Master Keaton — BrandWiki

Master Keaton

type	tv series
director	Masayuki Kojima
producer	Hiroshi Yamashita Michiru Ōshima Manabu Tamura Masao Maruyama
writer	Tatsuhiko Urahata
music	Kuniaki Haishima
studio	Madhouse
network	Nippon TV
first	Season 1 October 6, 1998 – March 30, 1999 Season 2 (direct-to-video) June 21, 1999
last	June 21, 2000
episodes	39
episode list	List of Master Keaton episodes

Master Keaton (MASTERキートン) is a Japanese manga series created by Hokusei Katsushika, Naoki Urasawa, and Takashi Nagasaki. It was serialized in Big Comic Original from 1988 to 1994, with its 144 chapters collected into 18 volumes by Shogakukan. In North America, Viz Media licensed the manga for English release.

An anime adaptation was created by Madhouse, with 24 episodes airing from 1998 to 1999 in Japan on Nippon Television. An additional 15 episodes were created and released as original video animations (OVAs), bringing the total to 39 episodes. The anime and OVA series were dubbed into English and released in North America by Pioneer Entertainment from 2003 to 2004. Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki created a sequel to the series, titled Master Keaton Remaster. Set 20 years after the original series ended, it ran in Big Comic Original from 2012 to 2014 and was collected into a single volume.

By 2014, Master Keaton had over 20 million copies in circulation.

Plot

The story revolves around Taichi Hiraga-Keaton, the son of Japanese zoologist Taihei Hiraga 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

Characters

(Hiraga-Kīton Taichi)
A British national who works as a freelance insurance investigator in London, and occasionally as a visiting lecturer at universities. However, his dream is to continue his archaeological research into the possible origins of an ancient European civilization in the Danube river basin. Keaton's parents separated when he was five and he grew up in Cornwall with his mother. He studied archeology at Balliol College, Oxford before joining the British Army and becoming a member of the Special Air Service (SAS), where he held the post of survival skills instructor and saw combat in the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege and the 1982 Falklands War.
Hiraga Yuriko (平賀百合子)
Keaton's 15-year-old daughter. Keaton met Yuriko's Japanese mother when she was studying mathematics at Somerville College, Oxford and they married while still students. The two divorced when Yuriko was five, just like Keaton's parents had done when he was the same age. Although a junior high school student, Yuriko is mature for her age and also has an interest in archeology.
Hiraga Tahei (平賀太平)
Keaton's Japanese father who is a zoologist. He occasionally gets involved in his own investigative mysteries. His well-born English wife, Patricia Keaton, seems to have not cared about his womanizing ways, but they are separated. He has a pet Chow Chow–St. Bernard mix, Taisuke (太助), who has an extraordinary sense of smell, even for a dog.
(ダニエル・オコンネル)
Keaton's business partner at the Keaton & O'Connell Assurance Investigating Office on Baker Street. The two started working together in 1982. In general, Daniel tends to stay at the office, while Keaton does the legwork.
(チャーリー・チャップマン)
Keaton's childhood friend who looked at him as a love rival over their mutual friend Deborah. Following his childhood dream to be Mike Hammer, he works as a private detective. Charlie's work occasionally sees him cross paths with his childhood rival. Although he tries to prevent Keaton from showing him up on the case, he never succeeds.

Production

There is controversy over who wrote the stories for Master Keaton.[2] Hokusei Katsushika is a pseudonym of manga story writer Hajime Kimura, who was also a co-writer of Golgo 13.[2] Originally, Katsushika created the series' story, while Naoki Urasawa did the artwork. However, after Katsushika died of cancer in December 2004, Urasawa claimed in a May 2005 interview with Shūkan Bunshun that Katsushika eventually stopped work as a story writer due to a personal conflict with him, after which Urasawa alone created both story and art. Because of this, Urasawa demanded that Katsushika's name appear smaller than his on the manga's covers. Manga story writer Kariya Tetsu, who was a close friend of Katsushika and an influential figure at Shogakukan, opposed this action vehemently, which resulted in the discontinuation of the further publication of the manga by July 2005. In 2019, Urasawa said that he had the ideas for the characters and Master Keaton was very much based on that. He was also going to write the manga in addition to illustrating it, but because he was already writing Yawara!, the editorial team was concerned about a young artist being able to create both. They brought in story writers, but the stories they proposed did not match Urasawa's vision. So instead meetings were held to create stories for the manga. But eventually the editors changed, and these "intimate" meetings were no longer possible. This is when Urasawa took the lead on writing the stories. He said that for the last two volumes, it is fair to say he came up with the stories alone.[3]

