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Shamo (manga)
Encyclopedia
is a Japanese
action manga
with a dark theme. It was discontinued because Weekly Manga Action
went out of business but it is now being serialized in Evening
. It tells a story of a boy who killed his parents and turned himself into a cold-blooded martial artist. The manga inspired a Hong Kong film adaptation
that was released in 2007. The author announced that SHAMO will return to the pages of EVENING Magazine on July 27 2011.
in that the story's protagonist is actually an unrepentant and often unsympathetic criminal. Throughout the manga Ryo Narushima is depicted as being unrepentant for the murder of his parents and is shown committing crimes such as assault and rape. Though capable of redemption (as evidenced by his care-taking of his sister and various small charitable acts shown throughout the manga) ultimately Narushima is a Byronic hero
spiraling into darkness, his chances at reform slowly ebbing away as he gives in to more and more of his depraved and brutal tendencies.
A minor theme throughout the manga is society's morally based stratification, how it condemns young criminals like Narushima, and how that condemnation forces Narushima to the fringes of society making his chances of true reform and redemption even more remote.
Various supporting characters within Shamo act as dramatic foils to Narushima, with Naoto Sugawara being the primary example of this. Famous, rich, and beloved for the same abilities that make Narushima a social pariah, Sugawara's presence can be seen as an example of society's cognitive dissonance
towards violence. Narushima is reviled for his violent traits, while Sugawara is praised & rewarded for using those same traits in a slightly different context.
This story was inspired by the Kobe children serial murders of 1997 that a 14-year-old "Boy A" ("Shōnen A") killed and decapitated several children.
Ryo Narushima is modeled after two persons:
in Japan
, killed his parents before his successful life could begin. The perfect family and perfect life seemed to devour the young boy's restless soul. In a beautiful sunny afternoon when cicada
s were singing, he stabbed his father and mother to death with a short knife
repeatedly before he came to his senses.
The 16-year-old bookworm
murder
er was convict
ed and sent to a reformatory where he was gang raped by other boys. , a jailed man who nearly assassinated
Japanese Prime Minister decades ago, was sent to the reformatory to teach the youngsters karate
every week. He discovered Ryo's talent and taught him self-defense. Ryo survived. Thanks to a law that protects minors, he was released two years later.
Alone in a city full of crime, he tried to look for his lost sister but ends up mistaking another drug-abusing prostitute for her. Ryo started to fight for his living and used all imaginable dirty tricks
to defeat his enemy. He also ambushed gangster
s in dark alleys to perfect his fighting skill as well as working as a gigolo
.
, helped Ryo to become stronger as a way to revenge , his past foe and the current owner of the Banryukai. Banryukai is possibly modeled after the Kyokushin kaikan and Seidokaikan
and Mochizuki is possibly modeled after Kazuyoshi Ishii
, the founder of Seidokaikan.
Believing that he is the strongest, the "gamecock" started to take on other good martial artists. A blood-thirsty TV producer noticed that this street-fighting young man was the "Youth A" and pushed to have him join "Lethal Fight," a fictional combat arena modeled after Japan's K-1
tournament. Ryo, a dangerous man with an animal instinct
who destroyed many good fighters in the ring, one day finds himself facing Thailand
's best fighter who was fighting to support his family. Before he was totally defeated, he tried to kick the Thai fighter's neck but the fighter ducked and was hit in the eye and blinded.
Ryo wanted to take on Sugawara. However, Sugawara was much taller and heavier than Ryo was so his chance to fight him was remote. As a way to provide incentive, Ryo rape
d Sugawara's supermodel
girlfriend
. Sugawara vowed to kill Ryo with his hands in the boxing ring
to comfort his woman and agreed to a televised
fight at the Tokyo Dome
. It was the duel between darkness and brightness. Only this time, Ryo (亮), literally "brightness," stands for the dark side.
