Silver Fang


Silver Fang: The Shooting Star Gin is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Takahashi. It was published in Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1983 to 1987, and collected in 18 bound volumes. The manga became digitally available in English through the Apple's iTunes App Store in 2011. It was licensed in North America in 2020 by Manga Planet.
The series tells the story of a young Akita Inu pup called Gin who leaves his master, a young boy named Daisuke, to join a pack of wild dogs. The pack is gathering strong dogs from all over Japan to fight a giant, monstrous, bloodthirsty and deranged Ussuri brown bear named Akakabuto and his entire army of bears. The story begins from the point of view of the humans, but swings to the dogs afterwards. Takahashi was reportedly inspired by a news article about hunting dogs that had been abandoned by their owners and had begun living as wild animals.
The manga was adapted as a 21-episode anime television series by Toei Animation, simply titled as Silver Fang, which aired on TV Asahi and its affiliates from April to September 1986.
It received the 1987 Shogakukan Manga Award for best series.
A sequel manga by Takahashi, titled Weed, was published from 1999 to 2009, with four other series following since.

Media

Anime

The TV series was produced by TV Asahi and Toei Animation, with Tomoharu Katsumata serving as series director, Mitsuru Majima and Kenji Terada writing the scripts, Jōji Yanase designing the characters, and Gorō Oumi composing the music. It was broadcast every Monday from 19:30 to 20:00 on TV Asahi affiliate stations from April 7 to September 22, 1986, for a total of 21 episodes. The anime adaptation ended with the Akakabuto arc, and the Hakkenshi arc was not produced. In addition, the development of the last half of the story is simplified, with some dogs lacking any lines and their appearances reduced compared to the original manga. Takayuki Miyauchi performed both the opening and ending themes, "Nagareboshi Gin" and "TOMORROW".

Reception

It received the 1987 Shogakukan Manga Award for best series. In Finland, the 1986 anime series has achieved a strong cult following.