audience. Initially, these magazines did not publish manga; the first shōnen magazine to do so
2142-432: A result, shōnen manga came to deal with more serious and political themes, and saw an increase in depictions of violent and explicit subjects, as well as an increase in profanity. Significant artists of this era include Shigeru Mizuki , creator of the horror series GeGeGe no Kitarō ; and George Akiyama , whose shōnen manga series Ashura depicts cannibalism, child abuse, and mass murder. Although this provoked
2261-408: 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),
2380-621: A significant number of genres and subgenres within shōnen manga, especially when compared to other comic cultures outside of Japan. This includes but is not limited to comedy , crime , romance , slice of life , and stories about activities such as sports and the lives of different types of working professionals. The action genre is itself is expressed through a variety of subgenres, from historical and contemporary drama to science fiction and fantasy . Shōnen war fiction has been alternately jingoistic or critical of militarism and violence, with Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa as
2499-495: A significant proportion of the series' audience; this is especially true of series featuring male characters who are bishōnen (literally "beautiful boys"), or who are perceived as such by readers. This reading of shōnen manga is expressed in the form of fan works such as dōjinshi (self-published amateur manga) and the boys' love (BL) genre of manga and anime, which includes both original and derivative works . Manga scholar Yukari Fujimoto notes in her analysis of
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#17329525883822618-428: 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
2737-624: 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
2856-421: 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 a complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of
2975-445: 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,
3094-519: 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
3213-427: Is an editorial category of Japanese comics targeting an audience of adolescent boys. It is, along with shōjo manga (targeting adolescent girls and young women), seinen manga (targeting young adult and adult men), and josei manga (targeting adult women), one of the primary editorial categories of manga. Shōnen manga is traditionally published in dedicated manga magazines that exclusively target
3332-440: 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
3451-684: 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
3570-462: 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
3689-509: 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
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3808-417: 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
3927-722: 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
4046-420: 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
4165-489: 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
4284-417: Is primarily on action , adventure , and the fighting of monsters or other forces of evil. Action stories are so dominant in shōnen manga that some manga and non-manga works are occasionally designated as shōnen not because of their ostensible target group, but because of their content focus on action and adventure. Though action narratives dominate the category, there is deep editorial diversity and
4403-440: Is rivalry between the protagonist and his opponent, with a fight or a quest often appearing as a central element; Dragon Ball is among the most popular and commercially successful examples of this archetypal story. Typically, a shōnen protagonist is an outsider, or in some way disadvantaged compared to others, but who through training, perseverance, and willpower eventually succeeds against all odds. Plots typically follow
4522-452: Is the most popular category in the Japanese market of the four primary demographic categories of manga ( shōnen , shōjo , seinen , and josei ). The actual readership of shōnen manga, as is the case for all demographic categories of manga, extends significantly beyond this adolescent male target group to include all ages and genders. For example, a 2006 survey of female manga readers found that Weekly Shōnen Jump
4641-402: 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
4760-404: Is to depict the contours of figures with rough, coarse motion lines to give the appearance of movement. Historically, the protagonists of shōnen manga were almost exclusively men and boys; women and girls appeared primarily in supporting roles as sisters, mothers, or girlfriends, if at all. This was especially true of ecchi stories that developed out of shōnen manga beginning in
4879-471: 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
Rurouni Kenshin: The Hokkaido Arc - Misplaced Pages Continue
4998-405: 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
5117-402: The shōnen demographic group. Of the four primary demographic categories of manga, shōnen is the most popular category in the Japanese market. While shōnen manga ostensibly targets an audience of young males, its actual readership extends significantly beyond this target group to include all ages and genders. The category originated from Japanese children's magazines at the turn of
