Shamo

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: 軍鶏

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: 34

Chapters: 338

Status: Finished

Published: 1998 to Jan 13, 2015

Genres: Action, Drama

Themes: Martial Arts, Psychological

Demographic: Seinen

Serialization: Evening

Authors: Tanaka, Akio (Story & Art), Hashimoto, Izou (Story)

Statistics

Score: 7.58¹ (scored by 11,276 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #2418²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #502

Members: 34,675

Favorites: 893

Resources

Wikipedia

7.58

Ranked #2418Popularity #502Members 34,675

MangaEveningTanaka, Akio (Story & Art), Hashimoto, Izou (Story)

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Volumes: /34

Chapters: /338

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Synopsis

At the age of sixteen Ryo Narushima was a genius and looked to have no trouble of getting into Tokyo University and joining the elite of society. However, that summer something cracked inside Ryo's head. With a small knife he brutally murdered both of his parents only leaving his sister alive and cowering in a corner. It is at this grotesque incident that our story begins.

(Source: MU)

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Background

In 2004 the series moved from Manga Action to Evening, resetting the chapter count starting at volume 20. It was discontinued in 2007 due to authors creative differences but returned in 2011.

Starting from volume 26, the first volume from when the series returned from a long hiatus, the series has been completely written and drawn by Akio Tanaka. While Izou Hashimoto did write the series in the beginning, he had been doing less and less work starting from volume 4. Tanaka and Hashimoto reached a settlement and Shamo continued.

The series' first thirteen volumes were published in Spanish by Otakuland between 2003 and 2005.

More characters
Characters

Narushima, Ryou

Main

Sugawara, Naoto

Supporting

Takahara, Toma

Supporting

Kurokawa, Kenji

Supporting

Sanshiro, Fabio Marcos

Supporting

Wukong, Sun

Supporting

Tengenji, Gosaku

Supporting

Funato, Moemi

Supporting

Yan

Supporting

Masa

Supporting

Reviews

Jun 4, 2017

MangaGreat

Recommended

I have heard a great deal about Shamo prior to reading it and it left me with the impression that it’s supposed to be one of the most unique manga around. Furthermore, the synopsis certainly did much to cement that impression.

Well, Shamo is a great and unique manga, but readers may find it is also very familiar.

To begin, the synopsis is misleading. Everything it says does happen, but it gives the impression that what it says is the primary focus of the manga when I would easily argue that it is a fairly unimportant detail that only serves as an explanatory backstory. Seems crazy to ... call parricide an unimportant detail, but aside from serving as a MacGuffin for why the MC is so hated, it doesn’t really do much else in the story. Honestly, it seems to me the MC pretty much forgets it altogether at times.

No, instead, if I were to rewrite the synopsis, I would write out one describing a pretty standard martial arts manga – you know, the whole weak guy gets trained by a martial arts master, trains hard, and gradually faces challenges improving along the way. However, there would be one difference and it is basically the whole theme of the manga: the POV of view is from that of the villain.

Imagine every martial arts manga you’ve ever read. Know that villain the good guy MC typically faces who fights dirty, mistreats women, bullies everyone, and basically act like an all-around asshole? Well, he is the MC in Shamo.

And it is a unique and interesting premise. It basically explains how the martial arts villain becomes the way he is, how he succeeds, what he generally does, and etc. In a lot of cases, he basically does the same things as a good guy MC, except, obviously, there’s a lot more darkness and Shamo really revel in that aspect. The MC, Narushima Ryo, is basically a gangster and his life reflects that.

Ignoring the whole martial arts journey – which is common and standard – and the fact that Narushima is essentially your classic villain, what makes Shamo such a great read? I think the strongest compliment I can give it is the sobering and realistic portrayal of a common street thug. This is something most manga does very poorly.

It’s not the fault of most manga. Most of them focus around the good guy MC and can’t give much time to the side characters, thus they can’t really do a portrayal justice. Instead, they eschew subtlety in exchange for blazon portrayals, e.g. the street thugs you see seem to spend all their time robbing others, molesting random women, committing crimes, and all while bellowing evil laughter.

Shamo is, again, all about the villain so the author has a rare opportunity to do the portrayal justice and he does it magnificently. Narushima is a street thug and it shows. His life is sometimes glamorous, but, in most cases, it’s ugly. He commits crimes easily, but, in fact, he does things legitimately most of the time. He is surrounded by shady people who hates him and gladly takes advantage of him, but he can’t do much about it because normal society despise him so he has to survive by being tough.

When he needs money, he turns to doing ugly things. Most often that involves getting into a life-threatening fight, but he survives by backhanded means every step of the way. He knows he is not honorable or fair and he doesn’t give a damn. He intends to live.

He has only a few friends and most of them are outcasts like him. Being around them tends to bring him harm and, likewise, his presence causes them harm too. Any normal people or ‘good guys’ who comes into contact with him or his crew quickly comes to regret it and, in fact, a great deal of the manga has readers cheering for his defeat because the people he fights and cheats against are often such great guys unlike him.

So in short, Narushima’s life sucks because he sucks and everybody hates him knowing how much he sucks. The manga contains little romanticism and things like destiny/fate/good karma/redemption are laughed at. From beginning to end, the mang depicts an utterly sobering life in Narushima Ryo and all those around him.

All in all, the manga is a fantastic read for that reason alone. The art is pretty good and it can get highly suspenseful at times, but all in all, the character exploration of Narushima Ryo is the primary motivator. The author has created a genuinely amazing manga and it should be read for that purpose alone.

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Dec 14, 2021

TemporaryPortal

Mixed Feelings

I don't hate this manga, but I do wish in a way that I never read it.

I picked up Shamo after reading all these MAL reviews calling it a 9 or 10 and praising it as some sort of 'philosophical,' 'existential,' 'masterpiece.' In the reccomendations I see it wrongfully compared to Berserk, Vagabond, Punpun, and...Holyland...

I'm not afraid to admit that Shamo has lots of good aspects to it:

- (Most of) the fights are technical and lots of strategy goes into them
- The art is very appealing
- The author does a great job of making you love or hate characters
- The characters are pretty ...

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Feb 1, 2015

TheMagicStik

Not Recommended

Over the last month or so I've seen a ton of praise for the manga "Shamo" and recently I just read the whole thing and I feel very let down.

Overall the characterization of Ryu just felt like really all over the place and I didn't feel like it was because he was crazy, it just felt like the author didn't know what he was doing exactly with the character and experimented a lot more than he should have.

Then there's the whole constant perspective swaps that end up taking up nearly half of the chapters in the series. Ryu is the protagonist, he's the "interesting" ...

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Poll: Shamo Chapter 327 Discussion Tengai - Oct 1, 2015	1 replies	by NaughtyNoddy »» Apr 11, 12:12 PM
Poll: Shamo Chapter 304 Discussion NaughtyNoddy - Apr 11	0 replies	by NaughtyNoddy »» Apr 11, 9:22 AM
Poll: Shamo Chapter 298 Discussion Ishmael - Oct 14, 2013	4 replies	by NaughtyNoddy »» Apr 11, 8:08 AM
Poll: Shamo Chapter 289 Discussion haydocc - Jun 24, 2014	1 replies	by NaughtyNoddy »» Apr 11, 6:33 AM
Poll: Shamo Chapter 280 Discussion Ishmael - Jan 30, 2013	2 replies	by NaughtyNoddy »» Apr 11, 5:37 AM

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