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Martial arts anime and manga

  • Bleach (TV series)Bleach, the Japanese anime television series, ran for 366 episodes on TV Tokyo between 2004 and 2012. It adapts the manga Bleach by Tite Kubo. Studio Pierrot produced it, and Noriyuki Abe directed. The title is written in capital letters,…
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (TV series)In a 2020 poll, Japanese schoolchildren admired a fictional demon slayer more than their own mothers.
  • NarutoOn the night Naruto was born, his father sealed a nine-tailed fox inside him. He grew up scorned by the village.
  • Ranma ½Ranma ½ is a Japanese manga by Rumiko Takahashi about a teenage martial artist whose body changes with the temperature of the water that touches him. Ranma Saotome has trained in fighting since early childhood. He spends the series hunting…
  • Fist of the North StarAn editor's used-bookshop find led to the manga Fist of the North Star.
  • Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no YaibaDemon Slayer began as a quiet manga about a boy who sold charcoal. By July 2025 it had over 220 million copies out.
  • Rurouni KenshinThe hero of Rurouni Kenshin carries a sword with its blade turned backward.
  • Vagabond (manga)The manga Vagabond opens with two bleeding teenagers on a battlefield in 1600. One will become a famed swordsman.
  • Bleach (manga)The manga Bleach began with a drawing of a kimono. Its artist had just had his previous series canceled.
  • Naruto (TV series)The anime series Naruto opens on Naruto Uzumaki, a young orphan ninja who wants nothing more than recognition from his peers. His dream is to become the Hokage, the leader of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Nobody around him takes that…
  • YuYu HakushoYuYu Hakusho begins with a 14-year-old street brawler named Yusuke Urameshi shoving a young boy out of the path of a car. The boy lives. Yusuke does not. It is an uncharacteristic act of kindness from a teenage delinquent, and it kills him…
  • Sakigake!! OtokojukuThe manga Otokojuku has sold over 26 million copies, yet few outside Japan know it.
  • Baki the GrapplerBaki the Grappler is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Keisuke Itagaki, and it has sold in numbers few comics ever reach. By May 2021, the various Baki series had more than 85 million collected volumes in circulation. By…
  • Hunter × HunterHunter × Hunter, the Japanese manga series by Yoshihiro Togashi, is spoken aloud as "hunter hunter," because the multiplication sign in its title makes no sound. The doubled name came from a television variety show called Downtown, where…

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