Caster

The opening to the series, with a somewhat more "gekiga" Caster design.

**Caster** (キャスター) was a short-lived gag manga work by Fujio Akatsuka and Fujio Pro, with its original scenarios credited to the reporter Hajime Tabe (喰始). It ran in Kobunsha's Popcorn magazine on a bimonthly basis until the magazine was cancelled shortly into its contract.

## Overview

The series revolves around the titular reporter by the name of **Caster** (for "newscaster"), his lovely **Assistant**, and their **Director** who go about reporting on current news and scandals in the city.

The "Popcorn" magazine the series ran in was meant to be an open collaboration between Kobunsha and Marvel Comics, freely showcasing Japanese translations of Marvel superheroes' stories while also serializing new Japanese manga by famous authors of the time; these included the first incarnation of Monkey Punch's *Cinderella Boy*, along with Hideo Azuma's *Nanako SOS*.

Unfortunately, the free reign and proud "lack of taboos" Akatsuka would showcase in the manga would play into the magazine's undoing. After the release of the second controversial chapter of the series in Popcorn #2, Kobunsha issued an apology in #3 and in addition to the new material in the magazine, also republished everything but the offending *Caster* chapter from #2. Copies of #2 were considered to be "voluntarily recalled" from the incident, with people sending theirs back in.

Despite Kobunsha's apology on the matter, the magazine (and thus *Caster* itself) ceased at its sixth publication from drops in sales. Kobunsha would follow up *Popcorn* with a new magazine *Just Comic*, which continued some serializations, though this work was not one. Instead, Piyo the 13th would debut and be its own short-lived Akatsuka feature.

Some modern accounts would pin the existence of this series on Kobunsha's cancellation of the magazine, although others will point out that Western comic publications were already a hard sell in Japan and that the concept of a Japanese and American comic collaboration may have not come at the best time.

## Characters

### Caster

(キャスター)

Our protagonist, who delivers the news with "This is Caster, delivering only the truth!". His design is modeled after the actual Japanese entertainment reporter Masaru Nashimoto, who had been famous for reporting on scandalous news in this time. He can keep a poker face while delivering the most disturbing news possible, as chaos unfolds around, though he becomes more expressive over the series.

### Assistant

(アシスタント)

A pretty and promiscuous news assistant that accompanies Caster on his reports. She has to fend off the advances of Director, but doesn't succeed very well at times and is often left running with him chasing her down.

### Director

(ディレクター)

The cameraman of the trio, filming all the horrific and amazing sights that go on. He has lecherous favor towards Assistant, right from the start of the series until she comes to appreciate him by the end.

## Serialization

* Popcorn: April 1980 to February 1981, published bimonthly.

The series ran for these chapters:

1. Report 〇 1 ( レポート〇その1, April 1980)- Caster reports on a decomposing man, who is falling apart but still somehow alive through his decay.
2. Report 〇 2 (レポート〇その2, June 1980)- The infamous "Human Restaurant" report. A restaurant known as "Futomomo" is interviewed and shown to harvest humans for their special meat dishes.
3. Report 〇 3 (レポート〇その3, August 1980)- A woman gives birth to a holy Cupid as a baby, which starts to bless people and cause some chaos that way. However, in the end, another patient at the hospital gives birth to demon triplets. Bakabon's Papa can be seen to also make a special cameo in this chapter.
4. Report 〇 4 (レポート〇その4, October 1980)- Caster visits a mansion where a man treats the other inhabitants as his furniture and entertainment, as the place is haunted and eventually burns down.
5. Report 〇 5 (レポート〇その5, December 1980)- Caster investigates a man's house being forcibly turned into a city waste dump, down to people even abandoning their unwanted children, pets, elder relatives, and corpses in the rubbish.
6. Report 〇 6 (レポート〇その6, February 1981)- Caster investigates the cases of people spontaneously exploding, but finds even babies and those that are already dead are not spared from the mysterious combustion.

## Reprints

Due to the lack of pre-existing reprints for Caster as well as its own controversial nature, there has never been a print or digital re-release of the title and those in Japan who wish to read it must find secondhand copies of *Popcorn* or read it at the National Diet Library. This is still the case as of 2020 and on.

## External Links

* "Caster" write-up at the Fujio Akatsuka Preservation Society (Japanese)
* Samples shown of "Caster" and Popcorn in a tweet by @umdboy (Japanese)