7.2 /10 1 Votes
8.2/10 IMDb Illustrated by Naoki Urasawa English publisher Viz Media Magazine Big Comic Original Final episode date 29 March 1999 Director Masayuki Kojima | 7.8/10 MyAnimeList 5.9/10 TV Published by Shogakukan Demographic Seinen First episode date 6 October 1998 Network NHK | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Written by Hokusei Katsushika
Takashi Nagasaki Genres Detective fiction, Adventure fiction, Drama Cast Keaton Yamada, Houko Kuwashima, Ichirō Nagai Similar Yawara!, Mokke, Rideback, Allison & Lillia, Rizelmine | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Master Keaton (Japanese: MASTERキートン, Hepburn: Masutā Kīton) is a Japanese manga series created by Hokusei Katsushika, Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki. It was serialized in Big Comic Original between 1988 and 1994, with the 144 chapters collected into 18 tankōbon volumes by Shogakukan.
Contents
An anime adaptation was created by Madhouse, with 24 episodes airing between 1998 and 1999 in Japan on Nippon Television. An additional 15 episodes were created and released as original video animations, bringing the total to 39 episodes. Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki created a sequel to the series, titled Master Keaton Remaster (MASTERキートン Reマスター). Set 20 years after the original series ended, it ran in Big Comic Original from 2012 to 2014 and was collected into a single volume.
The anime and OVA series were dubbed into English and released in North America by Pioneer Entertainment. Viz Media began releasing the manga in North America in 2014.
Story
The story revolves around Taichi Hiraga-Keaton (平賀＝キートン・太一, Hiraga-Kīton Taichi), the son of Japanese zoologist Taihei Hiraga (平賀太平, Hiraga Tahei) and well-born Englishwoman Patricia Keaton. Keaton's parents separated when he was five, and young Taichi moved back to England with his mother. As an adult, he studied archeology at Oxford University, in part under the tutelage of Professor Yuri Scott.
At Oxford, Keaton met and later married his wife, who was a mathematics student at Somerville College. The couple later divorced, with Keaton leaving his five-year-old daughter Yuriko (百合子) in her mother's care. After leaving Oxford, Keaton joined the British Army and became a member of the SAS, holding the post of survival instructor and seeing combat in the Falklands War and as one of the team members that responded to the Iranian Embassy incident. His combat training serves him in good stead as an insurance investigator for the prestigious Lloyd's of London where he is known for his abilities and his unorthodox methods of investigation.
In addition to his work for Lloyd's, Keaton and his friend Daniel O'Connell operate their own insurance investigation agency headquartered in London. Even though Keaton is fairly successful as an insurance investigator, his dream is to continue his archaeological research into the possible origins of an ancient European civilization in the Danube River basin.
Characters
Manga
Master Keaton was serialized in Big Comic Original from 1988 to 1994. The 144 chapters were collected into 18 tankōbon volumes by Shogakukan between November 1988 and August 1994. A kanzenban edition of the series, including color pages, was published in 12 volumes between August 30, 2011 and June 29, 2012. During its initial magazine run and tankōbon release, Hokusei Katsushika was credited as its writer and Naoki Urasawa as illustrator. Later reissues co-credit Katsushika and Takashi Nagasaki as the writers.
Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki created a sequel to the series, titled Master Keaton Remaster. Beginning in the March 2012 issue of Big Comic Original it finished in 2014 and was collected into a single volume on November 28, 2014. A deluxe edition including the full color pages from the magazine run was released the same day.
In 2014, Viz Media licensed Master Keaton for release in North America. They began publishing the kanzenban edition with color pages on December 16, 2014.
Anime
An anime adaptation of Master Keaton was created by Madhouse, with 24 episodes airing between October 5, 1998 and March 29, 1999 in Japan on Nippon Television. An additional 15 episodes were created and released as original video animations, bringing the total to 39 episodes.
The opening theme "Railtown" is by Kuniaki Haishima. The ending theme song for the first thirteen episodes is "Eternal Wind" by Blüe, the ending theme for episodes 14 to 25 is "A Sigh" (ため息, Tameiki) by Kneuklid Romance, and theme for the remaining episodes is "From Beginning" by Kuniaki Haishima. New ending themes were used for the anime's rebroadcast; "Tsuki to Kimitoboku no Kankei" (月と君と僕の関係) by Kneuklid Romance for the first thirteen episodes and "Ever" by Blüe for the remaining.
The anime and OVAs were licensed in North America by Pioneer Entertainment (later named Geneon), with an English dub produced by The Ocean Group. They released eight DVDs between June 10, 2003 and August 10, 2004. Each DVD had 5 episodes, except the last one, which had 4.
Controversy over creator
Hokusei Katsushika is a pseudonym of Japanese manga story writer Hajime Kimura, who was also a co-writer of Golgo 13. Originally, Kimura created the series' story, while Urasawa did the artwork. However, after Kimura died of cancer in December 2004, Urasawa claimed in an interview with weekly magazine Shuukan Bunshun in May 2005 that Kimura stopped work as a story writer due to a personal conflict with Urasawa at one point, after which Urasawa alone created both story and art. Because of this, Urasawa demanded that Katsushika's name appear smaller than Urasawa on the manga's cover. Manga story writer Kariya Tetsu, who was a close friend of Kimura and an influential figure at Shogakukan, opposed this action vehemently, which resulted in the discontinuation of the further publication of the manga as of July 2005.
Reception
Viz Media's release of Master Keaton was nominated for the "Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia" category two years in a row at the 2015 and 2016 Eisner Awards. The series was also included on the Young Adult Library Services Association's 2016 list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens.