is a Japanese

slice of life Slice of life is a depiction of mundane experiences in art and entertainment. In theater, slice of life refers to naturalism, while in literary parlance it is a narrative technique in which a seemingly arbitrary sequence of events in a characte ...

comedy Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...

manga series written and illustrated by

Hikaru Nakamura Christopher Hikaru NakamuraJesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

and

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha, was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist tradition, he was born in Lu ...

, who are living as roommates in an apartment in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

. It has been serialized by Kodansha in the monthly

manga magazine Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is used ...

''Monthly Morning Two'' since September 2006, with chapters collected in twenty volumes as of July 2022.

Kodansha USA Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC is a publishing company based in New York, USA, and a subsidiary of Japan's largest publishing company Kodansha. Established in July 2008, Kodansha USA publishes books relating to Japan, Japanese culture, and manga, ...

has been publishing the series in English in an omnibus edition since December 2019.

A-1 Pictures is a Japanese animation studio founded by ex- Sunrise producer Mikihiro Iwata and it is a subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan's anime production firm Aniplex. History The studio was established by SMEJ's animation production division ...

adapted the manga series into two

original animation DVD , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA s ...

s (OADs) and an

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 ...

film which was released on May 10, 2013. It also inspired a ten-episode live-action web series in 2018. In Japan, the ''Saint Young Men'' manga has sold over 16 million copies. Individual volumes of the series have frequently appeared on lists of the weekly and annual best-seller manga in Japan. It received a Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2009 and was nominated for a

Manga Taishō The is a Japanese comics award recognizing achievement in manga. It is awarded annually to a manga series published in the previous calendar year of eight or fewer collected volumes in length. The Manga Taishō was founded with the aim of re ...

Award in the same year. It was also nominated for Best Comic at the 2012

Angoulême International Comics Festival The Angoulême International Comics Festival (french: Festival international de la bande dessinée d'Angoulême) is the second largest comics festival in Europe after the Lucca Comics & Games in Italy, and the third biggest in the world after ...

. Its film adaptation has been well received by the Japanese public.

Overview

and , the central figures of

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

and

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religions, Indian religion or Indian philosophy#Buddhist philosophy, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha. ...

respectively, are living together as roommates in an apartment in

Tachikawa 250px, Showa Memorial Park is a city located in the western portion of Tokyo Metropolis, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 184,383 in 93,428 households, and a population density of 7600 persons per km2. The total area of the ci ...

, part of the suburbs of Tokyo. While taking a vacation on Earth, they attempt to hide their identities and understand modern Japanese society. Each chapter shows their lives during an average day, when they are sightseeing, drinking beer, blogging, or playing video games. While Jesus is portrayed as an impassioned person for his love for all (even for

shopping Shopping is an activity in which a customer browses the available goods or services presented by one or more retailers with the potential intent to purchase a suitable selection of them. A typology of shopper types has been developed by scho ...

), Buddha tends to be calm and thrifty, and also likes manga. The comedy often involves visual gags and puns, as well as jokes in reference to elements of Christianity and Buddhism; for example, Jesus creates wine from water in a public bath and Buddha shines when excited.

Production

Before writing ''Saint Young Men'', Hikaru Nakamura was working on ''

Arakawa Under the Bridge is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hikaru Nakamura. The manga was first serialized in the ''seinen'' manga magazine ''Young Gangan'' from December 2004 to July 2015. An anime television series adaptation consisting of 26 e ...

'', which began serialization on December 3, 2004, in the first issue of Square Enix's manga magazine ''

Young Gangan is a manga imprint owned by Square Enix Holdings. It originated as a manga imprint for Enix before the company re-branded as Square Enix. It publishes manga in several anthologies aimed at different reader demographic groups in the Japanese mark ...

''. It attracted the attention of an editor of the magazine ''

Weekly Morning is a weekly Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Kodansha. It debuted in 1982 as . The digital edition of the magazine is titled . In 2006 a spin-off magazine called was launched (formerly bimonthly), featuring stories like ''Saint ''� ...

'', who wanted Nakamura to publish a series for the magazine. She accepted the offer because of her admiration for

Kaiji Kawaguchi is a Japanese manga artist. He is known for works such as '' The Silent Service'', '' Zipang'', ''A Spirit of the Sun'' and ''Kūbo Ibuki''. Generally, his stories involve Japan and examine the moral choices that people make in extreme situation ...

