is a Japanese

manga 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 ...

series written and illustrated by

Masatoshi Kawahara is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known as the author of the long-running series ''Shura no Mon'' and its prequel ''Shura no Toki'', for which he won the Kodansha Manga Award is an annual award for serialized manga published in the prev ...

. The story follows a young Karate practitioner named Tsukumo Mutsu, 40th master of the deadly Mutsu Enmei Ryu style. It was serialized in

Kodansha is a Japanese privately-held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha is the largest Japanese publishing company, and it produces the manga magazines ''Nakayoshi'', '' Afternoon'', '' Evening'', ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' ...

's ''

Monthly Shōnen Magazine is a monthly shōnen manga magazine published in Japan by Kodansha. It was launched in 1964 under the name . In 1969 it was retitled as and its publication frequency increased from quarterly to monthly. After suspension in 1974 it started pu ...

'' from April 1987 to November 1996. The individual chapters were collected and published into 31 ''

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 published between October 1987 and May 1997. A prequel series, ''Mutsu Enmei-ryū Gaiden: Shura no Toki'' also ran in ''Monthly Shōnen Magazine'', premiering in July 1989 and running until November 2005. Its chapters were published in 15 ''tankōbon'' volumes by Kodansha. It was adapted into a 26-episode anime series by

Media Factory , formerly is a Japanese publisher and brand company of Kadokawa Future Publishing. History It was founded on December 1, 1986, and its headquarters are situated in Shibuya, Tokyo. It is a subsidiary of Recruit Co., Ltd. Media Factory was possi ...

and Studio Comet that aired from April 6, 2004, until September 28, 2004, and is licensed for release in North America by

Media Blasters Media Blasters, sometimes abbreviated as MB, is an American entertainment corporation that was founded by John Sirabella in 1997 and is based in New York City. It is in the business of licensing, translating, and releasing to the North American ...

. ''Shura no Mon'' received the 1990

Kodansha Manga Award is an annual award for serialized manga published in the previous year, the event is sponsored by the publisher Kodansha. It is currently awarded in three categories: '' shōnen'', '' shōjo'', and general. The awards began in 1977, initially ...

for the '' shōnen'' category, and has sold over 30 million copies. Two other spin-off series, ''Shura no Mon: Daini Mon'' and ''Shura no Mon: Fudekage'', were published from 2010 to 2015 and 2010 to 2014, respectively.

Media

Manga

Written and illustrated by

, ''Shura no Mon'' was serialized in ''

'' from April 1987 to November 1996. The individual chapters were collected and published in Japan in 31 ''

'' volumes by

between October 8, 1987, and May 16, 1997. A prequel series, , began serialization in the same magazine in July 1989 where it ran until November 2005. It was collected and published in 15 ''tankōbon'' volumes between February 13, 1990, and January 17, 2006. Five '' aizōban'' volumes of the series were also released between March 19, 2004, and July 21, 2004. In 2010, a sequel and a spinoff series started in ''Monthly Shōnen Magazine'': and . The first was serialized from November 2010 to January 2015, and compiled into 16 volumes published from March 19, 2011, and April 17, 2015. The second one transformed ''Shura no Mon''s into a soccer manga. It was published from December 2010 to December 2014, and its eight volumes were released from June 17, 2011, to January 16, 2015.

Anime

Three of the story arcs from the prequel series were adapted into a 26-episode

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, 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 Japane ...

series by

and Studio Comet. It premiered on

TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certifie ...

on April 6, 2004, and ran until September 28, 2004.

licensed the series for distribution in North America.

Video games

Only the Mega Drive game of the same name was released Japan and South Korea.

Reception

''Shura no Mon'' received the 1990

for the shōnen category. As of April 2015, the complete series had sold over 30 million copies in Japan.

References

External links

Kodansha - Shura no Mon
* {{Studio Comet 1987 manga 1989 manga 2004 anime television series debuts 2010 manga Karate in anime and manga Kodansha manga Martial arts anime and manga Shōnen manga TV Tokyo original programming Winner of Kodansha Manga Award (Shōnen)