Dear Zaurus Tokuda

***Dear Zaurus Tokuda*** (Japanese: 拝啓 徳田ザウルス先生, *Haikei Tokuda Zaurusu Sensei*) is a short semi-biographical manga by Hiroyuki Takei and published by Shogakukan on *CoroCoro Aniki*. It tells the story behind the creation of Shooting Star, what Tokuda really is, and Takei's decision to serializes *Hyper Dash! Yonkuro* on *CoroCoro Aniki* after he concluded that it's not *CoroCoro* without *Dash! Yonkuro*.

The manga was later included in the first volume of *Hyper Dash! Yonkuro**.* The newly-drawn second part of the manga was included in the second volume of the *Hyper Dash! Yonkuro*, which is followed by a third, titled Special chapter that was published on *CoroCoro Aniki* magazine before being included in the fourth volume.

## Story

### Part 1

In the first page of Part 1, Hiroyuki Takei introduce himself and then begin to tell how and why he decided to serializes *Hyper Dash! Yonkuro.*

In July of 2014, inside his manga studio, Takei find out about Shogakukan's *CoroCoro Aniki* magazine through his assistant Ozadori. Ozadori also told him that *Bakusou Kyoudai Let's & Go!* has been revived by manga artist of the original series, Tetsuhiro Koshita, as *Bakusou Kyoudai Let's & Go! Return Racers!*. As Takei think about Mini 4WD, What he first remember is that car: the Dash-3 Shooting Star.

Back when Takei was a middle-school student, he likes Mini 4WD so much. He doesn't like to use it to racing though as he think that doing this will damages the car. But as he's already attracted to the designs of Mini 4WD, he participated into a Mini 4WD design contest. (Which is the Dash-1 design contest that was running on *CoroCoro Comic* magazine at that time.)

Then one day, he received a phone call:

*"Hello? Hiroyuki Takei, right? I am manga artist Zaurus Tokuda!"*

That loud voice is no doubt belongs to Zaurus Tokuda, the manga artist who serializes *Dash! Yonkuro*on *CoroCoro Comic* magazine. Takei was told that while his design is not suitable as the machine for the protagonist (Yonkuro Hiromaru), Tokuda found it interesting so he ask Takei for permission to use the minicar design as Shinkuro Minami's car. After the clean-up by Tokuda, it became the Shooting Star everyone know.

At that time, Takei realized that the manga artists are real, so he became a manga artist himself.

Unfortunately, he's unable to meet Tokuda in person as Tokuda passed away in 2006. It is the saddest thing Takei ever heard.

Back to the present, Takei is having a conversation with Tokuda's wife Jizabe about who Tokuda is. She told Takei that he is similar to that of Yonkuro and treats Mini 4WD as the hobby for hot-blooded boys, except his face (along with his body size) looks like Tankuro. He was also told that Tokuda also like cars and owns some of them, so some of his Mini 4WD cars (i.e Dash-4 Cannonball) are inspired by actual cars.

Takei also remembers the time when Tokuda suddenly collapsed on January 28, 1992 and went into coma fo 20 days in hospital, but he didn't regrets.

After the conversation, Takei concluded that *CoroCoro Aniki* is not *CoroCoro* without *Dash! Yonkuro*, and so, he ask one favor to Jizabe.

The next day, inside the studio, Takei reveals to Ozadori that he's going to serializes *Dash! Yonkuro*, thus said assistant was surprised to the point he crushed his laptop's keyboard in the end.

### Part 2

The first part of part 2 is the version of *Hyper Dash! Yonkuro* drawn in the Tokuda-style, with many mythology gags from the original manga throws in. However, it turn out out that all event in the first part was a dream for Takei, who was falling asleep while drawing manga pages.

It turns out, even before the serialization of *Hyper Dash! Yonkuro*, Takei has the problem trying to emulate Tokuda's style! Since his attempts looks weird no matter how hard he try, Takei then tries to draws the characters in his style, and it gets even *worse*.

No matter how hard he try, he can't find the art style that fits the characters of *Dash! Yonkuro*, so he have to be thinking like Tokuda...and he overdone it, as the manga skips to the present time, we see Takei gains weights and becomes fat because of lacks of body exercise, to the point where one of his assistants (I-mura) ask him if he was worrying about his body size.

### Special

Just like part 2, the Special chapter is split into two parts.

The first part is the remake of the first PHASE of the manga but with Tokuda's artstyle, before It was abruptly ended with a interruption from Takei himself, who apologies to readers and fans of the manga for taking too long to resume the serialization.

Suddently, Takei was being hit on the top of his head by a giant. spiked stylus from one unexpected visitor. It turns out that this visitor is none other than Jet Kusamura, the manga author of the *Shaman King: Red Crimson* spin-off manga. Kusamura is not happy about how far Takei goes to lying to the reader. It also turns out that the first part of this chapter was drawn by Kusamura, with the help of Takei' assistants and editor-in-chief, with the editor-in-cheif added that they did this because Takei is too slow. Felt offended, Takei responded by saying he only walks on the road that he believes. After Kusamura and others leaves, Takei tells the readers to continue support *Hyper Dash! Yonkuro*.

## Characters

* Hiroyuki Takei - The manga artist who was known of his manga works such as *Shaman King* and *Ultimo*. Takei is also the one who designed the Dash-3 Shooting Star Mini 4WD car when he was a middle-school student.
* Ozadori - The manga assistant of Takei who helps him on manages schedules for Takei.
* Zaurus Tokuda - The late manga artist who was known for his work *Dash! Yonkuro.* Takei did not meet Tokuda until his death.
* Jizabe Tokuda - The wife of the late Tokuda who Takei is talking with.
* I-mura - The manga assistant of Takei who help him drawing pages. He always talks in low voice.
* K-dou- The manga assistant of Takei who help him drawing pages. He initially ignores everything and focuses on his work, until the body size change of Takei caught his attention.
* Jet Kusamura - The manga artist and the author of the spin-off manga *Shaman King: Red Crimson*. Kusamura is not happy about Takei's antics.
* Daigo Katoudo - Editor-in-chief
* Tokuro and Kusomura - Two manga assistant newcomers.

## Mini 4WD cars featured in this series

* Dash-3 Shooting Star
* Thunder Dragon Jr.
* Dash-1 Emperor
* Dash-2 Burning Sun
* Dash-4 Cannonball
* Dash-5 Dancing Doll
* Dash-W1 Wild Saurus
* Rise-Emperor
* God Burning Sun
* Shooting Proud Star
* Cannon D Ball
* Dancing Divine Doll
* Night Seek Shield
* Over the Horizon

## Trivia

* This is not the first time Hiroyuki Takei making manga on *CoroCoro Comic* and its sister magazines, as he made the *Danball Senki: BOOST Gaiden* and *Danball Senki: Jin Kaidou Gaiden* short manga on *CoroCoro-G* under the pseudonym HIRO.
	+ Despite the fact that Shogakukan founded Shueisha, his semi-official blog stated he's not HIRO. This is going further by placing the text 'not HIRO' on the first page of this manga.
* It was revealed that he's the original designer for the Dash-3 Shooting Star Mini 4WD car.
	+ the manga also revealed that he owns the Thunder Dragon Jr. and its R/C buggy counterpart.
* The quote 'Mini 4WD are not toys' is the famous quote said by Yonkuro Hinomaru in *Dash! Yonkuro*.

## External links

* CoroCoro Aniki special site on CoroCoro official website (Japanese)