5236-558: The Hokkaido Arc ) for the original series within the volumes of Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration , but Watsuki's wife Kaworu Kurosaki found the ending of the draft to be boring, and assisted him with the new manga series when it came to research. Due to the dark nature of Kenshin's life, Watsuki ended the manga in the Jinchu arc, afraid that if he continued writing, the series would not fit the shōnen manga demographic category. When watching
5355-667: 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 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
5474-455: 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
5593-504: 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
5712-716: 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
5831-794: 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
5950-518: 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),
6069-520: The 1920s and 1930s, with Yōnen Club selling over 950,000 copies. During the Second Sino-Japanese War and Second World War , magazine sales declined and publications were used increasingly for wartime propaganda purposes . The manga content in these publications was reduced, and the series that remained typically focused on patriotic and militaristic themes, such as stories about samurai . In other stories, robots were depicted as fighting in
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#17329525883826188-507: The 1970s, with The Abashiri Family by Go Nagai as one of the earliest representative works of this development, as well as an early example of a shōnen manga with a female protagonist. Since the 1980s, women and girls have played a more active role in shōnen manga, fighting alongside male characters and not merely as passive support. Dr. Slump by Akira Toriyama was an early representative work of this development, with its mischievous child protagonist Arale Norimaki being among
6307-514: The 1980s has been to pair a weak male protagonist with a strong female love interest who is not only the target of his romantic and sexual desire, but also his good friend and confidante. In the harem genre, which originated from shōnen manga, a male protagonist is surrounded by several female characters who desire him, and who are often more confident and assertive than he is; examples include Negima! Magister Negi Magi by Ken Akamatsu and Hanaukyo Maid Team by Morishige . In other cases,
6426-515: The 1980s, combat-focused "battle manga" stories became popular, with Dragon Ball and Fist of the North Star emerging as representative works of this development. Manga critic Jason Thompson credits the success of Dragon Ball , first published in 1984, as originating a trend that has persisted to contemporary shōnen manga of favoring cartoonish art styles over the more mature art styles of shōnen titles such as City Hunter and Fist of
6545-521: The 1980s, with widespread exchange of stylistic devices and themes. For example, the characteristic large eyes of shōjo manga became common in shōnen manga to convey the emotions of characters, and female characters have enjoyed greater prominence as both supporting and primary characters in shōnen manga. Other graphic storytelling techniques that originated in shōjo manga, such as montages of multiple panels , were imported into shōnen manga and have become common stylistic devices. In
6664-618: The 20th century and gained significant popularity by the 1920s. The editorial focus of shōnen manga is primarily on action , adventure , and the fighting of monsters or other forces of evil. Though action narratives dominate the category, there is deep editorial diversity and a significant number of genres and subgenres within shōnen manga, especially compared to other comic cultures outside of Japan, including comedy , crime , romance , slice of life , and sports . The Japanese word shōnen ( 少年 , /ɕoːnen/ lit. "few years") , meaning "young boy", historically referred to juveniles in
6783-482: 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,
6902-449: The North Star . Female manga artists also began to enjoy increasing critical and commercial success as shōnen manga creators. As a result of the combined influence of ecchi and the rise of female artists, romance emerged as a subgenre of shōnen manga, especially romantic comedy . When manga began to emerge in the Western world in the early 1990s, the shōnen category
7021-724: 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
7140-535: 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
7259-543: 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
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#17329525883827378-471: The basic structure of the hero's journey , with much of the story focused on the protagonist's training and transformation into a hero, and on characters who earn their status as heroes through effort and tenacity rather than by virtue of birth or assignment. For long-running series, the hero's journey repeats itself; as a new story arc begins, the enemy becomes more powerful and the danger to be overcome becomes greater. In addition to these external conflicts,
7497-420: The beginning of the 20th century and accelerated starting in the 1960s. This segmentation system is now openly used as a categorization system by manga publishers and extends into works that are adapted from manga, such as anime . Shōnen manga refers to manga aimed at an audience of adolescent boys, with the primary target audience alternately defined as 9 to 18 years old and as 12 to 18 years old. It