Ryo went through a painful bodybuilding regime where he used steroids to increase his muscle
mass and strength. Before the fight began, his left eye became bloody under the non-human torture
. He did not care. Bad luck was on Ryo's side. His small body still was no comparison to Sugawara's. However, he rediscovered his long-forgotten left-handed
ness suppressed by his parents since he was a child minutes before the end of the last round. Then he wildly gave Sugawara countless heavy left punches before Sugawara used his broken right fist to punch him out of consciousness. He survived the lethal fight and was defeated only five seconds before the fight was over. Sugawara failed to kill him in front of the crowd.
Out of anger and frustration, Sugawara invited Ryo to another private fight three months later in an abandoned temple
. Sugawara took several dart
and a long wooden stick. Ryo took a pair of tonfa
with him. After a long and brutal duel where Narushima was almost killed, Sugawara was hit in the back of the neck
and was hospital
ized.
, China
where he fought illegal fights under the offensive stage name
. This part was not as long as the last one. After he destroyed many fighters, Ryo's market value diminished because it becomes a no-brainer to bet on him or to lose money. Then the underground casino
invited , a one-armed man in a monkey
mask
to fight Ryo.
Unaware of the danger, Ryo was no comparison with the acrobatic
Sun Wukong who could attack from every possible direction. Before being killed on stage, an old man who had eaten breakfast
with Ryo that morning entered the ring and saved him. That old man was Sun Wukong's former sifu
before he went astray.
At the end of his life, the old man could not fight "Sun Wukong" without Ryo's help. So he took Ryo back to his home in an unknown remote mountain where Ryo learned many physics
defying paranormal
tricks like standing on a short piece of bamboo
stick floating on the water surface. Sun Wukong attacks the temple and kills the old master. Yan commits suicide shortly after. Ryo and Sun Wukong face off in combat, and it ends with Sun Wukong committing suicide off a cliff.
! Volume
! ISBN
! Publish Date
|-
| 1
| ISBN 4-575-82383-X
| 12 November 1998
|-
| 2
| ISBN 4-575-82394-5
| 5 January 1999
|-
| 3
| ISBN 4-575-82416-X
| 12 April 1999
|-
| 4
| ISBN 4-575-82432-1
| 9 July 1999
|-
| 5
| ISBN 4-575-82452-6
| 28 March 2000
|-
| 6
| ISBN 4-575-82488-7
| 28 April 2000
|-
| 7
| ISBN 4-575-82492-5
| 22 May 2000
|-
| 8
| ISBN 4-575-82499-2
| 27 June 2000
|-
| 9
| ISBN 4-575-82509-3
| 8 September 2000
|-
| 10
| ISBN 4-575-82525-5
| 11 December 2000
|-
| 11
| ISBN 4-575-82551-4
| 26 March 2001
|-
| 12
| ISBN 4-575-82572-7
| 28 June 2001
|-
| 13
| ISBN 4-575-82607-3
| 28 October 2001
|-
| 14
| ISBN 4-575-82627-8
| 19 December 2001
|-
| 15
| ISBN 4-575-82663-4
| 18 April 2002
|-
| 16
| ISBN 4-575-82709-6
| 18 August 2002
|-
| 17
| ISBN 4-575-82760-6
| 12 December 2002
|-
| 18
| ISBN 4-575-82816-5
| 19 April 2003
|-
| 19
| ISBN 4-575-82845-9
| 19 July 2003
|-
| 20
| ISBN 4-06-352113-3
| 23 June 2005
|-
| 21
| ISBN 4-06-352114-1
| 23 June 2005
|-
| 22
| ISBN 4-06-352128-1
| 21 October 2005
|-
| 23
| ISBN 4-06-352140-0
| 23 March 2006
|-
| 24
| ISBN 4-06-352159-1
| 23 August 2006
|-
| 25
| ISBN 4-06-352169-9
| 22 November 2006
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
action 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...
with a dark theme. It was discontinued because Weekly Manga Action
Weekly Manga Action
is a Japanese seinen manga magazine pushlished on a weekly basis by Futabasha since 7 July 1967.-Currently serialized:Listed alphabetically.*Bar Lemon Heart...
went out of business but it is now being serialized in Evening
Evening (magazine)
is a bi-weekly Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Kodansha, aimed at adult men. It is printed in black and white on newsprint and saddle-stapled in B5 format, and retails for 330 yen...
