Saint Muscle:

Tucker

Author: Miyazaki, Tsutomu 宮崎 惇（みやざき つとむ)

• Mee-yah-zah-kee, Tsɯ-toe-mɯ

Artist: Fukushima, Masami ふくしま 政美（ふくしま まさみ)

• Fɯ-kɯ-shee-mah, Mah-sah-mee

Characters

• Sieg
  • “Zeek”
  • S at the beginning of a word is pronounced like English “Z” and G at the end of a word is pronounced like English “K” (or sometimes another consonant that doesn’t exist in English, but “K” is fine)
  • German word for victory
• Poiyaunpe
  • Poe-ee-yah-oom-pay
  • Named after the hero of the ancient Ainu (the native peoples of Hokkaido) epic of Kotan Utunnai
• Peshika
  • Pay-shee-kah
• Kotankuru
  • Koh-tahn-koo-roo
  • Named after the Ainu word “kotankuru-kamui,” which is their word for Blakiston's Eagle Owl
• Isakoya
  • Ee-sah-koh-yah
• Manibe
  • Mah-nee-beh
• Setona
  • Seh-toe-nah

MaxyBee

Manga Details

• Tsutomu Miyazaki: writer
  • Notable people they were an assistant for
    • None. They’re a writer.
  • Notable people they had as assistants
    • None. They’re a writer.
  • Other works
    • Tsutomu Miyazaki was a fairly accomplished novelist, with some 20+ works under his belt, mostly science fiction in genre, and was actually involved in the first ever science-fiction doujin. His manga works include:
      • A manga adaptation of the failed tokusatsu pilot Hyo-Man/Jaguar-Man (1967-1968, Weekly Shonen Magazine) with art by Kenji Nanba
      • 7 chapters of Golgo 13 (author Takao Saito would often work with other writers on storylines)
      • Biographical manga based on the lives of
        • Sanada Yukimura (with art by Masamichi Yokoyama)
        • Uesugi Kenshin (1969, with art by Taku Horie)
        • Oda Nobunaga (1970, with art by Shunji Obata)
        • Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1970, with art by Taku Horie)
    • (Due to the niche nature of Miyazaki’s manga work and the time passed since initial publication, a lot of information on the author is incomplete, hence the truncated nature of these notes)
• Masami Fukushima: artist
  • Notable people they were an assistant for
    • Mori Masaki
      • (director of Barefoot Gen’s film version. Also made like 40 or so manga series)
  • Notable people they had as assistants
    • Kosaku Onakubo (Pokémon Pocket Monsters, the one with a loud Clefairy in it)
      • on Prince Shotoku
    • Saori Satou (Pet Robot Lilly)
      • on Jukai Man
    • Peramo Agagaya (Vulgar Bingo)
      • on Ashita no Sora
  • Other works (highlights, due to time)
    • The Rapist Monk (1974-1976, 3 volumes, Manga Erotopia) written by Kai Takizawa
      • I do not actually know how to explain this series, and I’m not sure you want me to. Just know it’s basically what it sounds like, and that the rapist monk is the protagonist. Was brought back for a 4 volume revival in 2008 with new writer Muu Sakamoto, so has its fans.
    • Gladiators, Stars of Rome (1976-1977, 3 volumes, Weekly Shonen Champion) with writer Ikki Kajiwara of Ashita no Joe/Tiger Mask fame.
      • The gladiator Arion suffers at the hands of Emperor Nero in ancient Rome, but fights on alongside his peers and the crowd in his role as a gladiator.
    • Prince Shotoku (1977-1978, 17 chapters, Manga Sunday) written by Kai Takizawa
      • A warped story of the real-life regent of Japan in the 7th century, Prince Shotoku, a man largely credited with bringing Buddhism to prominence in Japan, as he wreaks occult vengeance upon evil, including Enma, Prince of Hades, with whom’s wife Shotoku is shagging. Ended prematurely because Fukushima stopped drawing it, much to Takizawa’s annoyance.
  • A note on the author:
    • Fukushima is notable in two things. One is his influence over creators like Tetsuo Hara, Hirohiko Araki, and Keisuke Itagaki, all enamored with the insane musculature and mythology of FLESHBOMB (more on that later). The other is him packing up his tools a good few times, quitting Prince Shotoku in 1978, quitting again in 1980 for a decade, quitting AGAIN in 1990 for seven years, before sticking around to give more sexual violence and buff monster men to the masses.
• Publishing
  • Run Dates:
    • (Roughly) July 1976 to December 1976
  • Series it replaced
• None
• Series that replaced it
  • Football Hawk by Noboru Kawasaki (1977-1979, 10 vols, minor hit)
    • Yes, American football.
• Series that started at the same time as it
  • None
• Chapters/Volumes:
  • 6 chapters (Originally published as 22 weekly chapters)/4 volumes (republished as 3 volumes, and also republished as 1 volume)

Manga Itself / Misc thoughts

• “Yes, it’s true. This man has no dick” - Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters (1984)
• If you want to learn more about Masami Fukushima’s work, it is covered in Takeo Udagawa’s Manga Zombie, translated by John Gallagher and partially available to read on the Comipress website.
• Nikudan, OR FLESHBOMB, was an artistic movement born in the 70s inspired by western superhero physiques and used as a way to push the limits (and base depths) gekiga could be pushed to. Obscene musculature, sexual depravity, and an obsessive level of detail are all trademarks of this oft-forgotten movement.
• Saint Muscle was promoted heavily ahead of its release in Weekly Shonen Magazine, including an infamous double-page spread of our hero’s bare ass, presented directly to the reader.
• This effort was for nothing, as despite the aggressive marketing teen boys simply did not want a massive dickless man roaming from mythos to mythos every week in their magazine, and it died some 22 weeks later.
  • HOWEVER, when Fukushima returned to manga in the late 90s, the series was republished, both as a three-volume set with colour pages intact, and as a monolithic one-volume omnibus, and has managed to sell over 30,000 copies in the time since. Perhaps it was simply too ahead of its time.
• Despite running as weekly chapters, most manga grouped chapters into larger arcs when collected in volumes at the time, which is why this looks like 6 chapters. For another example, football classic Captain Tsubasa ran for 356 chapters in its Weekly Shonen Jump run, but was collected as 114 merged stories in its volume release.

The editor of cult parody instructional series Even A Monkey Can Draw Manga, Osamu Satou, is often depicted in-series as the Giant King from Saint Muscle, and even has business cards as such. The only difference is him having one braid to the Giant King’s