7616-444: The best-selling manga with 172,160 copies sold. By its sixth week, it had sold 322,520 copies. The second volume debuted at number three with 201,590 copies sold, while volume three debuted at number three, selling 111,231 copies. Volumes three and four's initial printings of 350,000 copies were some of the highest first printings that Shueisha made for manga between 2019–2020 and 2020–2021 respectively. Natalie reported that volume four
7735-420: The category has been criticized by individuals such as director Hayao Miyazaki for promoting overly simple good/evil dichotomies. A shōnen protagonist is often characterized by contradictory qualities: short-tempered and cool, mischievous and rebellious, serious and cynical, clumsy and infallible, or who appears as a good-for-nothing but possesses hidden abilities. In some cases, the contradiction takes on
7854-493: The chapters collected in nine tankōbon volumes as of November 2023. North American publisher Viz Media released the series digitally in Weekly Shonen Jump simultaneously as it ran in Japan until November 2017. In 1883, Himura Kenshin , having married Kamiya Kaoru , became a father to Himura Kenji and, with his body deteriorating, still fights for those in need. Former criminals Inoue Aran and Hasegawa Ashitaro,
7973-458: The demography even if it not comes up as a suitable. Comics theorist Neil Cohn regards the art style of shōnen as generally "edgier" than that of shōjo manga, and notes how most regular manga readers are able to easily distinguish between shōnen and shōjo based on visual appearance alone. Visually, a shōnen protagonist often possesses what manga critic Jason Thompson describes as "insanely spiky hair" that distinguishes
8092-564: 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
8211-422: The female readership of the shōnen titles One Piece , Naruto , and The Prince of Tennis that homoerotic interpretations of shōnen manga tend to be most common among titles that do not include prominent female characters that a female readership is able to identify with. Shōnen manga is traditionally published in dedicated manga magazines that specifically target an audience of shōnen . At
8330-509: The final tankōbon volume of the original Rurouni Kenshin , published in November 1999, Nobuhiro Watsuki said that he had ideas for a "Hokkaido episode, a sequel" but wanted to start a new manga, and so ended the series. In September 2012, Watsuki revealed that he considered drawing the Hokkaido arc before creating Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration . However, with the series' theme concluded in
8449-427: The final arc of the original and unable to come up with a new one, he said there was "just no way" he could write it. In July 2013, following the positive reception of the live-action film and the conclusion of Restoration , Watsuki said although Rurouni Kenshin concluded once over ten years ago, "there are many requests for its continuation both from the creator and fans. Then why not continue expanding its world for
8568-424: The first shōnen manga to depict this type of archetypal character as a girl rather than a boy. The 1980s also saw female shōnen manga artists rise to greater prominence: notably horror manga artist Kei Kusunoki , and Rumiko Takahashi with her romantic comedies Urusei Yatsura and Ranma ½ . Especially in shōnen series that are aimed at an older audience, female characters are often presented in
8687-421: The first manga series in the genre, and Ashita no Joe by Asao Takamori and Tetsuya Chiba , which became one of the most commercially successful works in the genre. 1959 saw the launch of Shōnen Sunday and Weekly Shōnen Magazine , the first weekly shōnen manga magazines. Other weeklies, such as Shōnen Champion , Shōnen King , and Shōnen Ace , emerged in the 1960s. Weekly Shōnen Jump
8806-522: The first volume only, the January 2019 issue of Da Vinci magazine included Rurouni Kenshin: The Hokkaido Arc at number 21 on its annual "Book of the Year" list for 2018. The list was voted on by 4,275 book reviewers, writers, and bookstore employees. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by
8925-455: 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 , 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
9044-609: 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
9163-513: The ideal designs needed for the protagonists to be likable, citing Ushio & Tora as an example. The first chapter had little hints about Ashitaro being related to Rurouni Kenshin , with the second one expanding it further. Since the young character Myojin Yahiko already matured in the original Rurouni Kenshin , Watsuki created Ashitaro to have him act more like him during early years. The second chapter, published on December 2, 2016, revealed that
9282-573: The industry's peak in the mid-1990s, there were 23 total shōnen magazines, which collectively sold 662 million copies in 1995. The total manga magazine market that year included 265 magazines, with a total of 1.595 billion copies sold. A manga magazine is typically several hundred pages long, and contains over a dozen series or one-shots. The largest Japanese shōnen magazines in terms of circulation are Weekly Shōnen Jump by Shueisha , Weekly Shōnen Magazine by Kodansha , and Weekly Shōnen Sunday by Shogakukan ; these publishers are also