's works, such as '' Zipang'' and ''

The Silent Service is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kaiji Kawaguchi. It was published in Kodansha's '' Weekly Morning'' manga magazine from 1988 to 1996 and collected in 32 ''tankōbon'' volumes. The series was adapted into an anime tele ...

'', that were serialized in ''Weekly Morning''. The series' title is derived from a song by Denki Groove and Scha Dara Parr called . Starting from sketches of two friends wearing casual shirts, she conceived the idea of portraying Jesus and Buddha as average people. Also included
Part 2
(Archived fro

on May 27, 2008) an

(Archived fro

on July 2, 2008). Nakamura envisioned a comedy manga in which the protagonist would be a "very very powerful character", and realized a divine character would fit this premise. She first planned Jesus to be a character in the series, but to make the gags work well, Buddha was added to the series. Their opposing personalities were inspired by Nakamura's sister and her sister's husband; by observing their relationship, she saw some amusing situations. She also saw a resemblance between her version of Buddha and Osamu Tezuka's version. Despite the religious references in the series, Nakamura stated she used only her personal knowledge and some aspects of modern society, such as

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 ter ...

and

blogging A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

, which were not intended to be critical but were added because they fit the story. Similarly, secondary characters were only introduced in the series if a chapter needed a new character to introduce a topic. The themes of the chapters were created before the situations and jokes. However, if Nakamura had a specific theme, she created several jokes and then connected them to form a story. When creating a simpler chapter as compared to the more elaborate, thematic ones, she wrote without worrying about creating jokes and situations in advance. With the help of her four assistants, on average she took between ten days and two weeks to make a complete chapter.

Media

Manga

''Saint Young Men'', written and illustrated by

Hikaru Nakamura Christopher Hikaru Nakamuraserialization in Kodansha's manga magazine ''Monthly Morning Two'' on September 26, 2006. The series was put on hiatus between September 22, 2011, and March 22, 2012, because of Nakamura's pregnancy. Its first (collected volume) was released by Kodansha on January 23, 2008, and the twentieth volume was published on July 22, 2022. A guidebook was released on April 23, 2013. The manga series has been translated in other languages, including Chinese by

Tong Li Publishing Tongli Publishing Co. ( Chinese: 東立出版社, Hanyu Pinyin: ''Dōng Lì Chūbǎnshè''), most known as Tong Li Comics, is a publishing company which distributes a variety of domestic and imported comics in Taiwan. History Tong Li was founde ...

, French by Kurokawa, German by Egmont Manga, Italian by J-Pop, and Spanish by

Norma Editorial Norma Editorial is a Spanish comics publisher, with its headquarters in Barcelona.Home
Norma Editori ...

. In 2010, Jason Thompson reported that Ed Chavez, editor of the American publisher

Vertical Vertical is a geometric term of location which may refer to: * Vertical direction, the direction aligned with the direction of the force of gravity, up or down * Vertical (angles), a pair of angles opposite each other, formed by two intersecting s ...

, contacted the Japanese licensor of the series to request its publishing in North America. The Japanese licensor of the series refused to allow it to be published in North America, because it was thought that Americans might take offense to it. However, in April 2019

Kodansha Comics Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC is a publishing company based in New York, USA, and a subsidiary of Japan's largest publishing company Kodansha. Established in July 2008, Kodansha USA publishes books relating to Japan, Japanese culture, and manga, ...

announced that it acquired the rights to publish the manga digitally. After two volumes were released digitally between April and June 2019, the publisher announced in July its plans to publish the manga in print. Nevertheless, a third digital volume was released in October before the first 2-in-1 omnibus hardcover volume was released on December 17, 2019.

Volume list

Anime

The production of an

film was first announced in issue 44 of ''Weekly Morning''. Before the film release, a

guidebook A guide book or travel guide is "a book of information about a place designed for the use of visitors or tourists". It will usually include information about sights, accommodation, restaurants, transportation, and activities. Maps of varying det ...

to the film was published on April 30, 2013. The film was directed by Noriko Takao and written by Rika Nezu. Its characters were designed by Naoyuki Asano and the music was composed by

Keiichi Suzuki is a Japanese musician, singer, and record producer who co-founded the Moonriders, a group that became one of Japan's most innovative rock bands. He is known to audiences outside Japan for his musical contributions to the video games ''Mother'' ...

and Ryomei Shirai. The film was produced by

Aniplex is a Japanese anime, music production and anime licensee company owned by Sony Music Entertainment Japan. Established in September 1995, Aniplex has been involved in the production and distribution of several anime series, such as both '' Fullm ...

