# Manga de Dokuha

Manga de Dokuha (Japanese: まんがで読破, "Reading Through with Manga") is a series of manga adaptations of classic literature. Published by East Press and later Gakken, the aim of the series is to introduce average manga readers to important literary works they would otherwise not be aware of or willing to read. The series received press coverage for its publication of often controversial political treatises. East Press published best-selling versions of the communist novel Kanikōsen, Karl Marx's Das Kapital and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. Some of the books were translated and made available in other languages such as English, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Manga de Dokuha was launched by East Press in an effort to expose young Japanese people to classic works of literature in a manga format. Kosuke Maruo produces each book in the series and outlines the narrative while artwork is created by Variety Art Works. The books in the series were often sold through easily accessible convenience stores, including 7-Eleven. Maruo said: "We thought that maybe we could get people to read well-known works perceived as tough reads by turning them into manga and selling them at convenience stores". In July 2008, the series' first 17 entries had sold over 900,000 copies. The average sales for an entry in the series were around 35,000.

## Significant entries
### Kanikōsen and Das Kapital

Kanikōsen (蟹工船) (published in English as The Crab Canning Ship or The Crab Ship) is a 1929 Japanese novel by Takiji Kobayashi. Written from a left-wing political perspective, the book follows the crew of a crab fishing ship living under oppressive conditions while being exploited by capitalists. The novel which typically sells around 5,000 copies a year became an unexpected bestseller in 2008 and sold over 507,000 copies that year. The same year, East Press published its own manga version of the novel which sold over 200,000 copies. In response to the popularity of the communist-themed Kanikōsen manga, East Press published a manga version of Karl Marx's 1867 treatise Das Kapital. This version presents the original Marxist anti-capitalist principles via the fictionalized tale of Robin, the owner of a cheese factory who experiences guilt for exploiting his workers and betraying his father's socialist principles. Maruo stated that "I think people are looking to Marx for answers to the problems with capitalist society. Obviously, the recent global crisis suggests that the system isn't working properly". East Press's edition of Das Kapital sold 6,000 copies in its first few days of publication.
The renewed success of both the novel and manga versions of Kanikōsen as well as that of the manga Das Kapital were often discussed in the context of the rising popularity of left-wing literature in Japan, the late-2000s recession affecting Japan and growing membership of the Japanese Communist Party. According to Waseda University literature professor Hirokazu Toeda, "Kanikōsen is discussed and analyzed every time a critical social issue occurs – the disparity society, severe labor conditions, consumer product falsification, random killings. This is a unique characteristic of the Kanikōsen boom and it now is symbolizing or mirroring all those negative aspects of current day Japan". Daisuke Asao, a senior office of the National Confederation of Trades Unions, said that "the situation of those labourers in the book is very similar to modern temporary workers: the unpredictable contracts, the working under heavy supervision, violence from supervisors, the widespread sexual harassment and the pressure against unionisation are all things that modern Japanese recognise every day". Anti-poverty activist Kosuke Hashimoto responded to the books' popularity, saying: "I think many young people in Japan are afraid of the future, and that fear is sometimes turning to anger. Reading comics might only be the start". Social welfare advocate Kaori Katada said: "Poverty has been a growing and visible problem for some time, but now people are looking for answers about why it is returning. That's why they're turning to these books".

### Mein Kampf

A version of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf (わが闘争, Waga Tōsō) was published in October 2008. The book is Hitler's autobiography in which he outlines his Nazi political ideology. The manga version of Mein Kampf was a minor commercial success, selling 45,000 copies. However, it also proved to be controversial. The Financial Ministry of Bavaria which owns the copyright to the book and has refused to publish it in Germany issued a statement saying that manga was an inappropriate medium for Hitler's writing. Bavaria's former Japanese representative Toshio Obata stated: "Even 60 years after the end of war, Nazism remains a sensitive issue in Germany. Did East Press exhaust discussions before publishing it? Did it consider the difference between Japan and Germany as to how manga is viewed as a medium?" Maruo defended its publication, saying "Mein Kampf is a well-known book, but relatively few people have read it. We think this will provide clues about Hitler as a human being, as to his way of thinking that led to such tragedy, even though he was dismissed as a 'monster'". The publication of the manga helped reignite the debate in Germany as to whether the ban on the book should be lifted.