9401-430: 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 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,
9520-453: 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
9639-449: 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
9758-427: 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 ,
9877-474: The largest publishers of manga generally. The fourth largest magazine, albeit by a significant margin, is Weekly Shōnen Champion by Akita Shoten , which was among the most popular manga magazines in the 1970s and 1980s. The magazines CoroCoro Comic and the now-defunct Comic BomBom technically belong to the kodomo (children's manga) demographic, but are often counted as shōnen magazines as they target an audience of school-aged boys. A list of
9996-716: The latter a former member of Shishio Makoto 's faction, have become live-in students at the Kamiya Dojo in Tokyo. Kubota Asahi, a member of the Yaminobu , also starts living at the dojo. The Yaminobu accidentally left behind a recent photograph taken in Hokkaido of Kaoru's father, Kamiya Koshijirō, who was thought to have died in the Seinan War . After reacquiring his sakabatō or reversed-edge sword from Myōjin Yahiko , Kenshin, his family, and
10115-474: The live-action films, Watsuki decided to make a reboot of the series, Restoration , but still had no plans for Hokkaido . Upon watching the Rurouni Kenshin musical, Watsuki was convinced to write Hokkaido as soon as he finished writing his recent work Embalming . To keep the cheerful feeling of the original series, Watsuki wrote the new characters who are nicely treated by Kenshin and Kaoru. Upon helping
10234-413: The male protagonist is unsuccessful in his attempts to woo the female character, or the story is focused around the originally naïve and infantile male protagonist maturing and learning how to develop healthy relationships with women. For certain shōnen series, a female readership who read in or interpret subtextual homoerotic relationships between canonically heterosexual male characters constitute
10353-518: The new residents of Kamiya Dojo head to Hokkaido to find Koshijirō. There, they reunite with Sagara Sanosuke and team up with Saitō Hajime when they get involved in stopping the mysterious group named Kenkaku Heiki, who create havoc throughout Japan to gain battle experience to protect the country from foreign threats. Saitō recruits his former comrade Nagakura Shinpachi and former Juppongatana members Seta Sōjirō , Yūkyūzan Anji , Sawagejō Chō , Honjō Kamatari and Kariwa Henya to aid them. In
10472-418: 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 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
10591-425: 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
10710-470: 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
10829-415: 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,
10948-477: 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
11067-413: The protagonist's silhouette from that of other characters. The eyes of shōnen characters in the post-war period are significantly smaller than those of characters in shōjo manga ; large eyes are used in shōjo manga to better convey the emotions of the characters, an aspect which has historically been given less focus in shōnen manga. A common visual device in shōnen action scenes
11186-696: The publication of new chapters of The Hokkaido Arc beginning on December 4, 2017. It resumed serialization in Jump Square on June 4, 2018. The series went on a hiatus in June 2021 and resumed in August of that same year. In September 2024, it was announced that the series would enter on hiatus due to Watsuki's poor health. The two parts of Rurouni Kenshin Side Story: The Ex-Con Ashitaro were published on November 4 and December 2, 2016, in Shueisha 's Jump Square . Rurouni Kenshin: The Hokkaido Arc began monthly publication in
11305-400: The same magazine on September 4, 2017. Shueisha has collected the chapters into individual tankōbon volumes. The first volume was released on September 4, 2018. As of November 2, 2023, nine volumes have been released. Viz Media released an English translation of The Ex-Con Ashitaro in their digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. The first part was released on December 19, 2016, and
11424-459: 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
11543-618: The second on January 2, 2017. On September 4, 2017, they began simultaneously publishing The Hokkaido Arc in the magazine as it ran in Japan. Following Watsuki's being charged, Viz Media did not continue English publication when the series resumed in Japan, making its last appearance in the magazine on November 6, 2017. These chapters have yet to be published in a tankōbon volume. They were serialized in issues of Jump Square . In July 2019, Jump Square announced that Rurouni Kenshin: The Hokkaido Arc had 1.2 million copies in print. The first volume debuted at number four on Oricon 's list of
11662-439: 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 )
