 | You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in Japanese. (May 2016)Click [show] for important translation instructions.
|
| Shin Takarajima | |
| 新宝島 | |
|---|---|
| Manga | |
| Written by | Sakai Shichima |
| Illustrated by | Osamu Tezuka |
| Published by | Ikuei Shuppan |
| English publisher | Digital Manga Guild |
| Published | January 1947 |
"Shin Takarajima" (Japanese:新宝島;pronounced[ɕintakaɾadʑima]ⓘ, "New Treasure Island") is a Japaneseone-shotmanga published by Ikuei Shuppan in January 1947.[1] It was written by Sakai Shichima, and illustrated byOsamu Tezuka.
It is Tezuka's debut full-length work, and is considered to be the starting point of postwar Japanese manga.
Despite the title of the manga, it is not an adaptation ofRobert Louis Stevenson'sTreasure Island novel, but it does borrow many themes from the novel and other adventure novels such asTarzan andRobinson Crusoe.
A revision of the manga was made by Tezuka in 1984, as part ofKodansha'sOsamu Tezuka Complete Manga Works series, featuring 250 redrawn pages compared to the original 190 pages, a slightly different plot, and a brand new ending that features aplot twist.Shin Takarajima was published in English digitally byDigital Manga Guild in December 2019.[2]
A boy named Pete found a treasure island map left by his late father and decided to search for the treasure island alongside a ship captain and a stray dog. Along the way, the group got attacked by a band of pirates led by a man named Boar who demands the map, got stranded in the sea after a storm ambushed their ship, got captured by a cannibal tribe in the treasure island, and met with a Tarzan-like character named Baron who befriends the animals on the treasure island and guards the hidden treasure. In the end, the group managed to outrace the pirates and found the treasure with the help of Baron and managed to escape the treasure island after the captain's crew found them, while the pirates who followed the map got led into a trap. Pete then planned to use the treasure they founded to build a large zoo on the treasure island for children all around the world to visit.
The 1984 revision has the plot differs slightly from the original. With the 1984 version revealed the plot to be only a dream created by the stray dog, who is actually a fairy, to satisfy Pete's fantasy during his travel to the island, and that the treasures on the island no longer exists as of Pete's travel.[3]
Tezuka has a method called thestar system in which he would reuse the same characters in multiple different stories, inspired byHollywood actors. Many characters that first appeared in this manga would later reappear in Tezuka's other works.
Shin Takarajima has sold over 400,000 copies.[3] Many people who read the manga were inspired to become manga artists, including theFujiko Fujio duo,[4]Shotaro Ishinomori,[5]Tetsuya Chiba,[6] Mikiya Mochizuki,[7]Mitsutoshi Furuya,[8]Kazuo Umezu,[9]Noboru Kawasaki,[10]Keiji Nakazawa,[11] andYoshiharu Tsuge.Yoshihiro Tatsumi,[12]Takao Saito,[13] Shoichi Sakurai,[14] and Masaaki Sato,[15] who pioneeredgekiga manga, also spoke of the manga. Before becoming a successful science fiction novelist,Sakyo Komatsu was originally a manga artist inspired byShin Takarajima.[16]
"I will never forget when I first saw the bookShin Takarajima when I was a second year middle school student in 1947... Looking back at it now, I can see that my destiny was decided by picking up this book," saidMotoo Abiko in his 1970–1972 autobiographical mangaManga Michi.[17] In 2025,Naoki Urasawa opined that there were two big impacts in thehistory of manga; the first was the 1947 publication ofShin Takarajima, and the second wasKatsuhiro Otomo'sDomu in 1980.[18]