is a Japanese manga created by

Go Nagai , better known by the pen name , is a Japanese manga artist and a prolific author of science fiction, fantasy, horror and erotica. He made his professional debut in 1967 with ''Meakashi Polikichi'', but is best known for creating popular 1970s ...

. It is loosely based on the

Shinto Shinto () is a religion from Japan. Classified as an East Asian religion by scholars of religion, its practitioners often regard it as Japan's indigenous religion and as a nature religion. Scholars sometimes call its practitioners ''Shintois ...

deity ''

Susanoo __FORCETOC__ Susanoo (; historical orthography: , ) is a in Japanese mythology. The younger brother of Amaterasu, goddess of the sun and mythical ancestress of the Japanese imperial line, he is a multifaceted deity with contradictory chara ...

''. With this manga, Nagai won the ''Kodansha Manga Award'' in the Shōnen category. The original serialization of Kodansha was suspended in 1981, but the success of the novels written by

Yasutaka Nagai , better known by the pseudonym , is a Chinese-born Japanese novelist, manga author and scenario writer. He is one of the four brothers of manga artist Go Nagai. In 1969, he was a candidate for the Edogawa Rampo Prize for his novel ''Baptism of ...

, prompted

Kadokawa Shoten , formerly , is a Japanese publisher and division of Kadokawa Future Publishing based in Tokyo, Japan. It became an internal division of Kadokawa Corporation on October 1, 2013. Kadokawa publishes manga, light novels, manga anthology magazines su ...

to request Go to resume his work on ''Susano Oh''. With this, the manga would be published for a period of ten years, from 1979 to 1989. Even so, the manga was left with an open ending for a possible next part. An RPG video game adaption titled was released in Japan by Hudson on April 27, 1989 on the

PC Engine The TurboGrafx-16, known as the outside North America, is a home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the fourth generation, commonly known as the 16-bit era, though ...

. A board game based on the series called Dreadful Susano Oh King Go Nagai was released by a company called Epoch.

Plot

Highschool freshman Shingo Susa follows his childhood friend and crush Sayuri Yukishiro to their school's ESP club, whose members attempt to research

psychic powers This is a list of alleged psychic abilities that have been attributed to real-world people. Many of these abilities pertain to variations of extrasensory perception or the ''sixth sense''. Superhuman abilities from fiction are not included. Psyc ...

. However, they later discover there are two real psychics in the school: Chigusa Mitsurugi, the beautiful president of the club, and Rei Uryu, a resident prodigy who opposes Chigusa and offers to enhance the psychic potential of anybody who follows him. Uryu tries to recruit Susa, whom he knows to have an immense power latent, in order to help him fight for justice, but Susa declines out of loyalty for Chigusa. Eventually Shingo and Sayuri become a couple, but a savage gang of delinquents attack them and rape her. The trauma blows up Shingo's bottled psychic potential and creates a violent, powerful alternate personality bent on getting revenge. Now as a changed person, and having lost track of Sayuri, Shingo fights through

yakuza , also known as , are members of transnational organized crime syndicates originating in Japan. The Japanese police and media, by request of the police, call them , while the ''yakuza'' call themselves . The English equivalent for the term ...

, thugs and his school's corrupt club alliance until discovering that the attack was ordered by a sinister organization named Nosferatu. The latter plans for world domination and has its own team of psychics, led by a mysterious woman named Carmilla, who has influence over the club federation. Shingo leads a school revolution against them, helped by Chigusa,

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

club leader Goda,

kendo is a modern Japanese martial art, descended from kenjutsu (one of the old Japanese martial arts, swordsmanship), that uses bamboo swords (shinai) as well as protective armor (bōgu). Today, it is widely practiced within Japan and has spread ...

genius Tatsuya Mido and other students, and eventually overthrows their regime. It is then revealed that Carmilla is actually a disguised Uryu and that Sayuri worked for him all along. Uryu staged the entire plot in order to liberate Shingo's powers and use him, as an incarnation of the legendary

, to destroy human civilization, so he could rebuild the world with only psychic humans. However, his plan is too successful, as Shingo loses control of his powers: a part of his soul leaves his body, hijacks a coming star, and becomes a prophesied apocalyptic monster, the

Yamata no Orochi , or simply , is a legendary eight-headed and eight-tailed Japanese dragon/serpent. Mythology Yamata no Orochi legends are originally recorded in two ancient texts about Japanese mythology and history. The 712 AD transcribes this dragon name ...