. It tells a story of a boy who killed his parents and turned himself into a cold-blooded martial artist. The manga inspired a Hong Kong film adaptation
Shamo (film)
Shamo is a 2008 Hong Kong martial arts film directed by Soi Cheang, based on the Japanese manga of the same name. The film stars Shawn Yue as a student who murders his parents, and, while in prison, is trained to become a violent, professional fighter by a fellow inmate played by Francis...
that was released in 2007. The author announced that SHAMO will return to the pages of EVENING Magazine on July 27 2011.
Background
Shamo differs significantly from other seinen mangaManga
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...
in that the story's protagonist is actually an unrepentant and often unsympathetic criminal. Throughout the manga Ryo Narushima is depicted as being unrepentant for the murder of his parents and is shown committing crimes such as assault and rape. Though capable of redemption (as evidenced by his care-taking of his sister and various small charitable acts shown throughout the manga) ultimately Narushima is a Byronic hero
Byronic hero
The Byronic hero is an idealised but flawed character exemplified in the life and writings of English Romantic poet Lord Byron. It was characterised by Lady Caroline Lamb, later a lover of Byron's, as being "mad, bad, and dangerous to know"...
spiraling into darkness, his chances at reform slowly ebbing away as he gives in to more and more of his depraved and brutal tendencies.
A minor theme throughout the manga is society's morally based stratification, how it condemns young criminals like Narushima, and how that condemnation forces Narushima to the fringes of society making his chances of true reform and redemption even more remote.
Various supporting characters within Shamo act as dramatic foils to Narushima, with Naoto Sugawara being the primary example of this. Famous, rich, and beloved for the same abilities that make Narushima a social pariah, Sugawara's presence can be seen as an example of society's cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying,...
towards violence. Narushima is reviled for his violent traits, while Sugawara is praised & rewarded for using those same traits in a slightly different context.
This story was inspired by the Kobe children serial murders of 1997 that a 14-year-old "Boy A" ("Shōnen A") killed and decapitated several children.
Ryo Narushima is modeled after two persons:
- Juvenile delinquencyJuvenile delinquencyJuvenile delinquency is participation in illegal behavior by minors who fall under a statutory age limit. Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers. There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not...
part: The "Youth A". - Martial art part: of KyokushinKyokushinis a style of stand-up, full contact karate, founded in 1964 by Korean-Japanese karate master, who was born under the name Choi Young-Eui . Kyokushinkai is Japanese for "the society of the ultimate truth". Kyokushin is rooted in a philosophy of self-improvement, discipline and hard training...
. This KarateKarateis a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It was developed from indigenous fighting methods called and Chinese kenpō. Karate is a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes, and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands. Grappling, locks,...
fighter's name has same pronunciation as the main character's name.
Part 1: The reformatory
, a talented highschooler who was about to enter Tokyo University, the most prestigious universityUniversity
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
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...
, killed his parents before his successful life could begin. The perfect family and perfect life seemed to devour the young boy's restless soul. In a beautiful sunny afternoon when cicada
Cicada
A cicada is an insect of the order Hemiptera, suborder Auchenorrhyncha , in the superfamily Cicadoidea, with large eyes wide apart on the head and usually transparent, well-veined wings. There are about 2,500 species of cicada around the world, and many of them remain unclassified...
s were singing, he stabbed his father and mother to death with a short knife
Knife
A knife is a cutting tool with an exposed cutting edge or blade, hand-held or otherwise, with or without a handle. Knives were used at least two-and-a-half million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools...
repeatedly before he came to his senses.
The 16-year-old bookworm
Bookworm
Bookworm may refer to:* Bibliophile or bookworm, an avid reader and lover of books* Bookworm , a popular generalization for any insect which supposedly bores through books...
murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
er was convict
Convict
A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison", sometimes referred to in slang as simply a "con". Convicts are often called prisoners or inmates. Persons convicted and sentenced to non-custodial sentences often are not termed...
ed and sent to a reformatory where he was gang raped by other boys. , a jailed man who nearly assassinated
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
Japanese Prime Minister decades ago, was sent to the reformatory to teach the youngsters karate
Karate
is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Islands in what is now Okinawa, Japan. It was developed from indigenous fighting methods called and Chinese kenpō. Karate is a striking art using punching, kicking, knee and elbow strikes, and open-handed techniques such as knife-hands. Grappling, locks,...
every week. He discovered Ryo's talent and taught him self-defense. Ryo survived. Thanks to a law that protects minors, he was released two years later.