## International publications

Between November 2011 and November 2012, JManga made available online 14 Manga de Dokuha titles in English, namely No Longer Human, Das Kapital, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Night on the Galactic Railroad, The Book of Five Rings, I Am a Cat, Seton's Wild Animals, Sutta Nipata, One Thousand and One Nights, The Metamorphosis, Journey to the West, In Search of Lost Time, The Art of War and The Narrow Road to the Deep North. One Peace Books also released Don Quixote, The Great Gatsby, Moby-Dick, Ulysses and The War of the Worlds as part of its "Manga Classic Readers" series on 1 September 2012. Canadian company Red Quill Books physically published Das Kapital in 2012 as Capital in Manga!.
The Spanish division of Verlag Herder publishes the series in the country since 2011. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the Divine Comedy, The Prince, The Art of War, The Social Contract, Das Kapital, the Iliad and the Odyssey (in a single book), Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Antichrist, the Analects and Tao Te Ching are the eleven books published by the company.
In Brazil, Editora JBC published The Capital and King Lear in 2011. Two years later, L&PM Editores published The Art of War, The Great Gatsby, Hamlet, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Between 2013 and 2016, L&PM published the Manifesto of the Communist Party, The Metamorphosis, The Social Contract, The Brothers Karamazov, In Search of Lost Time, and Ulysses. A box containing The Brothers Karamazov, The Great Gatsby, The Metamorphosis and Thus Spoke Zarathustra was also released in 2015.

