Gag Guerrilla

Cover to the eBookJapan edition.

### Original Run

August 21, 1972 ("Escorting" one-shot and pilot)October 16, 1972-December 23, 1982

**Gag Guerrilla** (ギャグゲリラ) is a long-running gag manga by Fujio Akatsuka and Fujio Pro, that was serialized in Weekly Bunshun from October 1972 to December 1982.

It was considered one of Akatsuka's "life works", in being an adult-oriented gag manga with no set protagonist, and that would reflect current events.

## Overview

After the end of The Genius Bakabon's Old Man, Akatsuka was looking for a new opportunity to pursue a series catered to an older audience and with more explicit sexual humor.

As with *The Genius Bakabon's Old Man*, the dialogue and text were hand-written rather than being typed serifs. These were done by Akatsuka's assistant Kenichi Kitami, while the general ideas for the stories were plotted out by Akatsuka and Kunio Nagatani with the magazine editor. It successfully ran in Weekly Bunshun for a whole decade, and is remembered among the masterpiece series aimed at older readers and represented well in reprints. It was also seen as a more impressive venture for Akatsuka compared to his other works at the time, as he put most of his energy and ideas into competing against the tight schedule and deadlines that were enforced on him for each week.

In such reprints, the pilot chapter "Escorting" (serialized in August 1972) is put first to be the official start of the series. It was 12 pages long, which was unprecedented for works in the magazine at the time. The chapters of *Gag Guerrilla* itself usually totaled 8 pages, but in 1974 the space for the feature was reduced to 6 pages due to a shortage of paper that coincided with the oil crisis at the time (from the Yom Kippur War). Akatsuka found it harder to convey humor and punchlines in such a shorter restraint, but continued with finding material for each week's story.

## Characters

*See also: List of characters in Gag Guerrilla*

*Note: As part of Akatsuka's Star System, some characters can be seen to have already debuted in other manga and be re-used here.*

Although there are many characters in the series, these three are the most prolific and notable out of the cast. They all happened to originate out of The Genius Bakabon, though the officer had already made the crossover to many other works at the time.

### The Police Officer with the Connected Eyes

The star of the first few stories. We meet this character in "Escorting" when handcuffed to the convict Kaoru to ensure his arrest, only for both to wind up getting into one compromising situation after another and falling in love. Other instances of this officer's sexual nature and unfortunate luck get glimpsed as well.

### Kaoru-chan

Appears in "Escorting" and also shown in a later fortune telling-themed story where he and the Officer with the Connected Eyes hook up as a punchline. His life would appear to intersect with that other character's very often, with him set as the convict or another foil.

As with his standard Star System appearance, he's a rough yet effeminate and highly amorous man who can attract other men to him easily and come on to them about as easy.

### Ryunoshin Hattori

First generally used in the 1973 publication chapters as a young boy constantly hounding his parents or others with questions, earning others' frustration through his ways. He gains his trademark shorts outfit after a few appearances (though his fashion still may vary) and shown to be a bit more of a trickster, giving the Police Officer with Connected Eyes much grief.

Due to the usage of him as a star, Ryunoshin's parents are subject to vary by chapter and the needs for a story. He can either be depicted as a child or an adult, depending on such needs. Sometimes his nose will even appear in its original pointed style, rather than the finalized round nose we usually see here, and one story pays nod to his character design also being used as Camera Kid in its punchline (as Ryunoshin is given the chance to buy a camera).

The full "Ryunoshin Hattori" name would also later find itself used on a much different character in Mom NO.1.

## Serialization

*See also List of chapters in Gag Guerrilla*

Besides "Escorting", Mitsutoshi Furuya's "Keko-tan of Hokkairo" short is bundled together in the reprints under the title of "Darirariran".

## Reprints

* Bunshun Bunko: 8 volumes (1980), "Gag Guerrilla Masterpiece Selection" volume (2009)
* Futabasha: 5 volumes (1984)
* Gomashobo: 12 volumes (1999-2001)
* Shogakukan: "Fujio Akatsuka Complete Works" DVD-ROM set (2002). The 12 Gomashobo volumes are digitized, along with three extra volumes covering "1980" "1981" and "1982".
* eBookJapan: 16 volumes (2010)

Unfortunately, as there were pages and illustrations that included gags involving other copyrighted works, reprints tend to have these removed and it is thus said that an entirely complete version of the series is hard to achieve.

eBookJapan's release contains a chapter that was unavailable in the previous reprints (July 31, 1980) but tends to have errors in the serialization data in the afterword and may have some chapters out of order.

## External Links

* Gag Guerrilla eBookJapan page (Japanese)
* "Gag Guerrilla" 1972 to 1975 publication years write-up at the Akatsuka Preservation Society (Japanese)
* "Gag Guerrilla" 1976 to 1982 write-up (Japanese)