is a

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

series by Kō Kojima which ran in the adult magazine '' Weekly Asahi Geinō'', published by Tokuma Shoten in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. It is the longest running comic with only one artist, being published weekly since October 1956, and the longest-running strip ever in Japan. By contrast, '' Golgo 13'' is the longest running manga to be serialized in a dedicated manga magazine with ''

Doraemon is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Fujiko F. Fujio. First serialized in 1969, the manga's chapters were collected in 45 volumes published by Shogakukan from 1974 to 1996. The story revolves around an earless robotic ...

'' the second longest, and '' Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo'' (''Kochi-Kame'') the third longest (Asahi Geino is not a dedicated manga magazine). While ''Sennin Buraku'' has been running for more years than '' Peanuts'', Charles M. Schulz's strip has more "episodes" as it ran daily rather than weekly. The story was a romantic comedy taking place in historical

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

, and it was quite risqué for its time. The characters were very traditionally dressed (e.g. all wearing

hanfu ''Hanfu'' (, lit. "Han Chinese, Han clothing"), also known as ''Hanzhuang'' (), are the traditional styles of clothing worn by the Han Chinese since the 2nd millennium BCE. There are several representative styles of ''hanfu'', such as the (an ...

). The anime has been rerun on Japanese television, and all episodes have appeared on DVD (save for episodes 12 and 19). ''Sennin Buraku'' was the first late night anime, broadcast shortly before midnight on

Fuji TV JOCX-DTV (channel 8), branded as or , is a Japanese television station that serves the Kantō region as the flagship (broadcasting), flagship station of the Fuji News Network (FNN) and the Fuji Network System (FNS). The station is owned-and- ...

from September 4, 1963, to February 23, 1964. This was the first

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

series produced by Tele-Cartoon Japan, and a page exists on their website about it. The series was in black and white and ran for 23 episodes. A

live action Live action is a form of cinematography or videography that uses photography instead of animation. Some works combine live action with animation to create a live-action animated feature film. Live action is used to define film, video games o ...

movie was released in 1961, titled . With the August 7, 2014 issue, it was announced that the series would be placed on hiatus. The death of the artist on April 14, 2015, puts any future chapters of Sennin Buraku in doubt.

Plot summary

''Sennin Buraku'' takes place in Taoyuan, a small

Edo period The , also known as the , is the period between 1600 or 1603 and 1868 in the history of Japan, when the country was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and some 300 regional ''daimyo'', or feudal lords. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengok ...

village, populated solely by Taoist ascetics. The eldest, Lao Shi, conducts research into magic and

alchemy Alchemy (from the Arabic word , ) is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practised in China, India, the Muslim world, and Europe. In its Western form, alchemy is first ...

, while his disciple Zhi Huang remains more interested in pleasures of the flesh. He has fallen for three pretty

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares parents or a parent with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to ref ...

s who live nearby, much to Lao Shi's annoyance.

Manga

While the manga has run in '' Weekly Asahi Geinō'' for over fifty years, there have been no translations of it.

Live action movie

The 83-minute live action movie was titled ''Fūryū Kokkei-tan: Sennin Buraku'', and was released in theaters by Shintoho on 1961-02-08.

Cast

*Akiko Matsuyama: Mayumi Ōzora *Tenpei Naiki: Yōichi Numata *Yōko Kondō: Mako Sanjō *Doctor: Bokuzen Hidari *Laundry boy: Akihiro Maruyama *Daikichi Narayama: Bunta Sugawara

Staff

*Director: Morihei Magatani *Planning: Mitsuo Nakatsuka *Screenplay: Isao Matsumoto *Cinematographer: Shigenobu Yoshida *Art Director: Haruyasu Kurosawa *Music: Keitarō Miho

Anime series

Each episode of the anime series was 15 minutes long. The first eight episodes were broadcast from 23:40 to 23:55 on Wednesday nights on

following the world news, and episodes nine through 23 were broadcast from 23:30 to 23:45 on Sunday nights. The opening theme song, ''Sennin Buraku no Thema'', was sung by Three Graces, arranged by Tōru Kino and the lyrics were written by Takeo Yamashita.

Cast

*Sennin: Hyakushō San'yūtei * Ichikawa Danjūrō * Yoshiaki Hanayagi * Tomoko Kokai * Ichirō Nagai

Staff

*Director: Shigeharu Kaneko *Screenplay: Akira Hayasaka, Tōru Kino *Production: TCJ Sources:

References

External links

Lambiek article about Koo Kojima

Sennin Buraku
in Animemorial (contains episodes list + screenshot) * * {{Eiken 1956 manga 1961 films 1963 anime television series debuts Eiken (studio) Fuji Television original programming Japanese romantic comedy films Romantic comedy anime and manga Satirical comics Films with screenplays by Akira Hayasaka Shintoho films Tokuma Shoten manga 1960s Japanese films Tokuma Shoten anime