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Yawara! AI simulator
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Yawara! AI simulator
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Yawara!
Yawara! (also stylized as YAWARA!) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa. It was serialized in Big Comic Spirits from 1986 to 1993, with its chapters collected into 29 tankōbon volumes by publisher Shōgakukan. The story centers around Yawara Inokuma, a seemingly ordinary high school girl, but her grandfather, a living judo legend, has been secretly training her since she was a child so that she can win the gold medal at the Olympic Games. But Yawara has only one desire, to have a normal life.
A live-action film adaptation directed by Kazuo Yoshida and starring Yui Asaka was released by Toho in April 1989. That same year, Kitty Films and Madhouse began an anime adaptation titled Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl!. It was broadcast on Yomiuri TV from October 1989 through September 1992, for 124 episodes. Each episode ended with a countdown of days remaining to the start of the Barcelona Olympics. Two animated films were released in August 1992 and July 1996. AnimEigo released the first 40 episodes of the anime in North America in 2008, but were unable to license the remaining episodes.
In 1990, the manga won the 35th Shogakukan Manga Award for the general category. Yawara! has over 30 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time.
Yawara Inokuma is a young girl who aspires to an ordinary life but due to her innate talent is forced to practice judo by her authoritarian grandfather, Jigorou Inokuma, with the aim of achieving the championship in Japan and the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Because of the pressure from her grandfather she generally has a bad attitude about judo, avoiding it as much as she can. However, over time she comes to understand why her grandfather loves judo and appreciates it more.
While Naoki Urasawa was pitching the idea of writing a manga about the medical field, he could tell his editor was not enjoying it. Knowing that the editor was a big fan of baseball, he jokingly proposed a story about women's judo, but the editor lit up at the idea. Urasawa said that he then scribbled out the whole of Yawara! during that meeting in about 30 minutes, from the characters to the story.
The series started in 1986, women's judo became a demonstration sport just before the 1988 Summer Olympics with it set to be a fully competitive sport at the 1992 Summer Olympics, so it was perfect to include that goal in the manga. But the author never thought the series would last long enough to reach the latter. Urasawa revealed that with Yawara! being so different from his previous works as a comedy about a cute girl, some of his fans and colleagues felt betrayed and that he had sold out. But he does not see it that way as he never had any intentions of making it a love comedy or a "fight-to-the-finish, don't-give-up-now! sports" story. He said "My subjects of my comics might be taken from the popular mainstream, but I believe they are still embued with my own sensitivities and therefore quite distinctive in their own right." The author said that he intended for Yawara! to be a parody of Ikki Kajiwara's works, such as Star of the Giants. But for some reason readers got something out of it other than he intended; "Maybe it's because they're used to sports comics, but they seem to like my comics for the scenes of victory and defeat. They find them interesting somehow. Those scenes were really supposed to be funny! But they find them touching, so I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do."
Urasawa said that because he is not the heroic type himself, he has difficulty portraying strong-willed leading characters. He said it was even difficult to portray Yawara and Matsuda, whom he described as "very good supporting characters" as it seems to be much easier for him to develop supporting characters. The author cited American television comedies as his comedic influences. Jigoro's habit of forgetting people's names was taken from Samantha's mother in Bewitched.
When Urasawa was beginning Master Keaton in 1988 while still creating Yawara!, the editorial team was concerned about a young artist being able to write and draw two series at once, and so brought in story writers for the new series.
Yawara!
Yawara! (also stylized as YAWARA!) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoki Urasawa. It was serialized in Big Comic Spirits from 1986 to 1993, with its chapters collected into 29 tankōbon volumes by publisher Shōgakukan. The story centers around Yawara Inokuma, a seemingly ordinary high school girl, but her grandfather, a living judo legend, has been secretly training her since she was a child so that she can win the gold medal at the Olympic Games. But Yawara has only one desire, to have a normal life.
A live-action film adaptation directed by Kazuo Yoshida and starring Yui Asaka was released by Toho in April 1989. That same year, Kitty Films and Madhouse began an anime adaptation titled Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl!. It was broadcast on Yomiuri TV from October 1989 through September 1992, for 124 episodes. Each episode ended with a countdown of days remaining to the start of the Barcelona Olympics. Two animated films were released in August 1992 and July 1996. AnimEigo released the first 40 episodes of the anime in North America in 2008, but were unable to license the remaining episodes.
In 1990, the manga won the 35th Shogakukan Manga Award for the general category. Yawara! has over 30 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time.
Yawara Inokuma is a young girl who aspires to an ordinary life but due to her innate talent is forced to practice judo by her authoritarian grandfather, Jigorou Inokuma, with the aim of achieving the championship in Japan and the gold medal at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Because of the pressure from her grandfather she generally has a bad attitude about judo, avoiding it as much as she can. However, over time she comes to understand why her grandfather loves judo and appreciates it more.
While Naoki Urasawa was pitching the idea of writing a manga about the medical field, he could tell his editor was not enjoying it. Knowing that the editor was a big fan of baseball, he jokingly proposed a story about women's judo, but the editor lit up at the idea. Urasawa said that he then scribbled out the whole of Yawara! during that meeting in about 30 minutes, from the characters to the story.
The series started in 1986, women's judo became a demonstration sport just before the 1988 Summer Olympics with it set to be a fully competitive sport at the 1992 Summer Olympics, so it was perfect to include that goal in the manga. But the author never thought the series would last long enough to reach the latter. Urasawa revealed that with Yawara! being so different from his previous works as a comedy about a cute girl, some of his fans and colleagues felt betrayed and that he had sold out. But he does not see it that way as he never had any intentions of making it a love comedy or a "fight-to-the-finish, don't-give-up-now! sports" story. He said "My subjects of my comics might be taken from the popular mainstream, but I believe they are still embued with my own sensitivities and therefore quite distinctive in their own right." The author said that he intended for Yawara! to be a parody of Ikki Kajiwara's works, such as Star of the Giants. But for some reason readers got something out of it other than he intended; "Maybe it's because they're used to sports comics, but they seem to like my comics for the scenes of victory and defeat. They find them interesting somehow. Those scenes were really supposed to be funny! But they find them touching, so I'm at a bit of a loss as to what to do."
Urasawa said that because he is not the heroic type himself, he has difficulty portraying strong-willed leading characters. He said it was even difficult to portray Yawara and Matsuda, whom he described as "very good supporting characters" as it seems to be much easier for him to develop supporting characters. The author cited American television comedies as his comedic influences. Jigoro's habit of forgetting people's names was taken from Samantha's mother in Bewitched.
When Urasawa was beginning Master Keaton in 1988 while still creating Yawara!, the editorial team was concerned about a young artist being able to write and draw two series at once, and so brought in story writers for the new series.