is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 series created by Akihito Yoshitomi

Akihito Yoshitomi

is a Japanese manga artist. His most known work is the manga series Eat-Man, which consisted of 19 volumes. Due to the success of the manga, it was adapted to an animated series...

 in 1996 which was serialized by MediaWorks

MediaWorks (publisher)

was a Japanese publishing company in the Kadokawa Group known for their brand magazines and book labels. These included such well-known magazines as Dengeki Daioh, and Dengeki G's Magazine, along with MediaWorks' main light novel publishing imprint Dengeki Bunko. The company was merged with ASCII...

 monthly in 19 volumes until 2002 manga magazine Dengeki Comic Gao!

Dengeki Comic Gao!

, also known as Dengeki Gao! as was a Japanese shōnen manga magazine that primarily contained manga and information about series featuring bishōjo characters. It was published from December 1992 to February 2008 by MediaWorks. The Gao in the magazine's title is a childish form of the sound Grr...

. In 1997 Studio Deen

Studio DEEN

is a Japanese company that produces anime. Three years after Sunrise was founded in 1972, Studio Deen was established by Sunrise's members in 1975. As a result of this, anime shows such as Cowboy Bebop that were produced by Sunrise may have had assistance from Studio Deen.-Produced anime:* Urusei...

 adapted the manga into a 12 episode anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 television series which was broadcast

Broadcasting

Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video content to a dispersed audience via any audio visual medium. Receiving parties may include the general public or a relatively large subset of thereof...

 in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 from January 1 to March 27, 1997 on TV Tokyo

TV Tokyo

is a television station headquartered in Toranomon, Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Also known as , a blend of "terebi" and "Tokyo", it is the key station of TX Network. It is one of the major Tokyo television stations, particularly specializing in anime...

. A sequel

Sequel

A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...

, Eat-Man '98, was also animated by Studio Deen and ran from October 8 to December 23, 1998. Both anime series are licensed in North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 by Bandai Entertainment

Bandai

is a Japanese toy making and video game company, as well as the producer of a large number of plastic model kits. It is the world's third-largest producer of toys . Some ex-Bandai group companies produce anime and tokusatsu programs...

 and the manga series was licensed by Viz Communications before it was dropped.

Story

Eat-Man is a series of short, episodic stories about an "explorer" (a type of mercenary job) named Bolt Crank, who has the ability to eat virtually anything, and can then produce from his body at will any object he has consumed. Eat-Mans world is a mix of high tech futurist (See Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk

Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...

) and fairy tale styles. The episodes take place in various worlds and in undefined times.

About Bolt Crank

Bolt Crank is the best "explorer" in the world. "Explorer" in the manga is a kind of mercenary. Although mercenaries in the manga do any job, even assassinations, the explorers were employees with principles.

Bolt has a bizarre power, the ability to eat anything and then later recreate it (even fixing the item ingested) from any part of his body. The item usually comes out from his arms and hands, but sometimes can be created in other body areas, like his head, chest, or legs.

In the manga, it was implied that inside Bolt's body was actually a void of space. Objects that he has consumed float around in a seemingly endless space, much like the inside of Doraemon

Doraemon

is a Japanese manga series created by Fujiko F. Fujio which later became an anime series and an Asian franchise...

's fourth-dimensional pocket.

He is a man of few words and doesn't show his feelings. Always acting cool, his cynical personality and his "always get the job done" attitude can make him seem like a very cold and dark character. But in the end, he always finds a way to do the right thing. He never appears to look back at the past, never regretting it.

Although Bolt's past remained a mystery in all the series, some stories gave clues about his past, including some characters that appeared in various episodes. In the end of the manga series revealed a lot about who and what Bolt is, but his exact identity still remains a mystery.

Here are some hints in the series:

• Bolt never ages, but the end of the manga series revealed that he is biological immortal
  Biological immortality
  Biological immortality refers to a stable rate of mortality as a function of chronological age. Some individual cells and entire organisms in some species achieve this state either throughout their existence or after living long enough. This requires that death occur from injury or disease rather...
  