## List of entries
### Manga de Dokuha (2007-2017, East Press)

| Number | Title | Original author/editor | ISBN | Publication date |
| MD001 | No Longer Human | Osamu Dazai | ISBN 978-4-87257-810-2 ISBN 978-4-7816-8631-8 (new edition) | August 2007 November 2020 (new edition) |
| MD002 | The Broken Commandment | Tōson Shimazaki | ISBN 978-4-87257-812-6 | August 2007 |
| MD003 | Kokoro | Natsume Sōseki | ISBN 978-4-87257-811-9 ISBN 978-4-7816-8630-1 (new edition) | August 2007 November 2020 (new edition) |
| MD004 | Crime and Punishment | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | ISBN 978-4-87257-835-5 | October 2007 |
| MD005 | "Rashōmon" | Ryūnosuke Akutagawa | ISBN 978-4-87257-834-8 | October 2007 |
| MD006 | Kanikōsen | Takiji Kobayashi | ISBN 978-4-87257-836-2 | October 2007 |
| MD007 | Night on the Galactic Railroad | Kenji Miyazawa | ISBN 978-4-87257-866-9 | December 2007 |
| MD008 | War and Peace | Leo Tolstoy | ISBN 978-4-87257-867-6 | December 2007 |
| MD009 | On Decadence and The Idiot | Ango Sakaguchi | ISBN 978-4-87257-868-3 | December 2007 |
| MD010 | The Brothers Karamazov | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | ISBN 978-4-87257-889-8 | February 2008 |
| MD011 | The Setting Sun | Osamu Dazai | ISBN 978-4-87257-890-4 | February 2008 |
| MD012 | The Red and the Black | Stendhal | ISBN 978-4-87257-910-9 | April 2008 |
| MD013 | An Encouragement of Learning | Fukuzawa Yukichi | ISBN 978-4-87257-909-3 | April 2008 |
| MD014 | Bushido: The Soul of Japan | Nitobe Inazō | ISBN 978-4-87257-908-6 | April 2008 |
| MD015 | The Metamorphosis | Franz Kafka | ISBN 978-4-87257-911-6 | April 2008 |
| MD016 | King Lear | William Shakespeare | ISBN 978-4-87257-932-1 | May 2008 |
| MD017 | Light and Darkness | Natsume Sōseki | ISBN 978-4-87257-933-8 | May 2008 |
| MD018 | Night Flight | Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | ISBN 978-4-87257-973-4 | July 2008 |
| MD019 | Faust | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | ISBN 978-4-87257-974-1 | July 2008 |
| MD020 | Thus Spoke Zarathustra | Friedrich Nietzsche | ISBN 978-4-87257-972-7 | July 2008 |
| MD021 | Divine Comedy | Dante Alighieri | ISBN 978-4-7816-0002-4 | October 2008 |
| MD022 | The Prince | Niccolò Machiavelli | ISBN 978-4-7816-0004-8 | October 2008 |
| MD023 | "The Dancing Girl" | Mori Ōgai | ISBN 978-4-7816-0003-1 | October 2008 |
| MD024 | Mein Kampf | Adolf Hitler | ISBN 978-4-7816-0011-6 | November 2008 |
| MD025 | Dogra Magra | Yumeno Kyūsaku | ISBN 978-4-7816-0012-3 | November 2008 |
| MD026 | The Possessed | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | ISBN 978-4-7816-0022-2 | December 2008 |
| MD027 | Das Kapital | Karl Marx | ISBN 978-4-7816-0021-5 ISBN 978-4-7816-8629-5 (new edition) | December 2008 October 2020 (new edition) |
| MD028 | The Sickness Unto Death | Søren Kierkegaard | ISBN 978-4-7816-0023-9 | February 2009 |
| MD029 | Les Misérables | Victor Hugo | ISBN 978-4-7816-0024-6 | February 2009 |
| MD030 | Moby-Dick | Herman Melville | ISBN 978-4-7816-0080-2 | March 2009 |
| MD031 | The Great Gatsby | F. Scott Fitzgerald | ISBN 978-4-7816-0081-9 | March 2009 |
| MD032 | The True Story of Ah Q | Lu Xun | ISBN 978-4-7816-0083-3 | April 2009 |
| MD033 | Don Quixote | Miguel de Cervantes | ISBN 978-4-7816-0082-6 | April 2009 |
| MD034 | Ulysses | James Joyce | ISBN 978-4-7816-0084-0 | May 2009 |
| MD035 | Das Kapital, Volume II | Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels | ISBN 978-4-7816-0124-3 | May 2009 |
| MD036 | In Search of Lost Time | Marcel Proust | ISBN 978-4-7816-0085-7 | June 2009 |
| MD037 | Hagakure | Yamamoto Tsunetomo | ISBN 978-4-7816-0125-0 | June 2009 |
| MD038 | The Origin of Species | Charles Darwin | ISBN 978-4-7816-0167-0 | July 2009 |
| MD039 | The Merchant of Venice | William Shakespeare | ISBN 978-4-7816-0168-7 | July 2009 |
| MD040 | Pandora's Box and Villon's Wife | Osamu Dazai | ISBN 978-4-7816-0201-1 | August 2009 |
| MD041 | Sorekara | Natsume Sōseki | ISBN 978-4-7816-0200-4 | August 2009 |
| MD042 | Water Margin | Shi Naian | ISBN 978-4-7816-0207-3 | September 2009 |
| MD043 | Manifesto of the Communist Party | Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels | ISBN 978-4-7816-0208-0 | September 2009 |
| MD044 | The Sorrows of Young Werther | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | ISBN 978-4-7816-0220-2 | October 2009 |
