Rokudenashi Blues (ろくでなし BLUES) is a Japanese boxing-themed yankī manga series written and illustrated by Masanori Morita. It was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from May 1988 to February 1997, with its chapters collected in 42 tankōbon volumes. Rokudenashi Blues had over 60 million copies in circulation by August 2013, making it one of the best-selling manga series.

Plot

The story stars Taison Maeda (前田太尊), delinquent student of Teiken High school (帝拳高校) who wishes to become the world boxing champion. The manga follows Maeda (and his friends and rivals) as he struggles through three years of high school while becoming one of the strongest and best known high school fighters in all of Tokyo. Not just a pure action manga, Rokudenashi Blues is filled with humor and well-crafted story arcs about honor, friendship, and the pressures of being a delinquent student in Japan. Short gag-stories with chibi versions of characters are published as "Rokudenashi Buru-chu".

Characters

The 4 Heavenly Kings

The 4 Heavenly Kings are what the students of Tokyo consider the strongest fighters in Tokyo. They each come from a separate district and often come into contact with each other throughout the later half of the manga, which often result in bloody, drawn out dog fights between the schools involved.

Kichijōji

Kichijōji is the area of Tokyo that Maeda and his friends are from. At the start of the manga most of the action that takes place involves the different schools from the area such as Yonekura Industrial before branching off into the other districts of Tokyo and even to the south of Japan.

Teiken High

Yonekura Industrial

Misako Technical College

Media

Manga

Rokudenashi Blues, written and illustrated by Masanori Morita, was originally serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from May 30, 1988, to February 17, 1997. Shueisha collected its chapters in 42 tankōbon volumes published between January 10, 1989, and April 4, 1997. Shueisha later re-released the series into a 25 volume bunkoban edition between December 12, 2002, and December 12, 2003.

Anime films

An anime film produced by Toei Animation was released on July 11, 1992. A second film titled Rokudenashi Blues 1993 was released on July 24, 1993.

Live-action film

A live-action film produced by Pony Canyon, TV Tokyo and Pal Entertainments Production was released on February 16, 1996. A second live-action film titled Rokudenashi Blues '98 was released on August 22, 1998.

Video games

A video game entitled Rokudenashi Blues, produced by Bandai and developed by Tose, was released for the Family Computer in 1993. Another video game entitled Rokudenashi Blues: Taiketsu! Tōkyō Shitennō (ろくでなしBLUES 対決！東京四天王) was released for the Super Famicom in 1994. Five characters from Rokudenashi Blues appear in the Nintendo DS battle royale game Jump Ultimate Stars. In the game, Maeda is a Support character (he may either punch the opponents or run them over with his scooter), while Yamashita, Sawamura, Chiaki and Masa are Help-type characters. He was one of the main characters in Famicom Jump II: Saikyō no Shichinin, a roleplaying game released in 1991. Some Rokudenashi Blues characters are also featured in Cult Jump, an adventure-trivia game released for the Game Boy.

Drama

A Japanese television drama was announced in the 25th issue of Weekly Young Jump in May 2011. It was broadcast on Nippon TV from July 6 to September 28, 2011.

Reception

Rokudenashi Blues had over 60 million copies in circulation by August 2013, making it one of the best-selling manga series.