Alone in a city full of crime, he tried to look for his lost sister but ends up mistaking another drug-abusing prostitute for her. Ryo started to fight for his living and used all imaginable dirty tricks
Dirty tricks
Dirty tricks are unethical, duplicitous, slanderous or illegal tactics employed to destroy or diminish the effectiveness of political or business opponents...
to defeat his enemy. He also ambushed gangster
Gangster
A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
s in dark alleys to perfect his fighting skill as well as working as a gigolo
Gigolo
Gigolo may refer to:* A male prostitute, escort, or dancer, who offers services to women* Gigolo , a 2006 single by Helena Paparizou* Gigolo , a 2003 single by Nick Cannon...
.
Part 2: Sugawara
In this part, Ryo fights of the twice. Kurokawa, a cast away from that elite dojoDojo
A is a Japanese term which literally means "place of the way". Initially, dōjōs were adjunct to temples. The term can refer to a formal training place for any of the Japanese do arts but typically it is considered the formal gathering place for students of any Japanese martial arts style to...
, helped Ryo to become stronger as a way to revenge , his past foe and the current owner of the Banryukai. Banryukai is possibly modeled after the Kyokushin kaikan and Seidokaikan
Seidokaikan
is a style of full contact karate, or Knockdown karate, founded by Kazuyoshi Ishii in 1980.-History:First formed in 1980 by Kazuyoshi Ishii, a former Kyokushin Karate practitioner who began his training under Hideyuki Ashihara in 1969...
and Mochizuki is possibly modeled after Kazuyoshi Ishii
Kazuyoshi Ishii
is a Japanese master of Seidokaikan karate and founder of the K-1 fighting circuit, a widely televised international martial arts competition combining Muay Thai, karate, sanshou, taekwondo, kenpo, boxing, and kickboxing...
, the founder of Seidokaikan.
Believing that he is the strongest, the "gamecock" started to take on other good martial artists. A blood-thirsty TV producer noticed that this street-fighting young man was the "Youth A" and pushed to have him join "Lethal Fight," a fictional combat arena modeled after Japan's K-1
K-1
K-1 is a defunct world-wide kickboxing promotion based in Tokyo, Japan founded by Kazuyoshi Ishii, a formerKyokushin karate practitioner. K-1 combines stand up techniques from Muay Thai, Karate, Taekwondo, Savate, San Shou, kickboxing, western-style boxing, and other martial arts...
tournament. Ryo, a dangerous man with an animal instinct
Instinct
Instinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism toward a particular behavior.The simplest example of an instinctive behavior is a fixed action pattern, in which a very short to medium length sequence of actions, without variation, are carried out in response to a...
who destroyed many good fighters in the ring, one day finds himself facing Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
's best fighter who was fighting to support his family. Before he was totally defeated, he tried to kick the Thai fighter's neck but the fighter ducked and was hit in the eye and blinded.
Ryo wanted to take on Sugawara. However, Sugawara was much taller and heavier than Ryo was so his chance to fight him was remote. As a way to provide incentive, Ryo rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
d Sugawara's supermodel
Supermodel
The term supermodel refers to a highly-paid fashion model who usually has a worldwide reputation and often a background in haute couture and commercial modeling. The term became prominent in the popular culture of the 1980s. Supermodels usually work for top fashion designers and labels...
girlfriend
Girlfriend
Girlfriend is a term that can refer to either a female partner in a non-marital romantic relationship or a female non-romantic friend that is closer than other friends....