| MD045 | Macbeth | William Shakespeare | ISBN 978-4-7816-0221-9 | October 2009 |
| MD046 | The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | Robert Louis Stevenson | ISBN 978-4-7816-0241-7 | November 2009 |
| MD047 | A Christmas Carol | Charles John Huffam Dickens | ISBN 978-4-7816-0242-4 | November 2009 |
| MD048 | The Book of Five Rings | Miyamoto Musashi | ISBN 978-4-7816-0274-5 | December 2009 |
| MD049 | A Fool's Life | Ryūnosuke Akutagawa | ISBN 978-4-7816-0275-2 | December 2009 |
| MD050 | Kojiki | | ISBN 978-4-7816-0276-9 ISBN 978-4-7816-8632-5 (new edition) | December 2009 November 2020 (new edition) |
| MD051 | Nihon Shoki | | ISBN 978-4-7816-0277-6 ISBN 978-4-7816-8633-2 (new edition) | January 2010 November 2020 (new edition) |
| MD052 | The Tale of Genji | Murasaki Shikibu | ISBN 978-4-7816-0313-1 | February 2010 |
| MD053 | The Life of an Amorous Man | Ihara Saikaku | ISBN 978-4-7816-0314-8 | February 2010 |
| MD054 | Analects | Confucius | ISBN 978-4-7816-0325-4 | March 2010 |
| MD055 | One Thousand and One Nights | Unknown | ISBN 978-4-7816-0326-1 | March 2010 |
| MD056 | I Am a Cat | Natsume Sōseki | ISBN 978-4-7816-0347-6 ISBN 978-4-7816-8634-9 (new edition) | April 2010 December 2020 (new edition) |
| MD057 | Byōshō Rokushaku | Masaoka Shiki | ISBN 978-4-7816-0348-3 | April 2010 |
| MD058 | The War of the Worlds | Herbert George Wells | ISBN 978-4-7816-0363-6 | May 2010 |
| MD059 | The Interpretation of Dreams and Introduction to Psychoanalysis | Sigmund Freud | ISBN 978-4-7816-0364-3 | May 2010 |
| MD060 | Sutta Nipata | Unknown | ISBN 978-4-7816-0379-7 | June 2010 |
| MD061 | Heart Sutra | Unknown | ISBN 978-4-7816-0380-3 | June 2010 |
| MD062 | Analects Part II | Confucius | ISBN 978-4-7816-0381-0 | July 2010 |
| MD063 | The Art of War | Sun Tzu | ISBN 978-4-7816-0382-7 | July 2010 |
| MD064 | Seton's Wild Animals | Ernest Thompson Seton | ISBN 978-4-7816-0422-0 | August 2010 |
| MD065 | Souvenirs entomologiques | Jean Henri Fabre | ISBN 978-4-7816-0423-7 | August 2010 |
| MD066 | Gespräche mit Goethe | Johann Peter Eckermann | ISBN 978-4-7816-0443-5 | September 2010 |
| MD067 | Human, All Too Human | Friedrich Nietzsche | ISBN 978-4-7816-0444-2 | September 2010 |
| MD068 | Kama Sutra | Vātsyāyana | ISBN 978-4-7816-0458-9 | October 2010 |
| MD069 | Journey to the West | Wu Cheng'en | ISBN 978-4-7816-0459-6 | October 2010 |
| MD070 | The Antichrist | Friedrich Nietzsche | ISBN 978-4-7816-0469-5 | November 2010 |
| MD071 | Black Death Hall Murders | Mushitaro Oguri | ISBN 978-4-7816-0470-1 | November 2010 |
| MD072 | Old Testament | Various | ISBN 978-4-7816-0471-8 | December 2010 |
| MD073 | New Testament | Various | ISBN 978-4-7816-0472-5 ISBN 978-4-7816-8627-1 (new edition) | December 2010 October 2020 |
| MD074 | The Book of Tea | Okakura Kakuzō | ISBN 978-4-7816-0522-7 | January 2011 |
| MD075 | Commentarii de Bello Gallico | Julius Caesar | ISBN 978-4-7816-0523-4 | January 2011 |
| MD076 | Hyakunin Isshu | Various | ISBN 978-4-7816-0533-3 ISBN 978-4-7816-0604-0 (new edition) | February 2011 April 2011 (new edition) |
| MD077 | The Pillow Book | Sei Shōnagon | ISBN 978-4-7816-0534-0 | February 2011 |
| MD078 | Analytical psychology and Psychology of the Unconscious | Carl Gustav Jung | ISBN 978-4-7816-0547-0 | March 2011 |
| MD079 | Tsurezuregusa | Yoshida Kenkō | ISBN 978-4-7816-0548-7 | March 2011 |
| MD080 | The Social Contract | Jean-Jacques Rousseau | ISBN 978-4-7816-0578-4 | April 2011 |
| MD081 | Hamlet | William Shakespeare | ISBN 978-4-7816-0579-1 | April 2011 |
| MD082 | Discourse on the Method | René Descartes | ISBN 978-4-7816-0593-7 | May 2011 |
| MD083 | Records of Three Kingdoms | Chen Shou | ISBN 978-4-7816-0594-4 | May 2011 |
| MD084 | The Narrow Road to the Deep North | Matsuo Bashō | ISBN 978-4-7816-0605-7 | June 2011 |
| MD085 | The Lady of the Camellias | Alexandre Dumas | ISBN 978-4-7816-0606-4 | June 2011 |
| MD086 | Alain on Happiness | Alain | ISBN 978-4-7816-0607-1 | July 2011 |
| MD087 | On Liberty | John Stuart Mill | ISBN 978-4-7816-0608-8 | July 2011 |
| MD088 | Yotsuya Kaidan | Unknown | ISBN 978-4-7816-0633-0 | August 2011 |
| MD089 | Critique of Pure Reason | Immanuel Kant | ISBN 978-4-7816-0634-7 | August 2011 |
| MD090 | Book of the Dead | Unknown | ISBN 978-4-7816-0635-4 | September 2011 |
