Rokudenashi Blues
Rokudenashi Blues is a Japanese boxing-themed manga series written and illustrated by Masanori Morita. It was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from May 1988 to February 1997, with its chapters collected in 42 volumes. Rokudenashi Blues had over 60 million copies in circulation by August 2013, making it one of the best-selling manga series.
Plot
The story stars Taison Maeda, delinquent student of Teiken High school who wishes to become the world boxing champion. The manga follows Maeda as he struggles through three years of high school while becoming one of the strongest and best known high school fighters in all of Tokyo. Not just a pure action manga, Rokudenashi Blues is filled with humor and well-crafted story arcs about honor, friendship, and the pressures of being a delinquent student in Japan. Short gag-stories with chibi versions of characters are published as "Rokudenashi Buru-chu".Characters
The 4 Heavenly Kings
The 4 Heavenly Kings are what the students of Tokyo consider the strongest fighters in Tokyo. They each come from a separate district and often come into contact with each other throughout the later half of the manga, which often result in bloody, drawn out dog fights between the schools involved.;Taison "Tyson" Maeda
;Onizuka
;Yakushiji
;Kasai
Kichijōji
Kichijōji is the area of Tokyo that Maeda and his friends are from. At the start of the manga most of the action that takes place involves the different schools from the area such as Yonekura Industrial before branching off into the other districts of Tokyo and even to the south of Japan.Teiken High
;Chiaki Nanase;Katsuji Yamashita
;Yoneji Sawamura
;Yutaro Hatanaka
;Hamada
; Wajima
;Hidekazu Ohashi
;Mutoh
;Ebihara "Marcy" Masatoshi
;Oba Hiroto
;Matsumura
;Kazumi Imai
;Mika
;Junichi Nakajima
;Mafuyu
; Masahiko Kondo
Yonekura Industrial
; Shimabukuro; Yahiro
Misako Technical College
;Tsuyoshi Mihara;Naoto
;Takeshi
Media
Manga
Rokudenashi Blues, written and illustrated by Masanori Morita, was originally serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from May 30, 1988, to February 17, 1997. Shueisha collected its chapters in 42 volumes published between January 10, 1989, and April 4, 1997. Shueisha later re-released the series into a 25 volume edition between December 12, 2002, and December 12, 2003.A spin-off manga written and illustrated by Boichi, titled Rokudenashi Blues Gaiden: Onikazura, is set to begin serialization in Shueisha's seinen manga magazine Grand Jump in Q3 2026.
Anime films
An anime film produced by Toei Animation was released on July 11, 1992. A second film titled Rokudenashi Blues 1993 was released on July 24, 1993.Live-action film
A live-action film produced by Pony Canyon, TV Tokyo and Pal Entertainments Production was released on February 16, 1996. A second live-action film titled Rokudenashi Blues '98 was released on August 22, 1998.Video games
A video game entitled Rokudenashi Blues, produced by Bandai and developed by Tose, was released for the Family Computer in 1993. Another video game entitled Rokudenashi Blues: Taiketsu! Tōkyō Shitennō was released for the Super Famicom in 1994.Five characters from Rokudenashi Blues appear in the Nintendo DS battle royale game Jump Ultimate Stars. In the game, Maeda is a Support character, while Yamashita, Sawamura, Chiaki and Masa are Help-type characters. He was one of the main characters in Famicom Jump II: Saikyō no Shichinin, a roleplaying game released in 1991.
Some Rokudenashi Blues characters are also featured in Cult Jump, an adventure-trivia game released for the Game Boy.