Copyright © 2000 Shogakukan
Last Issue's Update
[2000 Issue 12]

What is SUNDAY?
SHONEN SUNDAY is one of the largest weekly manga magazines in Japan. Containing some of the latest and hottest boys' manga series in Japan, SUNDAY has hosted such notables as RANMA 1/2 and the currently popular MEITANTEI CONAN.
Selected Overviews:

Two new series have started in recent weeks. The first is MISTER ZIPANGU, by GHOST-SWEEPER MIKAMI author Shiina Takashi. The second is BRAVE MONKEYS, by TUXEDO GIN author Matsuura Tokihiko.
MISTER ZIPANGU, which began in issue 14, presents an action and humor-packed "parody of history" (to quote the author) that is "more than half lies and jests." The year is 1548, the Japanese civil war era, and a rash and reckless young lord named Oda Nobunaga rescues a hapless young man named "Hiyoshi" from being robbed and killed. Together with a kid named Takechiyo, they wind up sneaking into a castle to take a look at Nobunaga's would-be bride Kichou. Nobunaga wants to assassinate her father if she turns out to be ugly. Kichou, for her part, has had doubts about her husband-to-be, doubts which she shares with her cousin Akechi Juubei Mitsuhide. Of course things turn complicated once all these people meet, but Kichou turns out to be both beautiful and brave, Hiyoshi winds up helping prevent Nobunaga from killing anyone as well as saving Nobunaga from death, and the trio of Hiyoshi, Nobunaga, and Takechiyo flee from the castle safely.
To put things in perspective, Oda Nobunaga is the military genius who conquered much of fractured Japan; "Hiyoshi" is apparently Toyotomi Hideyoshi, also a military genius who finished unifying Japan and ruled it; Takechi is supposedly Tokugawa Ieyasu, who seized control of Japan after Hideyoshi's death, founded the Tokugawa Shogunate, and helped start the small town of Edo on the path to becoming the city of Tokyo; and Akechi Mitsuhide is the man who assassinated Oda Nobunaga in 1582. Thus, MISTER ZIPANGU begins with these august personages engaged together for the first time in this auspicious, outrageous and fictitious incident.
In more recent issues, Hiyoshi meets a cheerful young woman named Hinata, who is being pursued by the ninja assassins of the house of Takeda. Nobunaga, Takechiyo and company wind up facing the blades of the assassins, but Hinata turns out to be have a second personality named Hikage. The cool and unnerving Hikage tells all of them why she is being pursued: she is a seer employed by the Takeda house until she prophesied the downfall of the family. Between her story (which guarantees the ninja who heard it will be put to death) and Hiyoshi's attempts to find a solution where no one dies, they escape capture and also gain the alliance of one of the ninja, Ishigawa Goemon. Before Hikage withdraws to rest and lets Hinata return, she tells Hiyoshi that his concern for others, along with his search for a path that will benefit everyone, is true power. She tells him it is the path that will lead him to become stronger than anyone else and to become the first "king" of Japan.
How will things turn out? History knows the fates of the major players, but Shiina Takashi clearly has some non-historical twists planned for this most famous of Japanese trios.