| MD091 | On War | Carl von Clausewitz | ISBN 978-4-7816-0636-1 | September 2011 |
| MD092 | Notes from Underground | Fyodor Dostoyevsky | ISBN 978-4-7816-0668-2 | October 2011 |
| MD093 | Resurrection | Leo Tolstoy | ISBN 978-4-7816-0669-9 | October 2011 |
| MD094 | Iliad and Odyssey | Homer | ISBN 978-4-7816-0670-5 | November 2011 |
| MD095 | Fathers and Sons | Ivan Turgenev | ISBN 978-4-7816-0671-2 | November 2011 |
| MD096 | Paradise Lost | John Milton | ISBN 978-4-7816-0689-7 | December 2011 |
| MD097 | The Wealth of Nations | Adam Smith | ISBN 978-4-7816-0690-3 | December 2011 |
| MD098 | The Structure of "Iki" | Kuki Shūzō | ISBN 978-4-7816-0693-4 | January 2012 |
| MD099 | The Chrysanthemum and the Sword | Ruth Benedict | ISBN 978-4-7816-0694-1 | January 2012 |
| MD100 | Nineteen Eighty-Four | George Orwell | ISBN 978-4-7816-0726-9 | February 2012 |
| MD101 | A Woman's Life | Guy de Maupassant | ISBN 978-4-7816-0727-6 | February 2012 |
| MD102 | Constitution of Japan | Various | ISBN 978-4-7816-0744-3 | March 2012 |
| MD103 | The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci | Leonardo da Vinci | ISBN 978-4-7816-0745-0 | March 2012 |
| MD104 | Kaitai Shinsho | Sugita Genpaku | ISBN 978-4-7816-0746-7 | April 2012 |
| MD105 | Tao Te Ching | Laozi | ISBN 978-4-7816-0747-4 | April 2012 |
| MD106 | Anna Karenina | Leon Tolstoy | ISBN 978-4-7816-0768-9 | May 2012 |
| MD107 | A Young Girl's Inferno | Yumeno Kyūsaku | ISBN 978-4-7816-0769-6 | May 2012 |
| MD108 | History of Japan | Luís Fróis | ISBN 978-4-7816-0784-9 | June 2012 |
| MD109 | Meditations | Marcus Aurelius | ISBN 978-4-7816-0785-6 | June 2012 |
| MD110 | The Tale of the Heike | Unknown | ISBN 978-4-7816-0786-3 | July 2012 |
| MD111 | Emile, or On Education | Jean-Jacques Rousseau | ISBN 978-4-7816-0787-0 | July 2012 |
| MD112 | Ten Nights of Dreams | Natsume Sōseki | ISBN 978-4-7816-0820-4 | August 2012 |
| MD113 | Tsugaru | Osamu Dazai | ISBN 978-4-7816-0821-1 | August 2012 |
| MD114 | Autobiography of Heinrich Schliemann | Heinrich Schliemann | ISBN 978-4-7816-0831-0 | September 2012 |
| MD115 | Two Years' Vacation | Jules Verne | ISBN 978-4-7816-0832-7 | September 2012 |
| MD116 | "Lemon" | Motojirō Kajii | ISBN 978-4-7816-0849-5 | October 2012 |
| MD117 | Futon | Katai Tayama | ISBN 978-4-7816-0850-1 | November 2012 |
| MD118 | Yoake-mae | Tōson Shimazaki | ISBN 978-4-7816-0851-8 | December 2012 |
| MD119 | Man'yōshū | Unknown | ISBN 978-4-7816-0852-5 | January 2013 |
| MD120 | Beneath the Wheel | Hermann Hesse | ISBN 978-4-7816-0923-2 | February 2013 |
| MD121 | Science as a Vocation and Politics as a Vocation | Max Weber | ISBN 978-4-7816-0924-9 | March 2013 |
| MD122 | Apology | Plato | ISBN 978-4-7816-0956-0 | April 2013 |
| MD123 | A Season in Hell | Arthur Rimbaud | ISBN 978-4-7816-0957-7 | May 2013 |
| MD124 | The Count of Monte Cristo | Alexandre Dumas | ISBN 978-4-7816-0959-1 | June 2013 |
| MD125 | The Sayings and Doings of Napoleon | Unknown | ISBN 978-4-7816-0958-4 | July 2013 |
| MD126 | The Legends of Tono | Kunio Yanagita | ISBN 978-4-7816-0960-7 | August 2013 |
| MD127 | Risshō Ankoku Ron | Nichiren | ISBN 978-4-7816-1071-9 | October 2013 |
| MD128 | Records of the Grand Historian | Sima Qian | ISBN 978-4-7816-1096-2 | December 2013 |
| MD129 | An Inquiry into the Good | Kitaro Nishida | ISBN 978-4-7816-1121-1 | February 2014 |
| MD130 | Theory of relativity | Albert Einstein | ISBN 978-4-7816-1147-1 | April 2014 |
| MD131 | A Study in Scarlet | Arthur Conan Doyle | ISBN 978-4-7816-1234-8 | July 2014 |
| MD132 | "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" | Edgar Allan Poe | ISBN 978-4-7816-1257-7 | October 2014 |
| MD133 | Quran | Unknown | ISBN 978-4-7816-1269-0 | February 2015 |
| MD134 | The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money | John Maynard Keynes | ISBN 978-4-7816-1338-3 | June 2015 |
| MD135 | "Datsu-A Ron" | Fukuzawa Yukichi | ISBN 978-4-7816-1354-3 | September 2015 |
| MD136 | Chijin no Ai | Jun'ichirō Tanizaki | ISBN 978-4-7816-1390-1 | January 2016 |
| MD137 | Botchan | Natsume Sōseki | ISBN 978-4-7816-1463-2 | August 2016 |
| MD138 | Caigentan | Hong Zicheng | ISBN 978-4-7816-1513-4 | February 2017 |
| MD139 | Meisaku Koten Rakugo: Shibahama, Shinigami, Jugemu Hoka | Unknown | ISBN 978-4-7816-1577-6 | August 2017 |

