is a Japanese manga series written by Rintaro Koike and illustrated by Masayuki Taguchi. It was serialized in

Akita Shoten is a Japanese publishing company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. It was founded by Teio Akita on 10 August 1948. As of 2020, the company's president is Shigeru Higuchi. Magazines Male-oriented manga magazines ''Shōnen'' magazines * – Bimo ...

's ''seinen'' manga magazines ''

Young Champion is a Japanese seinen manga magazine. The magazine was established in 1988. It is published by Akita Shoten and has its headquarters in Tokyo. History Manga series * '' Alien Nine'' by Hitoshi Tomizawa (1998-1999) * '' Babel II: The Returner' ...

'' (2008–2011) and ''Young Champion Retsu'' (2011–2022), with its chapters collected in eleven ''

tankōbon is the Japanese term for a book that is not part of an anthology or corpus. In modern Japanese, the term is most often used in reference to individual volumes of a manga series: most series first appear as individual chapters in a weekly or ...

'' volumes. The series is set in a fictional world where Japan is the 51st state of the United States, and an

artificial island An artificial island is an island that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means. Artificial islands may vary in size from small islets reclaimed solely to support a single pillar of a building or structure to those th ...

Tokyo Bay is a bay located in the southern Kantō region of Japan, and spans the coasts of Tokyo, Kanagawa Prefecture, and Chiba Prefecture. Tokyo Bay is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Uraga Channel. The Tokyo Bay region is both the most populous ...

known as Neon Island is the only place in American territory where

gambling Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...

and prostitution are legal. Neon Island is home to many members of numerous

mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

organizations. The story centers on Kira Kiyoshi, an ex- Marine and manager of the Onsen Hotel on Neon Island, as well as a member of the only Japanese mafia on the island.

Publication

Written by Rintaro Koike and illustrated by Masayuki Taguchi, ''Black Joke'' was serialized in

's ''seinen'' manga magazine ''

'' from February 12, 2008, to March 8, 2011. The series was later transferred to ''Young Champion Retsu'', where it ran from May 17, 2011, to November 15, 2022. Akita Shoten collected its chapters in eleven ''

'' volumes, released from September 19, 2008, to January 20, 2023.

Publication

Volume list

References

Further reading