The Complete Boy Champion guide

The Boy Champion guide mainly refers to the out of story mythos surrounding the postwar version. Created by the man behind both Kenya Boy and Tiger Boy, the story focused on a foundling raised by Grauer’s gorillas in the central eastern Congo Kinshasa.

The original Boy Champion was made as Sōji Yamakawa’s first ever major work in 1931. It was the Kamishibai prototype for the wackier and better known postwar (picture story and Kamishibai) version which came fifteen years later, a subsequent version from 1963-64 and a tribute from 1974, and a short faux finale/sequel analysis in 1980. I think it’s due to the fact that it should’ve been made in 30 to 40 volumes during its creator’s lifetime. 

While the stories from the 1946-52 sludge period are largely not available for reprinting due to containing controversial contents, the 1961-62+1965-66 Sanpei Shirato and Jirō Tsunoda manga does contain most of them. 

The Omoshiro Book+Yonen Book period has more interesting stories than the previous sludge period, not only due to its inventiveness but also due to the picture story serial’s own unpredictable plot. As with the final Omoshiro arc ‘New Boy Champion’ and the Yonen Book retellings of earlier stories, the run of the mill junior reprints for four combined (but boringly abridged) stories were released in the late 1950s. 

A comedic recap manga, by the relatively obscure Akira Otomo, was made in July 1955 for the Shueisha Omoshiro Manga library, which contained the story’s beginning in full detail. There is also another adaptation of The Boy Champion by the late Sanpei Wachi (1926-99), which continued to adapt it even after Otomo filled out the beginning, as it was made for Shueisha’s Omoshiro Book magazine in January, April and September 1955. A radio drama of the same name lasted from 1952-53. 

The third partial manga adaptation was made from 1961 until 1966, due to a brief hiatus in between, with some parts drawn by Sanpei Shirato (1932-2021) and others by Jirō Tsunoda. Compounding its influence was that for ten months in 1963 and 1964, the short 1960s picture story version was made for the same Shogaku Nensei magazines. Its even shorter-lived successor was a Kamishibai tribute made for a Nippon Reader’s Digest and Suntory collaboration in 1974. In 1971, one of the story's most iconic chapters was reprinted for a novel anthology and in 1977, some of the Boy Champion parts were reprinted and compiled into three beautiful hardcovers. 

In 1971, the pilot for a proposed anime adaptation directed and written by Kinji Fukasaku (1930-2003) was only made in the same year but has recently become (partially) lost media as of 2023, since the actual pilot still isn’t made public yet for legal reasons. Its mention on Xitter (X/Twitter) is unfortunately short lived because Xitter is itself now a paid service. 

In 1980, a faux finale/sequel analysis was made for the retired Tabi travel magazine. About three years later, another Boy Champion chapter was reprinted for a collectors' magazine and in 1984, ten somewhat abridged volumes were partly rewritten and redrawn for Kadokawa Shoten. There should’ve been twenty volumes for that variant, but it’s long been done already. Not to mention the fact that the story itself was also meant to have thirty to forty volumes in an unabridged format which should’ve been there to begin with. 

But months after the roasting of a Kenya Boy anime film in Japan, Kuman was launched to mixed reception. It is an unofficial musical adaptation of The Boy Champion, which was made in Mexico by a well regarded heavy metal band named Crystal and Steel (aka Cristal y Acero). While technically not a truly Burroughs-adjacent Tarzan musical, it clearly added a lot of references from the Tarzan films and books, and often without ERB Inc’s permission. But unlike with its lawsuit against Taito and its Jungle King, the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs would rather leave the unofficial work alone afterwards, which is partly true since Mexican IP laws have clearly become too tired out in hindsight. 

To respectfully answer why most of his works haven’t long been reprinted, the first reason is that most of the non-Isamu the Wilderness Boy fans are quite senile, even as a few of them clamour for more reissues and reprints. The second reason is that Shueisha dotes on Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, Bleach and Demon Slayer way more than on any one of Sōji Yamakawa’s works which isn’t Isamu the Wilderness Boy. Yet another reason is that most of the other major works (which he did make) are all rather old, even if they do deserve both revisions and total completions.