, Kodansha and

Toho is a Japanese film, theatre production and distribution company. It has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. Outside of Japan, it is best known as the producer ...

, was animated by

, and distributed by Toho. It premiered in Japan on May 10, 2013. Its soundtrack was published by Aniplex on May 8, 2013. Later, on October 23, 2013, it was released in DVD and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

formats. In addition to the film, the same staff produced an

(OAD) that was released along with the eighth manga volume. A second OAD was released along with the ninth volume. In an interview with

NHK World NHK World-Japan (formerly and also known simply as NHK World) is the international arm of the Japanese state-controlled public broadcaster NHK. Its services are aimed at the overseas market, similar to those offered by other national public-ser ...

, the staff for the anime noted that they wanted to stay loyal to the artwork of the manga while creating the movie. They decided to focus more on the art and character designs, and decided to give it a "sketched" look, instead of the traditional "bold, dark lines" typically used. All the shadows were colored by pencils, sometimes even scribbled to make sure that the "sketched" look came through. Like the manga, the anime film also recreates various attractions of Tachikawa, including the

Showa Memorial Park is a national government park in Akishima and Tachikawa, Tokyo, Japan. It is the largest park in the Tokyo area, covering 1,653,000 square meters. Formerly a Japanese military airbase and in the postwar era operated by the US military, Tac ...

Live-action

In November 2016, a

live-action Live action (or live-action) is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live-action with animation to create a live-action animated film. Live-action is used to define film, video ...

drama series In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-ge ...

adaptation of the manga was announced with no further details. The following month, Yūichi Fukuda was revealed to be the director and screenwriter, while

Takayuki Yamada is a Japanese actor, singer, and producer. He is best known for his role as Sakutaro Matsumoto in TV drama ''Socrates in Love'' and as Densha Otoko in the 2005 film of the same name. Yamada gained international popularity through his portrayal ...

was announced as the producer. Only in February 2018, the main actors were unveiled;

Ken'ichi Matsuyama is a Japanese actor. He is known for his affinity for strange character roles, and he is best known internationally for playing L in the 2006 films '' Death Note'', '' Death Note 2: The Last Name'' and '' L: Change the World'' in 2008, as well ...

playing Jesus and

Shōta Sometani is a Japanese actor from Koto, Tokyo. He is known for his protagonist roles in ''Himizu'' and ''Parasyte''. Career Sometani was a child actor. He has worked in both film and television, gaining his first leading role in ''Pandora's Box'', ...

playing Buddha. In April, it was set to debut in the summer of that year on Kakao Japan's streaming service Piccoma TV, but, by June, it changed to fall. Starting on October 12, 2018, the web series received a two-week limited screening in over 40 AEON theaters. It was followed by the premiere on Piccoma TV on October 18; the same day a special screening with staff and cast was also held in Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills. The first six-minute episode out of ten was also made available through

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

. In February 2019, a second and a third season were announced through the ''Monthly Morning Two'' magazine. A teaser and a poster for the second season were released in April, when it was also announced that the ten-episode season would stream online on Piccoma TV on June 1 and in theaters starting on June 6. NHK General TV rebroadcast the first season between June and July 2019, and planned to show the second season on October 5 and 12, 2019. Only the first half of the second season was broadcast in October because of the

Typhoon Hagibis Typhoon Hagibis, known in Japan as Typhoon No.19 or , was a large and costly tropical cyclone that caused widespread destruction in Japan. The thirty-eighth depression, ninth typhoon, and third super typhoon of the 2019 Pacific typhoon season, ...

and it had to be rescheduled to January 25, 2020. The ten-episode third season premiered and finished before it on NHK, on January 11 and 18, 2020 respectively.

Reception

Manga

''Saint Young Men'' received the 2009 Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize for Short Work Manga. The 2009 edition of

Takarajimasha is a Japanese publishing company based in Chiyoda, Tokyo. It is known for publishing subculture-oriented fashion magazines aimed at teens, fashion magazines in general, as well as guide books. History The company was founded on September 22, ...