11781-538: The staff from the live-action films, The Final and The Beginning , Watsuki came up with new ideas to give Kenshin's story a happy ending despite his hitokiri actions. Watsuki stated that Takeru Satoh's portrayal of the main character is stronger than the manga one, most notably in The Final . He felt that Kenshin was a "king type" character, similar to Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece , due to his heroic traits. Watsuki also reflected on Kenshin's pacifism, which became
11900-797: 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
12019-473: The story is a prologue to a new arc of Rurouni Kenshin beginning in spring 2017. Delayed until summer, Rurouni Kenshin: The Hokkaido Arc began publication in Jump Square on September 4, 2017. In order to promote the series, multiple posters of Kenshin were on display in Shinjuku Station . On November 21, 2017, Watsuki was charged with possession of child pornography . That same day, Shueisha suspended
12138-476: 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
12257-664: 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". Sh%C5%8Dnen manga Shōnen manga ( 少年漫画 , lit. "boys' comics ", also romanized as shonen , shounen or syônen )
12376-419: 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 ,
12495-577: 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
12614-472: 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
12733-462: The use of manga for pro-Imperial propaganda. Manga developed during this period under the influence of artist Osamu Tezuka , with series such as Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion . Tezuka was inspired by American cartoons , and pioneered the so-called "story manga": long-running manga series with a cinematic style and continuity across multiple chapters, contrasting what had previously been
12852-407: 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
12971-503: The war against the Allied forces, as analogous to western superhero comics that depicted superheroes fighting the Axis powers during this same period. During the post-war occupation of Japan , the Japanese publishing industry was rebuilt under initially strict guidelines. Stories focused on war, combat, and most competitive sports were banned with the aim of discouraging belligerence and hindering
13090-548: 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
13209-590: Was Manga Shōnen , which launched in 1947 and published works by Tezuka, Leiji Matsumoto , and Shōtarō Ishinomori . As post-war censorship codes were repealed and Japan entered a period of significant economic development in the 1950s, sales of manga and the number of manga magazines increased significantly, and shōnen and shōjo manga came to further establish themselves as distinct categories. The first works of sports manga also emerged from shōnen manga during this time; notable early works include Igaguri-kun [ jp ] by Eiichi Fukui as
13328-469: Was Shōnen Pakku , first published in 1907. This was followed by Shōnen Club in 1914 and later Yōnen Club . Among the most successful and influential manga series in these early shōnen magazines were Norakuro by Suihō Tagawa , which follows the life of an anthropomorphic dog soldier, and Tank Tankuro by Gajo Sakamoto , about a robot-like character who can change his appearance. Shōnen magazine enjoyed significant popularity during
13447-535: 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
13566-487: Was first published in 1968, and would establish itself as the best-selling manga magazine across demographic categories, a position it holds to this day. Many of the most popular and commercially successful shōnen series originated in Weekly Shōnen Jump , including Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama , Naruto by Masashi Kishimoto , Bleach by Tite Kubo , One Piece by Eiichiro Oda , and Slam Dunk by Takehiko Inoue . Seinen manga became formalized as
13685-718: 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,
13804-465: 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 )
13923-587: Was so dominant in these new markets that it came to shape the image of manga as a whole. While shōjo made gains in popularity by the 2000s, shōnen remains the most popular category of manga, both in Japan and internationally. This thematic orientation of shōnen manga is readily inferred from the formal values or slogans that shōnen manga magazines assign themselves: for example, "friendship, perseverance, and victory" for Weekly Shōnen Jump , and "courage, friendship and fighting spirit" for CoroCoro Comic . The editorial focus of shōnen manga
14042-542: Was the fifth best-selling manga at Tsutaya stores during its first week of release. Volume five debuted on the Oricon chart at number six with 108,859 copies sold, while volume six topped the chart in its first week with 75,731 copies sold. Volume seven sold 117,720 copies its first week, but peaked at third place on the Oricon chart. Volume eight debuted in second place with 95,594 copies sold, and volume nine peaked at number four with 81,380 copies sold in its first week. Based on
14161-417: Was the most popular manga magazine among this demographic, placing ahead of magazines that specifically target a female readership. The target group orientation of shōnen manga is particularly evident in the non-manga content of shōnen manga magazines, which include advertising and articles on topics tailored to the interests of young males, such as video games . Non-manga content often corresponds to
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