. Sugawara vowed to kill Ryo with his hands in the boxing ring
Boxing ring
A boxing ring is the space in which a boxing match occurs. A modern ring, which is set on a raised platform, is square with a post at each corner to which four parallel rows of ropes are attached with a turnbuckle...
to comfort his woman and agreed to a televised
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
fight at the Tokyo Dome
Tokyo Dome
Tokyo Dome is a 55,000-seat baseball stadium located in Bunkyo Ward of Tokyo, Japan.The stadium opened for business on March 17, 1988. It was built on the site of the Velodrome which was next door to the site of the predecessor ballpark, Kōrakuen Stadium...
. It was the duel between darkness and brightness. Only this time, Ryo (亮), literally "brightness," stands for the dark side.
Ryo went through a painful bodybuilding regime where he used steroids to increase his muscle
Muscle
Muscle is a contractile tissue of animals and is derived from the mesodermal layer of embryonic germ cells. Muscle cells contain contractile filaments that move past each other and change the size of the cell. They are classified as skeletal, cardiac, or smooth muscles. Their function is to...
mass and strength. Before the fight began, his left eye became bloody under the non-human torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
. He did not care. Bad luck was on Ryo's side. His small body still was no comparison to Sugawara's. However, he rediscovered his long-forgotten left-handed
Left-handed
Left-handedness is the preference for the left hand over the right for everyday activities such as writing. In ancient times it was seen as a sign of the devil, and was abhorred in many cultures...
ness suppressed by his parents since he was a child minutes before the end of the last round. Then he wildly gave Sugawara countless heavy left punches before Sugawara used his broken right fist to punch him out of consciousness. He survived the lethal fight and was defeated only five seconds before the fight was over. Sugawara failed to kill him in front of the crowd.
Out of anger and frustration, Sugawara invited Ryo to another private fight three months later in an abandoned temple
Temple
A temple is a structure reserved for religious or spiritual activities, such as prayer and sacrifice, or analogous rites. A templum constituted a sacred precinct as defined by a priest, or augur. It has the same root as the word "template," a plan in preparation of the building that was marked out...
. Sugawara took several dart
Dart (missile)
Darts are missile weapons, designed to fly such that a sharp, often weighted point will strike first. They can be distinguished from javelins by fletching and a shaft that is shorter and/or more flexible, and from arrows by the fact that they are not of the right length to use with a normal...
and a long wooden stick. Ryo took a pair of tonfa
Tonfa
The tonfa , also known as tong fa or tuifa, is an Okinawan weapon. It is a stick with a handle, and is about 15-20 inches long. It was traditionally made from red oak and wielded in pairs...
with him. After a long and brutal duel where Narushima was almost killed, Sugawara was hit in the back of the neck
Neck
The neck is the part of the body, on many terrestrial or secondarily aquatic vertebrates, that distinguishes the head from the torso or trunk. The adjective signifying "of the neck" is cervical .-Boner anatomy: The cervical spine:The cervical portion of the human spine comprises seven boney...
and was hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
ized.
Part 3: The old man and the "Monkey"
Ryo fled to ShanghaiShanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
where he fought illegal fights under the offensive stage name
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
. This part was not as long as the last one. After he destroyed many fighters, Ryo's market value diminished because it becomes a no-brainer to bet on him or to lose money. Then the underground casino
Casino
In modern English, a casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Casinos are most commonly built near or combined with hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships or other tourist attractions...
invited , a one-armed man in a monkey
Monkey
A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...
mask
Mask
A mask is an article normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes...
to fight Ryo.
Unaware of the danger, Ryo was no comparison with the acrobatic
Acrobatics
Acrobatics is the performance of extraordinary feats of balance, agility and motor coordination. It can be found in many of the performing arts, as well as many sports...
Sun Wukong who could attack from every possible direction. Before being killed on stage, an old man who had eaten breakfast
Breakfast
Breakfast is the first meal taken after rising from a night's sleep, most often eaten in the early morning before undertaking the day's work...
with Ryo that morning entered the ring and saved him. That old man was Sun Wukong's former sifu
Sifu
Shifu is the identical pronunciation of two Chinese terms for a master. The character 師 means “teacher”. The meaning of 傅 is “tutor”, and of 父, “father”. Both characters are read fu with the same tones in Cantonese and Mandarin, creating some ambiguity...
before he went astray.
