, is a

yonkoma is a comic strip format that 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 requiremen ...

manga 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 history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

series by Hisaichi Ishii which ran in the weekly '' Manga Action''

magazine A magazine is a periodical literature, periodical publication, print or digital, produced on a regular schedule, that contains any of a variety of subject-oriented textual and visual content (media), content forms. Magazines are generally fin ...

from 1978 to 1979 in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. 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 baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Moder ...

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 fr ...

characters, the

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, 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 and are ...

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

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

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 , Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. Futabasha is known for its manga works, and its 1967 magazine Manga Action first conceived of the manga category, decades before the other major companies tested th ...

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

''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 * at Tokyo Movie Shinsha * at Tokyo Movie Shinsha * * {{Tsutomu Shibayama 1978 manga 1979 anime films 1979 films 1980 anime films 1980 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