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The story
A post about reading Masaya Tokuhiro’s manga Jungle King Tar-chan sparked a wide-ranging discussion on 5ch’s Nandemo Jikkyo G (“Live Galileo”) board. Users who remember the series’ original run shared memories one after another — the sheer amount of raunchy humor, the shift from gag comedy to a fighting-manga format, and the circumstances behind its transition into New Tar-chan. While the thread cited the view that the series was “a dig at One Piece” in a positive light, the conversation also branched into comparisons with the same author’s Kyoshiro 2030 and Shape Up Ran, as well as BOY, another series running in Jump around the same time.
What people said
So it's a dig at One Piece?
People talk about it positively, like it properly inherited the good parts too
He was one of the 7 main characters in Famicom Jump II, after all
Surprisingly Goku's weak and Ryotsu's strong in that game
There was that bug where Jane would multiply, right
Started as a gag manga but turned into a serious battle manga
Yeah, it was basically already polished from the start
The "seconds, please" panel became a meme, so honestly that's the only part anyone remembers
There's no scene like that
Anabebe saving Etekichi in the Vampire arc is ridiculously cool
The high schoolers pop a ton of drugs to power up before fights
https://assets.st-note.com/img/1683121168239-JsMsgAOrxf.png
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Eo8wXZVVQAQ7eQX.jpg
This author's violent scenes really hit hard
Good touch that he goes drug-free for the rematch
lol
Look at that intensity
Master Ryo switching sides lol
This scene is genuinely hilarious
The balance between serious and gag moments is amazing
The setup/pacing is really careful
I love this part of the fight
Already have the Tar-chan series, Ran, Tomiko, and Kyoshiro
The author himself said digital sales are insane
though he also complained, "Then why won't it get reprinted in paper!?"
The Vampire arc might honestly be the most fun one
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Jungle King Tar-chan was serialized by Masaya Tokuhiro in Weekly Shonen Jump and later continued under the title New Tar-chan. Its shift from gag manga to a fighting/battle-focused format was a pattern also seen in other Jump series of the era, like Kinnikuman, and this trend came up repeatedly in the thread. Tokuhiro has also worked on titles such as Shape Up Ran, Boken Shonen, and Kyoshiro 2030, and the thread’s comments about strong digital sales not translating into paper reprints reflect a very real sentiment about the ongoing shift away from print in publishing. That said, it’s worth noting that the comparison to One Piece isn’t a direct connection within the series itself — it’s purely a reader impression, not an established fact.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread “I read this manga called Jungle King Tar-chan.”
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