   (he doesn't age but may be hurt and killed).
• There is a character identical to Bolt called Leon. His creations include an android woman (Stella) with human feelings who loved him (an antagonist of Bolt in various episodes, trying to transform all living things in machines) and a weird robot capable of assimilating any mechanical part (it has a parasitic relationship with Bolt and keeps annoying him in various episodes from inside his body). It is implied that Bolt is his clone, or he is a clone from Bolt.
• Other possible origins are shown in other stories, where Bolt "worked" in a research center that performed tests with human beings and created humans with odd powers, like an immortal woman (with instant regeneration), a girl that turns into a monster, and another girl that generates electricity. Bolt's job there remained unexplained, suggesting he was just another test subject.
• The series suggests he had been created before the beginning of mankind. In a story about the downfall of two old winged races before mankind arrived (white and black winged from the same species, one called Angels and the other Demons, with the Demons ruling the world), there is a prophecy that say that, with a union of an Angel and a Demon, the world will be free from the rule of darkness, and be guided by "the one who eats" until the end of times.
• The final chapter heavily implies that he may actually be God himself, "the creator" as he is seen throughout his final adventure in the last volume consuming orbs of light given to him by a mysterious angel, which each contain the elements necessary to create a world. Life, light, etc., and at the end, he consumes death to complete the necessary ingredients, (who had taken physical form to hunt him down and kill him due to his agelessness being "unnatural") and at the end of the manga, creates a doorway in the middle of the desert and walks through it, ending the series as he walks into a void new universe.

Recurring Characters

The adventures in Eat-Man are usually unrelated. However, few characters are recurring, specially in later volumes.

• Aimie: An old detective friend of Bolt. She is immortal, and at childhood was a successful superhuman experiment in a laboratory at which Bolt worked. She investigated a series of murdered scientists, which turned out to be her quest for revenge against those who "created" her.

• Elena: A girl with the power to generate electricity. She was Rivette's sister. She was once a girlfriend of Leon.

• Hard: Another explorer with a strong sense of justice. The mysterious ways of Bolt sometimes made him distrustful, believing Bolt to be his rival and enemy. Nevertheless, Hard admired Bolt as the greatest explorer, and tried to follow in his steps.

• Leon: Bolt lookalike. Leon suggests that he lived very long. There is nothing to suggest that Leon has any of Bolt's abilities. Leon fell in love with Stella. After his death, he planned and succeeded to use Bolt to resurrect himself as a machine, in order to live with Stella for the eternity. To do this, he created Teromea to parasite Bolt and convince him to eat and recreate him.

• Rain Boyer: Granddaughter of a famous explorer named Boyer, and heir to the all-powerful Boyer Sword. She dreamed of becoming an explorer like her father. She is shown as a young girl with little experience searching for the sword in volume one. Later in volume eight she appeared as an adult and a very skilled explorer with a little crush on Bolt.

• Rivette: A skilled explorer with the power to generate electricity. She was cynical and interested only in money, at least on the surface. She was actually looking for her sister Elena, who was kidnapped when Rivette was only a child.

• Shadow: An assassin with much resentment toward Leon. He thought that Bolt was Leon, and wanted to make Bolt suffer, no matter what. He dressed as Bolt and killed people, defaming his name and making Bolt wanted in various countries. He had some psychic powers. He was in love with Stella and hated Leon because of that.

• Stella: A woman who was madly in love with Leon. She was actually an android created by him, but got mad and perverted when he killed himself. She planned to convert all the humans to machines, as her plan to end mortality. She did some twisted experiments to achieve that. She ultimately ended up living with a resurrected Leon as a machine for all eternity.

• Teromea: A parasite machine created by Leon. It tricked Bolt into eating him, and then lived in Bolt's body as a parasite, annoying him. His ultimate objective was to resurrect Leon, and convince Bolt to do his part in that plan. The resurrection involved Teromea eating Leon and using Bolt's powers to recreate him. He later dies due to Bolt completing his mission of stopping Stella. It have similar powers of Bolt, eating and recreating machines.

• Eurydice A hacker girl, entitled herself as the "number one computer specialist" (Vol 11 page 4). She helped Bolt in many adventures, obtailing information and linking Bolt through virtual-reality networks.

The anime series

Although the manga series was a success, the 12-episode anime series released by Studio Deen was highly criticized by fans of the manga because of the great differences between the plots of the manga and the anime.

Almost all fantasy elements were removed from the anime, leaving a futuristic

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 world. Bolt Crank's personality was very different from the manga. This Bolt showed more feelings, hated his explorer life, and desired to be a normal person. The series is episodic and mysterious. The magic crystal that appeared in the opening, the glass monoliths, the ever-floating ship, and the afterlife dream in the 11th episode are never explained, creating a very bizarre and abstract atmosphere. Most of the episodes ended with unanswered questions.

Due to the fans' dissatisfaction, a new season was released as Eatman '98 one year after. Almost all the stories were directly based on stories from the manga, making it very true to the manga.

Later appearance

The character of Bolt Crank made a guest appearance in Akihito Yoshitomi

Akihito Yoshitomi

is a Japanese manga artist. His most known work is the manga series Eat-Man, which consisted of 19 volumes. Due to the success of the manga, it was adapted to an animated series...

's later creation, Ray. The story is included under a special chapter, "Drop in", in Ray volume 5 from pages 167 to 190.

External links

• "Untranslated Pick of the Month" -(J-pop.com review of the manga)