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Master Keaton

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Master Keaton
GenreDetective fiction
Manga
Written byHokusei Katsushika (勝鹿北星) and Naoki Urasawa (浦沢直樹)
Published byJapan Shogakukan
South Korea Daiwon C&A Holdings
MagazineBig Comic Original
DemographicSeinen
Original runNovember 1988 – August 1998
Volumes18
Anime
Directed byMasayuki Kojima
StudioJapan Madhouse
Released 6 October 1998 – 29 March 1999

Master Keaton (MASTERキートン, Masutā Kīton) is a Japanese manga series created by Hokusei Katsushika and Naoki Urasawa. It was serialized in Big Comic Original between 1988 and 1994 and ran for 18 volumes (144 episodes in total). An anime adaptation of the series aired between 1998 and 1999 in Japan on Nippon Television. A total of 39 anime episodes was produced. Though the manga series has not been translated into English, the anime series was dubbed into English and dual-language DVDs are currently available for English-language markets. The manga's target audience was Japanese men in their 20's and 30's, a comparatively older target audience than is common for most anime series.

Story

The story revolves around Taichi Hiraga-Keaton (平賀＝キートン・太一, Hiraga-Kīton Taichi), the son of Japanese zoologist Taihei Hiraga (平賀太平, Hiraga Taihei) and well-born Englishwoman Patricia Keaton. Keaton's parents separated when he was five, and young Taichi moved back to England with his mother. As an adult, he studied archeology at Oxford University, in part under the tutelage of Professor Yuri Scott. At Oxford, Keaton met and later married his wife, who was a mathematics student at Somerville College - and the couple later divorced, with Keaton leaving his five-year-old daughter Yuriko (百合子) in her mother's care. After leaving Oxford, Keaton joined the British SAS, reaching the rank of master sergeant and seeing combat in the Falklands War and as one of the members of the Iranian Embassy incident. His combat training serves him in good stead as an insurance investigator for the prestigious Lloyd's of London where he is known for his abilities and his unorthodox methods of investigation. In addition to his work for Lloyds, Keaton and his friend Daniel O'Connell operate their own insurance investigation agency headquartered in London. Yet even though Keaton is fairly successful as an insurance investigator, his dream is to continue his archaeological research into the possible origins of an ancient European civilization in the Danube River basin.

Anime series

Characters

Episode list

Episode Japanese title English title
Case 01 迷宮の男 Man in a Maze
Case 02 小さな巨人 Little Giant
Case 03 ラザーニェ奇譚 Strange Tale of Lasagna
Case 04 不死身の男 Immortal Man
Case 05 屋根の下の巴里 Paris under the Roof
Case 06 白い女神 White Goddess
Case 07 遥かなるサマープディング Memories of Summer Pudding
Case 08 交渉人のルール Negotiator's Rule
Case 09 貴婦人との旅 Journey with a Lady
Case 10 チャーリー Charlie
Case 11 特別なメニュー Special Menu
Case 12 御婦人たちの事件 A Case for Ladies
Case 13 穏やかな死 A Peaceful Death
Case 14 心の壁 Wall in One's Heart
Case 15 長く暑い日 Long Hot Day
Case 16 永遠の楡の木 The Elm Tree Forever
Case 17 バラの館 A Mansion of Roses
Case 18 フェイカーの誤算 Faker's Miscalculation
Case 19 空へ… Into the Vast Sky
Case 20 臆病者の島 The Island of Coward
Case 21 アザミの紋章 The Thistle Emblem
Case 22 シャトー•ラジョンシュ1944 Chateau Lajonchee 1944
Case 23 出口なし No Way Out
Case 24 オプの生まれた日 The Day the Op Was Born
Case 25 砂漠のカーリマン Kalihman of the Desert
Case 26 家族 Family
Case 27 赤い風 The Red Wind
Case 28 アレクセイエフからの伝言 A Message from Alexeyev
Case 29 禁断の実 The Forbidden Fruit
Case 30 瞳の中のハイランド The Highlands in Your Eyes
Case 31 匂いの鍵 The Scent is the Key
Case 32 背中の裏街 The Back Street
Case 33 天使のような悪魔 Devil like an Angel
Case 34 瑪瑙色の時間 The Agate Color of Time
Case 35 五月の恋 Love in May
Case 36 ブルーフライデー Blue Friday
Case 37 面接の日 Interview Day
Case 38 狩人の季節（前編） Hunting Season Part 1
Case 39 狩人の季節（後編） Hunting Season Part 2

Theme songs

Opening Theme Song

Ending Theme Song

  • "eternal wind" - Performed by BLÜE (Episodes 1 - )
  • "A Sigh" (ため息, Tameiki) - Performed by KneuKid Romance (Episodes - 25)
  • "From Beginning" - Music by Kuniaki Haishima (Episodes 26 - 39)

DVD

The English version DVDs were released by Pioneer Entertainment/Geneon Entertainment Inc in association with The Ocean Group. The first 4 DVDs were released prior to Pioneer's switch to Geneon. Each DVD had 5 episodes, except the last one, which had 4, and all included an English translated dialog along with the original Japanese dialog. The DVD volumes and their US release dates are:

  • Master Keaton - Excavation I (DVD 1) 2003-06-10
  • Master Keaton - Excavation II (DVD 2) 2003-08-12
  • Master Keaton - Killer Conscience (DVD 3) 2003-10-14
  • Master Keaton - Blood & Bullets (DVD 4) 2003-12-09
  • Master Keaton - Blood & Dust (DVD 5) 2004-02-10
  • Master Keaton - Fakers & Friends (DVD 6) 2004-04-13
  • Master Keaton - Life & Death (DVD 7) 2004-06-08
  • Master Keaton - Passion Games (DVD 8) 2004-08-10

Controversy over the "true" creator

Hokusei Katsushika is a pseudonym for Japanese comic story writer (not an artist) Hajime Kimura, who was a co-writer of manga Golgo 13. It had been generally believed that Kimura created the story, while Urasawa did the artwork. After Kimura died of cancer in December 2004, however, Urasawa claimed in an interview with weekly magazine Shuukan Bunshun in May 2005 that Kimura stopped to work as a story writer due to a personal conflict with Urasawa at one point during series, after which Urasawa alone created both story and art. Because of this, Urasawa demanded that the fonts of the name Katsushika appear smaller than Urasawa on the comic's cover. A manga story writer Kariya Tetsu who was a close friend of Kimura and an influential figure in Shogakukan opposed this action vehemently, which resulted in the discontinuation of the further publication of the comics as of July 2005. [1][2][3][4]

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