### Kyōyō o Hirogeru Manga de Yomu Meicho (2015, East Press)

| Number | Title | Original author/editor | ISBN | Publication date |
| MM1 | Theory of relativity | Albert Einstein | ISBN 978-4-7816-1319-2 | April 2015 |
| MM2 | An Encouragement of Learning | Fukuzawa Yukichi | ISBN 978-4-7816-1320-8 | April 2015 |
| MM3 | The Origin of Species | Charles Darwin | ISBN 978-4-7816-1328-4 | June 2015 |
| MM4 | Das Kapital | Karl Marx | ISBN 978-4-7816-1329-1 | June 2015 |

### Manga de Dokuha Junior Series (2023, Gakken)

| Number | Title | Original author/editor | ISBN | Publication date |
| 1 | Kanikōsen | Takiji Kobayashi | ISBN 978-4-05-205752-6 | September 2023 |
| 2 | Night on the Galactic Railroad | Kenji Miyazawa | ISBN 978-4-05-205777-9 | September 2023 |
| 3 | Journey to the West | | ISBN 978-4-05-205794-6 | October 2023 |
| 4 | Kokoro | Natsume Sōseki | ISBN 978-4-05-205795-3 | October 2023 |
| 5 | The Tale of Genji | Murasaki Shikibu | ISBN 978-4-05-205862-2 | December 2023 |
| 6 | A Christmas Carol | Charles John Huffam Dickens | ISBN 978-4-05-205861-5 | December 2023 |