At the end of his life, the old man could not fight "Sun Wukong" without Ryo's help. So he took Ryo back to his home in an unknown remote mountain where Ryo learned many physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
defying paranormal
Paranormal
Paranormal is a general term that designates experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific explanation" or that indicates phenomena understood to be outside of science's current ability to explain or measure...
tricks like standing on a short piece of bamboo
Bamboo
Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
stick floating on the water surface. Sun Wukong attacks the temple and kills the old master. Yan commits suicide shortly after. Ryo and Sun Wukong face off in combat, and it ends with Sun Wukong committing suicide off a cliff.
Part 4: The ballet dancer
It tells a story that Toma Takahara (高原 東馬 Takahara Tōma), a successful male ballet dancer, mysteriously abandoned his dancing career to pursue martial arts. He was trained in judo and sambo.The new books (20, 21) pick up with Ryo fighting in a club in Japan. He has left China and still works for money by fighting and male prostitution. Ryo discovers after one fight that his ability has dropped significantly and he decides to start training hard. Ryo enters a karate competition in a mask and is spotted by Mochizuki. Mochizuki offers him money to enter a grappling tournament fighting against Toma. Ryo, desperate for cash accepts and begins training. The tournament is currently ongoing, with four of the five fights over. Ryo's fight is last. While waiting for his turn to fight, he was stabbed by Moemi Funato. However, he still plans to fight.Court case
The manga has been on hold since 2007 due in part to creative differences. Shamo manga artist Akio Tanaka is currently in a legal battle against Shamo's credited creator, Izô Hashimoto, for 150 million yen (about US$1.4 million) in a copyright lawsuit that opened in June, 2008 in the Tokyo District Court. Tanaka claims that he, and not Hashimoto, had created the story and the character concepts. In July 18, 2011 Tanaka announced in his Homepage that SHAMO will return to the pages of EVENING on July 27 after a long hiatus, the manga title started being reprinted in wide editions.The books
{|class="wikitable"! Volume
! ISBN
! Publish Date
|-
| 1
| ISBN 4-575-82383-X
| 12 November 1998
|-
| 2
| ISBN 4-575-82394-5
| 5 January 1999
|-
| 3
| ISBN 4-575-82416-X
| 12 April 1999
|-
| 4
| ISBN 4-575-82432-1
| 9 July 1999
|-
| 5
| ISBN 4-575-82452-6
| 28 March 2000
|-
| 6
| ISBN 4-575-82488-7
| 28 April 2000
|-
| 7
| ISBN 4-575-82492-5
| 22 May 2000
|-
| 8
| ISBN 4-575-82499-2
| 27 June 2000
|-
| 9
| ISBN 4-575-82509-3
| 8 September 2000
|-
| 10
| ISBN 4-575-82525-5
| 11 December 2000
|-
| 11
| ISBN 4-575-82551-4
| 26 March 2001
|-
| 12
| ISBN 4-575-82572-7
| 28 June 2001
|-
| 13
| ISBN 4-575-82607-3
| 28 October 2001
|-
| 14
| ISBN 4-575-82627-8
| 19 December 2001
|-
| 15
| ISBN 4-575-82663-4
| 18 April 2002
|-
| 16
| ISBN 4-575-82709-6
| 18 August 2002
|-
| 17
| ISBN 4-575-82760-6
| 12 December 2002
|-
| 18
| ISBN 4-575-82816-5
| 19 April 2003
|-
| 19
| ISBN 4-575-82845-9
| 19 July 2003
|-
| 20
| ISBN 4-06-352113-3
| 23 June 2005
|-
| 21
| ISBN 4-06-352114-1
| 23 June 2005
|-
| 22
| ISBN 4-06-352128-1
| 21 October 2005
|-
| 23
| ISBN 4-06-352140-0
| 23 March 2006
|-
| 24
| ISBN 4-06-352159-1
| 23 August 2006
|-
| 25
| ISBN 4-06-352169-9
| 22 November 2006