's guidebook ''

Kono Manga ga Sugoi! is an annual reference mook series published by Takarajimasha since 2005 featuring yearly rankings and reviews of manga. The rankings are compiled by surveying people in the manga and publishing industry. The series is part of Takarajimasha's ...

'', which surveys people in the manga and publishing industry, named it the best manga series for male readers. It was nominated for the 2009

Award and for the category "Best Comic" at the 2012

. As the result of its popularity, issues of ''Monthly Morning Two'' started selling out on newsstands; because of this, in May 2009 Kodansha began making the magazine available online the day it is published. It has been among the top 20 of best-selling manga series in Japan in 2009, 2011, and 2013. All the first eleven individual volumes appeared on lists of the 50 best-selling manga of their respective year in Japan, while the 12th featured in the top 100; volume 15 was also among the top 50 best-selling manga of the year, and volume 16 was the 35th best-selling manga in the first half of 2019. By June 2018, the manga had sold about 16 million copies in Japan. The manga was also displayed at the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

in 2011. In 2014, ''

The Daily Dot ''The Daily Dot'' is a digital media company covering the culture of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Founded by Nicholas White in 2011, ''The Daily Dot'' is headquartered in Austin, Texas. The site, conceived as the Internet's "hometo ...

'' reported a growing Western fandom that spread various

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...

GIFs of the series. Comics writer

Paul Gravett Paul Gravett is a London-based journalist, curator, writer, and broadcaster who has worked in comics publishing since 1981. He is the founder of ''Escape Magazine'', and for many years wrote a monthly article on comics appearing in the UK magaz ...

chose it as one of the best comics of Japan in 2008, while writers

Shaenon Garrity Shaenon K. Garrity is a webcomic creator and science-fiction author best known for her webcomics ''Narbonic'' and '' Skin Horse''. She collaborated with various artists to write webcomics for the Modern Tales-family of webcomic subscription serv ...

and Jason Thompson elected it as one of the most wanted titles for licensing in 2010. In 2014, writing for the newspaper ''

Der Tagesspiegel ''Der Tagesspiegel'' (meaning ''The Daily Mirror'') is a German daily newspaper. It has regional correspondent offices in Washington D.C. and Potsdam. It is the only major newspaper in the capital to have increased its circulation, now 148,000, ...

'', German critic Anne Maren Delseit elected it the third best comic book of the year. Japanese manga critic Kaoru Nagayama has noted that the manga is "fun to read" and commended Nakamura for keeping Jesus and Buddha faithful to their real character—of kindness—even when confronted by evil. Carlo Santos from '' Anime News Network'' criticized it for its art and questioned its capacity to evolve into something other than "Jesus and Buddha hanging out, while normal people do embarrassing things to them". Santos complained that Jesus' and Buddha's philosophical differences and personalities are not explored. However, Santos praised the series' comedy, noting its simplicity and saying, "its brilliance comes not from purposely trivializing two of the world's great religions, but by highlighting the quirks of the secular world when these famous religious figures are placed in it". According to him, the series does not lose its capacity of making readers laugh as it progresses, unlike other manga. Jolyon Baraka Thomas of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' praised the constancy of "visual gags and puns", and wrote: "Her story is not an introduction to abstruse religious doctrines, nor does it feature much overt commentary on the role of religions in contemporary society."

Film

The anime film adaptation of ''Saint Young Men'' debuted at number nine in Japanese theaters, grossing ¥49,930,836 (

US$ The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

491,369) on 75 screens. In the subsequent weekends it decreased on its placement from nine to eleven, and then to twelve, closing its run with ¥300 million yen ($1,888,062) grossed. Its DVD release ranked seventh on its first week on the list of best-selling anime DVDs in Japan, dropping to twenty-ninth place on its second week on the list.

References

External links

''Saint Young Men''
at ''Morning''s website * {{A-1 Pictures 2007 manga 2012 anime OVAs 2013 anime OVAs 2013 anime films Aniplex franchises Buddhism and Christianity Buddhism in fiction Buddhist comics Comedy anime and manga Comics set in Tokyo Cultural depictions of Gautama Buddha Cultural depictions of Jesus Fiction about religion Japanese-language films Kodansha manga Manga adapted into films Seinen manga Slice of life anime and manga Winner of Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize (Short Story Award)