Star of the Giants

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Star of the Giants
Cover of the first volume of Star of the Giants, as published in Japan by Kodansha
巨人の星 (Kyojin no Hoshi)
Genre	Sports
Manga
Written by	Ikki Kajiwara
Illustrated by	Noboru Kawasaki
Published by	Kodansha
Magazine	Weekly Shōnen Magazine
Demographic	Shōnen
Original run	May 1966 – January 1971
Volumes	19
Anime television series
Directed by	Tadao Nagahama
Studio	Tokyo Movie
Original network	YTV
Original run	March 30, 1968 – September 18, 1971
Episodes	182
Anime film
Kyojin no Hoshi: Chizome no Kesshōusen
Studio	Tokyo Movie
Released	July 26, 1969
Runtime	90 minutes
Anime film
Kyojin no Hoshi: Ike Ike Hyūma
Studio	Tokyo Movie
Released	December 20, 1969
Runtime	70 minutes
Anime film
Kyojin no Hoshi: Dai League Ball
Studio	Tokyo Movie
Released	March 21, 1970
Runtime	70 minutes
Anime film
Kyojin no Hoshi: Shukumei no Taiketsu
Studio	Tokyo Movie
Released	August 1, 1970
Runtime	60 minutes
Anime television series
Shin Kyojin no Hoshi
Studio	Tokyo Movie Shinsha
Original network	NNS (YTV)
Original run	October 1, 1977 – September 30, 1978
Episodes	52
Anime television series
Shin Kyojin no Hoshi II
Studio	Tokyo Movie Shinsha
Original network	NNS (YTV)
Original run	April 14, 1979 – September 29, 1979
Episodes	23
Anime film
Directed by	Satoshi Dezaki Tadao Nagahama
Studio	Tokyo Movie Shinsha
Released	August 21, 1982
Runtime	110 minutes

Star of the Giants (Japanese: 巨人の星, Hepburn: Kyojin no Hoshi) is a Japanese sports manga series written by Ikki Kajiwara and illustrated by Noboru Kawasaki. It was serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 1966 to 1971. It is 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. It was adapted into an anime television series broadcast in Japan in 1968.^[1] It later spawned two anime sequels and different anime films. In total there were 262 episodes.

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 widower, 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.

• 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

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Beginning in 2001, the series was re-released on DVD format. In June 2013, a five set Blu-ray release was released.

The first Star of the Giants movie debuted on July 26, 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 the Giants vs. Mighty Atom TV special reached the United States and was renamed to Astro Boy vs. the Giants.^[1]

Kyojin no Hoshi (The Anime Super Remix) was released for the PlayStation 2 by Capcom on June 20, 2002. There were also a number of other games on the same platform.

On TV Asahi's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150,000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, Star of the Giants ranked 38th.^[2]

The anime series ranked fifteenth on TV Asahi's Top 100 Anime 2005 poll.^[3]

Professional baseball player Ichiro Suzuki used Star of Giants as a reference to his grueling childhood baseball training.^[4] The anime was remade in India in 2012 as Suraj: The Rising Star where cricket was substituted for baseball.^[5] Episode 18 of Kyatto Ninden Teyandee (dubbed and released in North America as Samurai Pizza Cats) 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.^[6]

Whiting, Robert (2009). The Meaning of Ichiro. Grand Central Publishing. ISBN 9780446565226.

• Star of Giants Archived 2012-02-05 at the Wayback Machine - official anime site by Tokyo Movie Shinsha (in Japanese)
• Kyojin no Hoshi (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia