is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by

Shinji Mizushima was a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for several baseball manga, such as ''Yakyū-kyō no Uta'', ''Dokaben'', and '' Abu-san''. He is a two-time recipient of the Shogakukan Manga Award. His works have been collected into more than 54 ...

. It follows Yūki Mizuhara, a young woman who wants to do

veterinary medicine Veterinary medicine is the branch of medicine that deals with the prevention, management, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, disorder, and injury in animals. Along with this, it deals with animal rearing, husbandry, breeding, research on nutri ...

at college but instead she became a

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

player. It was originally serialized in the Kodansha's Japanese

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 ...

Weekly Shōnen Magazine is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published on Wednesdays in Japan by Kodansha, first published on March 17, 1959. The magazine is mainly read by an older audience, with a significant portion of its readership falling under the male hig ...

'' between 1972 and 1976, and has been adapted into several spin-off manga, a live-action film, 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 ...

television series, an anime film, and a

Japanese television drama , also called , are television programs that are a staple of Japanese television and are broadcast daily. All major TV networks in Japan produce a variety of drama series including romance, comedy, detective stories, horror, jidaigeki, thrill ...

. In 1973, it received the 4th Kōdansha Literature Culture Award for children's manga.

Media

Manga

The ''Yakyū-kyō no Uta'' manga series was written and illustrated by Shinji Mizushima, and originally serialized by Kodansha in ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' from 1972 to 1976. It was published into a single ''

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 ...

'' volume on October 1, 1972, on June 16, 1974, on January 25, 1976, and on January 21, 1979. Between July 12, 1995 and October 12, 1995, it was published in 13 '' bunkoban''. A four-'' shinsōban'' version subtitled was released between November 21, 1997 and June 23, 1998. In 1997, a new series entitled started to be serialized by Kodansha in ''Mister Magazine''. Later, it was collected into 3 ''

'' released between August 7, 1998 and March 9, 2000. was serialized from 2000 to 2005 in '' Comic Morning'', and published on 11 ''tankōbon'' between January 23, 2001 and October 21, 2005. Four bound volumes were published under ''Platinum Comics'' line between June 11, 2003 and July 23, 2003: , , , and . A

crossover Crossover may refer to: Entertainment Albums and songs * ''Cross Over'' (Dan Peek album) * ''Crossover'' (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles album), 1987 * ''Crossover'' (Intrigue album) * ''Crossover'' (Hitomi Shimatani album) * ''Crossover'' (Yoshino ...

manga between ''Yakyū-kyō no Uta'' and '' Dokaben'', another Mizushima manga, was first published in 2005. On February 8, 2006, it was released by Kodansha in a bound volume under the title . Later, on September 30, 2009, a was published. On February 10, 2009, a series entitled , that follows the story of Yūki Mizuhara, a real-life female baseball player, started to be published. Spawning three bound volumes, it was last published on April 10, 2009 by Kodansha.

Live-action film

Akira Katō directed a live-action adaptation that was released on March 19, 1977. It starred Midori Kinouchi, was produced by Hiromi Higuchi, written by Masayasu Ōehara and Rokurō Kumagaya, and its score was composed by Shin Takada.

Cast

* Midori Kinouchi as Yuki MIzuhara *

Asao Koike was a Japanese actor. He is most famous for playing yakuza roles. He is also known as voice actor. In 1950, he joined the Bungakuza Theatre Company. In 1963, he left the Bungakuza Theatre Company and established the Kumo Theatre Company. He appe ...

as Tetsugoro Iwata *

Hiroshi Inuzuka (born 23 March 1929, Tokyo) is a Japanese actor, comedian and bassist. Inuzuka is one of the members of the Crazy Cats. His first starring role in the film was in ''Suteki na Konban wa'' directed by Yoshitarō Nomura and played the leading rol ...

as Mizuhara *

Katsuya Nomura was a Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) catcher and manager. During his over 26-season playing career mostly spent with the Nankai Hawks (now the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks), he became one of NPB's greatest offensive catchers. He was award ...

as himself * Kei Tani as Sentaro *

Jūkei Fujioka was a Japanese actor. He is known as an actor who often played villains, but is famous for playing the role of detective Daisaku Tani in the popular detective drama ''Seibu Keisatsu''. Fujioka started his acting career at the Haiyuza Theatre Com ...

as Matsukawa

Anime

A 25-episode anime television series was created by

Nippon Animation is a Japanese animation studio. The company is headquartered in Tokyo, with chief offices in the Ginza district of Chūō and production facilities in Tama City. Nippon Animation is known for producing numerous anime series based on works of ...

, and was broadcast on

Fuji Television JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as and colloquially known as CX, is a Japanese television station based in Odaiba, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Owned and operated by the it is the key station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network S ...

between December 23, 1977 and March 26, 1979. An anime film titled was released in theatres on September 15, 1979 and shown together with the first ''

Future Boy Conan , also known as ''Conan, The Boy in Future'', is a Japanese post-apocalyptic science fiction anime series. It is an adaptation of American science-fiction writer Alexander Key's 1970 novel ''The Incredible Tide''. It was broadcast for twent ...

'' compilation movie. It is an adaptation of chapters 13 and 14: "Kita no Ōkami, Minami no Tora" Part 1 and Part 2.

TV drama

The series was adapted into a live-action Japanese television drama broadcast on January 7, 1985 on Fuji Television. It starred Yuki Saito as Yūki Mizuhara and

Shirō Itō is a Japanese actor and comedian. Filmography Film * ''Zatoichi and the One-Armed Swordsman'' (1971) * '' Lupin III: Strange Psychokinetic Strategy'' (1974) * ''Princess from the Moon'' (1987) * ''A Taxing Woman'' (1987) * ''Minbo'' (1992) * ' ...

as Tetsugorō Iwata.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yakyu-kyo no Uta 1977 anime television series debuts 1979 Japanese television series endings Anime series based on manga Baseball in anime and manga Animated films based on manga Fuji TV original programming Kodansha manga Manga adapted into films Nippon Animation Shōnen manga Nikkatsu Roman Porno Live-action films based on manga