. His influence causes demons from other dimensions to start sliding into the world, possessing humans and provoking disasters, while Shingo's body lies apparently dead. Chigusa reveals herself as the heir of an ancient clan of descendants of

Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...

, as well as the incarnation of ancient goddess Marici, and commands an Atlantean space force formed by

clones Clone or Clones or Cloning or Cloned or The Clone may refer to: Places * Clones, County Fermanagh * Clones, County Monaghan, a town in Ireland Biology * Clone (B-cell), a lymphocyte clone, the massive presence of which may indicate a pathologi ...

of her in an attempt to destroy Yamata no Orochi. Shingo's family is also revealed to know the prophecy regarding him, and they join the Atlanteans in their fight. At the same time, Sayuri (who really fell in love with Shingo despite her duplicity) convinces Uryu to try to redeem Shingo by playing the roles of

Ame no Uzume is the goddess of dawn, mirth, meditation, revelry and the arts in the Shinto religion of Japan, and the wife of fellow-god Sarutahiko Ōkami. She famously relates to the tale of the missing sun deity, Amaterasu Omikami. Her name can also be p ...

and Ame no Tajikarao, respectively. The story of the manga ends in midst of the

climax Climax may refer to: Language arts * Climax (narrative), the point of highest tension in a narrative work * Climax (rhetoric), a figure of speech that lists items in order of importance Biology * Climax community, a biological community th ...

. In an additional epilogue in the manga's 1996 revised re-edition, Chigusa manages to neutralize the Yamata no Orochi in a secret Atlantean outpost in the

Face of Mars Cydonia (, ) is a region on the planet Mars that has attracted both scientific and popular interest. The name originally referred to the albedo feature (distinctively coloured area) that was visible from earthbound telescopes. The area borders ...

. In an Earth ravaged and in a

postapocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astr ...

state, Uryu and Sayuri come out of their refuge and look for Shingo, while Goda has overcome the possession of a demon and is now hunting other monsters. Shingo then comes alive again under the form of Susanoo, apparently now in full control of his powers, and walks past Goda before stopping in front of Uryu and Sayuri. The outcome of their encounter is not revealed.

Media

Manga

Susano Oh

*Kodansha (''KC Magazine'', 1980–1981) *Kodansha (''KC Phoenix 10'', 1996) *Kodansha (''Kodansha Manga Bunko'', 2000–2001) *Fukkan.com (''Kanzen Hatsude Shūkan Shōnen Magajin-ban'', 2021–2022) *001 Edizioni (''Hikari Edizioni'', 2022–present) This edition is an

Italian language Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 m ...

translation for the European market.

Susano Oh Densetsu (Manga Version)

*Kadokawa (''Kadokawa Shoten Yamato Comics Special'', 1985-1990) First five volumes of this edition are a reprint of the original Weekly Shōnen Magazine serialization. Volumes six and seven contain the subsequent Variety, Comic Hammer, Yasei Jidai, and Comic Comp serializations.

Novels

Susano Oh Densetsu (Novel Version)

*Kadokawa (''Kadokawa Novels'', 1982-1987) *Kadokawa (''Kadokawa Library'', 1988-1990)

References

External links

''Susano Oh''
at ''The World of Go Nagai'' webpage.

at ''The World of Go Nagai'' webpage.
''Susanoo''
at

D/visual d/visual incorporated (株式会社ディー・ビジュアル) is a Japanese movie studio and anime studio, licensing company and former publisher of manga books and anime home video. It was established in October 2002 by Federico Colpi and Ka ...

.
''Susanoo''
at Gonagainet. {{Kodansha Manga Award - Shōnen 1979 manga 1985 manga Go Nagai Kadokawa Dwango franchises Kadokawa Shoten manga Kodansha manga Nihon Bungeisha manga Shōnen manga Winner of Kodansha Manga Award (Shōnen)