Star of the Giants
Star of the Giants is a Japanese sports manga written by Ikki Kajiwara and illustrated by Noboru Kawasaki. It was adapted as the first sports anime television series broadcast in Japan, in 1968. It later spawned two anime sequels and different anime movies. The anime was ranked #15 on TV Asahi's Top 100 Anime.
The manga appeared in Weekly Shōnen Magazine about the actual baseball team Yomiuri Giants using fictional characters. It was launched by the "Yomiuri Group" which at the time owned not only the actual baseball team, but the TV network Nippon Television, the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun, as well as Yomiuri Telecasting Corporation.
Story
The story is about Hyūma Hoshi, a promising young baseball pitcher who dreams of becoming a top star like his father Ittetsu Hoshi in the professional Japanese league. Ittetsu was once a 3rd baseman until he was injured in World War II and was forced to retire; now an impoverished and bitter widow, he's raised Hyūma and his older sister Akiko in a very severe environment. The boy would join the ever popular Giants team, and soon he realized the difficulty of managing the high expectations. From the grueling training to battling the rival Mitsuru Hanagata in the Hanshin Tigers, Hyūma would have to take out his best pitching magic to step up to the challenge.Characters
- Hyūma Hoshi: Tōru Furuya
- Ittetsu Hoshi: Seizō Katō
- Akiko Hoshi: Fuyumi Shiraishi
- Ban Chūta: Jōji Yanami
- Mitsuru Hanagata: Makio Inoue
- Kawakami Tetsuharu: Tadashi Nakamura
- Masaichi Kaneda: Teiji Ōmiya
- Kyōko: Reiko Mutō
- Hosaku Samon: Shingo Kanemoto
- Mina Hadaka: Yoshiko Matsuo
Adaptations
Anime
Staff
- Original creator: Ikki Kajiwara, Noboru Kawasaki
- Director: Tadao Nagahama, Yoshio Kabashima, Tadaaki Tamazaki, Mamoru Sasaki
- Script: Masaki Tsuji, Seiji Matsuoka, Tooru Sawaki, Ryohei Ito, Toru Sawaki, Yoshiaki Yoshida
- Music: Takeo Watanabe
- Art director: Isamu Kageyama
- Animation director: Daikichirou Kusube
- Editing: Kazuo Inoue
DVD
Movies
The first Star of the Giants movie was debuted in 1969 as part of the vacation anime festival on large screen theatres in color. The draw was that most people had black and white TVs at the time. The Star of Giants vs Mighty Atoms TV special reached the U.S and was renamed to Astro Boy vs. the Giants.| Japanese Name | English Name | Release Date | Type | Run time |
| 巨人の星 | Star of Giants the movie | 1969 | movie | 90 mins |
| Star of Giants vs the Mighty Atom | 1969 | TV special | 30 mins | |
| 巨人の星 行け行け飛雄馬 | Star of Giants: Ike Ike Hyuma | December 20, 1969 | movie | 75 mins |
| 巨人の星 大リーグボール | Star of Giants: Big League Ball | 1970 | movie | 70 mins |
| 巨人の星 宿命の対決 | Star of Giants: Shukumei no Taiketsu | 1970 | movie | 60 mins |
| 新巨人の星 | New Star of Giants | 1977 | series | 52 Episodes |
| 新巨人の星 | New Star of Giants the movie | 1977 | movie | |
| 新巨人の星II | New Star of Giants II | 1979 | series | 23 Episodes |
| Stars of Giants Special Edition: Fierce Tiger Mitsuru Hanagata | 2002 | series | 13 Episodes |
Video games
Kyojin no Hoshi was released for the PlayStation 2 by Capcom on June 20, 2002. There were also a number of other games on the same platform.Impact
- Professional baseball player Ichiro Suzuki used Star of Giants as a reference to his grueling childhood baseball training.
- The anime was remade in India in 2012 as where cricket was substituted for baseball.
- Episode 18 of Kyatto Ninden Teyandee includes a pitcher named Puma Pochi, voiced by Tōru Furuya, as a direct parody of Hyūma Hoshi. In English, the character is renamed Fernando Curtainzuela.