Jason Thompson reported that Viz Media considered translating Master Keaton for release in North America in the 1990s, but were "scared off" by the low sales of their release of Urasawa's earlier work, Pineapple Army.[2]

Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki began the sequel Master Keaton Remaster (MASTERキートン Reマスター) in 2012. When asked why he went back to a series after so many years, Urasawa stated it was because with the original series he had a hard time making the story he wanted due to contractual obligation, and because people affected by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami said they had enjoyed the series, so he wanted to do something for them.[4]

Reception

Manga

By November 2014, Master Keaton had over 20 million copies in circulation.[42] On TV Asahi's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150,000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, Master Keaton ranked #49.[43] Viz Media's release of Master Keaton was nominated in the "Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia" category two years in a row at the 2015 and 2016 Eisner Awards.[44][45] The series was also included on the Young Adult Library Services Association's 2016 list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens.[46]

Mark Sammut of Comic Book Resources praised Master Keaton as an "exhilarating adventure series" that "tackles weighty themes while generally maintaining an accessible tone through its endearing cast of characters and episodic nature".[47] Jason Thompson called it a solid action-adventure series, whose "somewhat old-fashioned structure" reminded him of Golgo 13.[2] Otaku USA's Joseph Luster claimed that with the series, Urasawa, Katsushika and Nagasaki "[weave] a gripping tale of intrigue that bubbles and boils along with the best thrillers out there." He strongly praised Urasawa's art; "Story beats and transitions are confidently executed, and there's just the right amount of exposition peppered in to make it all seem natural." Luster felt that Master Keaton had the potential to appeal to a wider audience than most manga available in English.[48] In a review of the first English volume for Anime News Network, Rebecca Silverman called the premise of the book fascinating and its stories well-told, but felt the episodic nature of the chapters took away from its overall strength. She described the title character as "a bit like a dorkier Indiana Jones, hiding his badassery under a bad haircut and wrinkled suit" and cited him as a reason to read the series. Silverman speculated that Master Keaton is for mature readers looking for something more serious, as the "motivations of the characters is just as, if not more, important to the plot as the actual events themselves, and even though Urasawa's art is clear and clean, this is not a book you read quickly."

Anime

Hiromi Hasegawa of Ex.org called the anime adaptation's faithfulness to the manga very good; "it has succeeded in capturing the atmosphere of the original and conveying that in a different media. But on the other hand, when watching the show it feels as if I'm reading a manga that moves and talks." They described the episodes, which often take place in Europe, as ranging from murder mysteries to anti-terrorist activities with occasional archaeological/zoological or family interests. Hasegawa noted that each episode has at least one action scene, but explained that these serve as plot devices rather than focal points as the show's plot is "intensely dialogue-oriented". Although Hasegawa praised the art as beautiful and detailed, they had complaints with fluctuations in the animation quality. Hasegawa finished their review by recommending Master Keaton to mature audiences with more sophisticated tastes, and said they learned "quite a bit about political, historical, and ethnic situations in Europe as well as interesting theories in Archaeology or military techniques and weaponry" from the series.[50]

Reviewing the anime for Anime News Network, Zac Bertschy described Master Keaton as a cross between a Tom Clancy novel and Matlock that defies all the conventions of anime and is clearly aimed at an older audience. Although calling the stories unique and interesting, he stated that the show never becomes gripping because they teeter "between exciting". Bertschy found the animation to be "competent but nothing special" and the English dub to be "a little on the silly side".[51]