, is a

yonkoma , a comic strip format, generally consists of gag comic strips within four panels of equal size ordered from top to bottom. They also sometimes run right-to-left horizontally or use a hybrid 2×2 style, depending on the layout requirements of ...

manga series by

Hisaichi Ishii is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known outside Japan for his manga series '' Nono-chan'', which was adapted into the Studio Ghibli anime film ''My Neighbors the Yamadas''. Topics covered by Ishii's manga include baseball (in his debut work), ...

which ran in the weekly '' Manga Action'' magazine from 1978 to 1979 in Japan. After that series ended, Ishii continued creating more baseball gag comics which were then collected under the title and released from 1985 to 1989. The main character of the gag comic series is based on (and named for) Kōichi Tabuchi, a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Modern professional ...

player. While in most instances, the character in the manga is referred to using

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived f ...

characters, the

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

used for the real Tabuchi were used in one instance. A series of three

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

films based on the manga were released in 1979 and 1980.

Collections

''Ganbare!! Tabuchi-kun!!''

*Volume 1, ISBN none, January 1, 1979,

Futabasha is a Japanese publishing company headquartered in Higashigokenchō, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan.会社概要
" Futabasha. R ...

*Volume 2, ISBN none, June 20, 1979, Futabasha *Volume 3, ISBN none, December 28, 1979, Futabasha

''Ganbare!! Tabuchi-kun!!''

* (vol.1) :ISBN none, June 30, 1985, Futabasha * (vol.2) :ISBN none, December 8, 1985, Futabasha * (vol.3) :ISBN none, November 28, 1986, Futabasha * (vol.4) :, April 29, 1988, Futabasha * (vol.5) :, May 14, 1989, Futabasha Sources:

References

External links

* at

Tokyo Movie Shinsha , formerly known as the , also known as or , is a Japanese animation studio established on October 22, 1946. TMS is one of the oldest and most famous anime studios in Japan, best known for numerous anime franchises such as ''Lupin the Third'', ...

* at

* * {{Tsutomu Shibayama 1978 manga 1979 anime films 1980 anime films 1985 manga Animated films based on manga Baseball in anime and manga Bungeishunjū manga Comedy anime and manga Films directed by Tsutomu Shibayama Futabasha manga Hisaichi Ishii Japanese animated films Manga adapted into films Seinen manga Slice of life anime and manga TMS Entertainment Yonkoma