Recently, it was announced that the manga series Golgo 13 had broken a record set by Kochikame in 2016 for most volumes released in a series, surpassing the latter after they released their 201st volume. This feat is highly impressive and I decided that it was time to take a look at a few manga series that are noteworthy for having an incredible number of volumes.
Of course, we should start with the new champion, Golgo 13. Originally beginning in October, 1968, in Big Comic, Golgo 13 already had the record for longest-running manga series. Golgo 13 follows an assassin named Duke Togo who operates under the alias Golgo 13 and is one of the greatest snipers in the world. The series is episodic with Duke Togo hired to assassinate a particular target, going over the challenges associated with these jobs and Duke Togo taking an incredibly difficult shot that successfully kills the target. Golgo 13 is an incredibly successful series, having sold around 300 million copies and becoming the best-selling seinen manga of all time. It’s also amazing to note that Takao Saito, the mangaka, only recently took his first hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic! Despite this success, the series is highly underrepresented in English, having only seen a best of compilation by Viz Media.
Until recently the series Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo, better known as Kochikame, had the most number of volumes. I’ve mentioned this series before in my article “The Most Popular Manga Never Released In English” but I’ll remind you that the series follows a police officer called Kankichi Ryotsu, commonly referred to as Ryo-san, who comes up with get rich quick schemes which often fail spectacularly. Being published in the weekly manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump, Kochikame was able to release volumes more quickly than Golgo 13 and managed to outpace Golgo 13 despite being released 8 years later in September, 1976. However, Kochikame finished in September, 2016 with the release of their 200th volume and Golgo 13 has finally managed to break the record 5 years later. Interestingly, it has been announced that a 201st volume of Kochikame containing various one-shot chapters released since 2016 will be published later this year.
Following that, we have another ongoing series called King of Minami. Published in seinen magazine Weekly Manga Goraku since 1992, the series has recently released its 162nd volume. King of Minami follows Ginjirou Manda, a loan shark who charges 1% interest every day. Quite often, his borrowers attempt to wriggle out of their loan but Ginjirou Manda always manages to make them repay in the end.
The next manga series is called Cooking Papa (not to be confused with the video game series Cooking Mama). Cooking Papa began in 1985 in a seinen magazine called Morning and has just recently released its 158th volume. The story follows a salaryman named Kazumi Araiwa who loves to cook but hides his passion from his coworkers who believe that Kazumi’s wife cooks the food.
Finally, I’d like to take a look at a series called Baki the Grappler, a shonen series that has been running in Weekly Shonen Champion since October 1991 and has seen 142 volumes released over 5 parts. The series follows Baki Hanma who trains in martial arts so that he can one day defeat his father. The 5 parts are split into Grappler Baki, Baki, Baki Hanma, Baki-Dou and Baki Dou.
You’ll notice that many of these series have seen little to no attention in the English-speaking world and I’ve heard people argue that incredibly long series such as these are quite unappealing to publishers. Nonetheless, I’d love to see some of these manga released in English someday in their full form, not in a best of compilation like how Golgo 13 was released by Viz Media. Let me know your thoughts on manga series with the most volumes, whether you were aware of these series before this article, whether you’ve managed to read any of these series, your thoughts on long running manga and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!