Fujio Akatsuka and Media: The Gag Guerrilla Legend of Defeat and Disapproval

**Fujio Akatsuka and Media: The Gag Guerrilla Legend of Defeat and Disapproval** (赤塚不二夫というメディア破戒と諧謔のギャグゲリラ伝説) is the second "Serious Joke Analysis" research book by Hiroshi Nawa, published by Shakaihyoronsha. It was released on August 2, 2014.

The contents of this book were later updated and re-released for Nawa's third book "**The Genius Fujio Akatsuka and His Era: Akatsuka Manga Theory as a Cultural Heritage**" (天才・赤塚不二夫とその時代　文化遺産としての赤塚マンガ論), making up the last half of its 8 chapters.

## Overview

While Nawa's original book mainly covered the popular 1960s works of Akatsuka and some from the 1970s, this one goes further into the debut of The Genius Bakabon. The *Bakabon* write-up is followed by the more radical features of the 1970s to 1990s, exploring history, influence, and nonsense that inspired their very creation.

Akatsuka's final works of the early 2000s also get some note, along with the events in his personal life and the media mix initiative by Kodansha in the late 1980s-early 1990s.

## Works Covered

The book is not necessarily entirely linear with the timeline of Akatsuka's series, as some chapters cover different topics and themes that may apply to some of them and not necessarily others. Generally, each chapter starts at the earliest serialization or one-shot related to a theme, and then works its way through to the later titles.

A work list is included in the fifth and final chapter of the book, with corrections made to errors from the previous installment. However, years after this book was published, Nawa found that there were even more Akatsuka titles that had gone buried.

### The Genius Bakabon

As a special topic, most of the first chapter covers this series, spanning from its start in 1967 all the way to the Kodansha revivals of the 1980s.

Special sections include, among many others:

* The origin of how Papa was created as a character
* The evolution of characters like The Police Officer with the Connected Eyes and Rerere
* The creation of Unagi-Inu
* Sub-characters such as Norauma, Camera Kid, Takobon, and Umeboshi Mask
* Bakada University
* The Genius Bakabon's Old Man as a spinoff for adults
* Mitsutoshi Furuya's influence on the series
* Akatsuka's different type of experimental manga techniques that were utilized
* Akatsuka's attempt to change his penname to Ichiro Yamada mid-series
* Shocking stories such as "It's Our First Meeting after 30 Years"
* Experimental 1980s tales like "The Genius AKIRA" and "The Genius Alcohol"

### Gag Guerrilla

This special topic is covered within chapter 3, as the origin of Akatsuka's different "current events"-themed gag anthologies. The popularity of Ryunoshin Hattori, as well as the different forms of social satire, get special mention in the write-up covering the ten years of publication that the series went through in Weekly Bunshun.

### 1970s

#### Chapter 1

* The Shinigami Death
* Inspector Oni
* Mad Dog Trotsky
* Bakumatsu Rare Dog Group
* B.C. Adam
* Kensaku the Architect
* House Jack Nana-chan
* Wonderful Fool

#### Chapter 2

* Let's La Gon
* Boy Friday
* Noragaki
* Mom NO.1
* Gags with Fujio
* Kusobaba!!
* Unkor Wat
* Gakitopia
* King of Gags
* Occhan
* Kong Father
* Animal Wars
* Waru Waru World
* Gontaro Niguruma
* The Mean Old Man

#### Chapter 4

* Ojisan is a Persuman
* Run Away, Run Away
* Monster at Address 13

### 1980s

#### Chapter 3

* Fujio Akatsuka's Literary Walk
* Japan Laughter Story
* Comedy is Coming Now
* This Week's Awful Person
* This Week's Adam and Eve
* Weekly Special Boy
* Caster
* Yotsuya "H"
* Basho Matsuo

#### Chapter 4

* Waru-chan
* Chibidon
* Romeo and Julie
* The Flower of Kikuchiyo
* I am a Cat, Kikuchiyo
* Professor Babatchi
* The Virgin Toraemon
* Piyo the 13th
* TOKIO and Kakeru
* Nyarome's Fun Mathematics Classroom
* Nyarome's Fun Cosmology Classroom
* Reading Dai-sensei
* Ramen Great Escape
* Hana-chan Sleeps
* Yarasete-ojisan
* Omusubi-kun

### 1990s

#### Chapter 4

* Greatest in Japan, Putaro's Family
* MR. Masashi
* The Cat House Owner
* Fujio Akatsuka's Animal Land
* The Collapse of the Sheeh! Religion
* Liquor Hermit Dayoon

### 2000s

#### Chapter 4

* Fujio Akatsuka's Touching Picture Books
* The Fujio Akatsuka Complete Works DVD-ROM set

## External Links

* Nawa's official blog: "Fujio Akatsuka as a Cultural Heritage"