Do Retry: Research Notes (Patreon)

Tucker

Title:

• Do Retry ドリトライ
  • The katakana suggests that “do” is supposed to be pronounced like “doh”/”dough” rather than the English word spelled D-O. Not sure why yet, though.
  • UPDATE: from what I can find online, the ド in Do Retry is a play on words with ド級 (Do-kyuu), which is the Japanese term for a dreadnought-class battleship. Guess it’s just there to match the WWII-era setting? Maybe? This seems to be yet another case of a series title being too high concept for its own good.

Author

• Kirarazaka, Jun 雲母坂 盾（きららざか じゅん)
  • Kee-rah-rah-zah-kah, Jɯn

Characters

• O’okami, A’ozora 大神 青空（おおかみ あおぞら）
  • Oh-kah-mee, Ah-oh-zo-rah
  • Family name written as “great god/spirit” and personal name is written as “blue skies.”
  • Family name is also a homonym with the word for “wolf,” though it’s written completely different
• O’okami, Akari 大神 星（おおかみ あかり）
  • Oh-ka-mee, Ah-kah-ree
  • Personal name written as “star”
• Yuuka 優華（ゆうか）
  • You-kah
  • Written as “gentle flower”
• Kuro’iwa, Keiji 黒岩 啓示（くろいわ けいじ）
  • Kɯ-roe-ee-wah, Kay-gee
  • Family name written as “black rock,” personal name written as “revelation”
• Izumi, Ikuno 和泉 生野（いずみ いくの）
  • Ee-zɯ-mee, Ee-kɯ-no
  • Family name written as “peaceful stream,” personal name written as “living field” (don’t think it’s especially significant)
• Nijimura, Kyousaku 虹村 凶作（にじむら きょうさく）
  • Nee-jee-mɯ-rah, Kyo-sah-kɯ
  • Family name written as “rainbow village,” personal name written as “villainous plan” (pretty on the nose, huh?)
• O’okami,  Yuuhi 大神 夕日（おおかみ ゆうひ）
  • Oh-kah-mee, Yɯ-hee
  • Personal name written as “night and day”....maybe a play on his childrens’ names being themed after the morning sky (Aozora) and night sky (Akari)
• O’okami, Taiga 大神 大河（おおかみ たいが）
  • Tie-gah
  • Personal name just means “big river,” doesn’t seem significant

Other

• Baku-ju ten-gan
  • Bah-kɯ-jɯ, Ten-gone
• Shimonoseki City
  • Shee-mo-no-seh-kee

MaxyBee

Manga Details

• Jun Kirarazaka (caricature: a penguin with a star on its belly and a cap)
  • Notable people they were an assistant for
    • Yusei Matsui (of Assassination Classroom fame)
      • on The Elusive Samurai (credited in vol.9)
    • Daijiro Nonoue (of The Last Saiyuki fame)
      • on The Last Saiyuki (credited in vol.3)
  • Notable people they had as assistants
    • None known
      • All assistants on Bone Collection were referred to by family name only, so unless I recognise their art style that’s often a dead end.
  • Other works
    • Pre-serialisation one-shots:
      • END OF Childhood Friends (Jump GIGA Winter 2018 issue 1)
        • Smart friend and tough friend fall out over a girl, have over the top mech vs martial arts fight as a result.
      • JUSTICE HAZARD (Jump GIGA Summer 2018 issue 3)
        • Sweet-happy student secretly uses powers to prevent bullying and help others.
      • Bone Collection (Weekly Shonen Jump 39/2019)
        • Prototype for Bone Collection, if you can believe it.
    • Bone Collection (2020, 2 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump)
      • Shonen Flop episode 10. A sort of absurdist yokai-battling adventure where a spirited young boy pulls bone weaponry from the chest of his yokai beloved to fight villains. A good bad manga.
        • Read Bone Collection here
    • More one-shots:
      • Back to Attack Hero (Weekly Shonen Jump 31/2021)
        • Some sort of fantasy adventure featuring a small round vampire and a massively buxom woman with horns? I’ve not read it, and it isn’t collected anywhere.
      • My Heart is Strong (Shonen Jump Plus, 19/02/2022)
        • Modern day boxing manga. Prototype for Do Retry. The title is also what Aozora’s Dad says in chapter 1 of Do Retry. Neat.
          • Still available on Shonen Jump Plus (Japanese)
    • Author trivia:
      • Favourite series are Bleach, A Silent Voice, and Dragon Ball (from profile in Jump GIGA Winter 2019 issue 1)
      • Participated in the Tokiwa-so Project, a house-share initiative operated by NEWVERY to support manga-ka pursuing their debut, named after the famous house-share that Osamu Tezuka, Shotaro Ishinomori, Fujiko Fujio and others lived.
• Publishing
  • Run Dates:
    • 7th May 2023 to 17th September 2023
  • Series it replaced
• Ginka & Glüna by Shinpei Watanabe (4 vols, flop, SHONEN FLOP EPISODE 79)
• Series that replaced it
  • Two on Ice by Elck Itsumo (0+ vols, ongoing)
• Series that started at the same time as it
  • Tenmaku Cinema by Yuuto Tsukuda & Shun Saeki (3 vols, flop, SHONEN FLOP EPISODE 90)
  • Kill Blue by Tadatoshi Fujimaki (2+ vols, ongoing)
  • Nue’s Exorcist by Kota Kawae (2+ vols, ongoing)
• Chapters/Volumes:
  • 19 chapters/2 volumes (unconfirmed if it’ll be stretched to three somehow, vol.2 releases on recording day, will update this)

Manga Itself / Misc thoughts

• The Bombing of Tokyo (Tokyodaikushu in Japan, ‘Operation Meetinghouse’ within the US military) occurred across the 9th and 10th of March 1945 (Showa 20), resulting in over 100,000 civilian deaths, 1,000,000 people rendered homeless, and the same amount injured, with some 16 square miles of Tokyo destroyed. A war crime, a horrific wound upon Japan, and reportedly the most destructive bombing in human history. Around 300 planes, some 1,665 tons of bombs, cluster bombs of napalm that sprayed out upon landing to burn away the city and its populace. A single event more damaging than even Hiroshima. Our protagonist survived that.
  • Read more about this specific horror of war here.
• Tuberculosis (Kekkaku) was such a prevalent and dangerous threat within Japan that by the 1950s it was known as their national disease, a leading cause of death accounting for 15% of all deaths in 1950. There are piles upon piles of academic materials looking at the disease’s history with the country, and how the post-war economic environment prevented the disease being meaningfully controlled for some time. This fraught relation with the disease has lead directly to Japan’s tight pandemic controls and implementation of universal healthcare.
• Before the bombing, Aozora made money helping (poorly) at a munitions factory, a fairly common bit of enforced work under the emperor during world war two for civilians, but not one that stops them BEING CIVILIANS.
• The Shuei gang in chapter 1 are part of a long-standing tradition in Shueisha-published manga of inserting the company name into various groups, gangs, organisations, businesses, and so on and so forth. Once you know about it you spot it everywhere.
• Neon signs, such as Aozora sees in the red-light district in chapter 4, have been around since roughly 1910. I thought it was an anachronism, but nope! Realism!
• I’ve seen fitness folk claim online that you can gain about an inch of muscle on your arms over a week, though maybe digging for your life increases that. How would I even test that? Come on, get serious.
• Volume extras include:
  • Character profiles
  • Inter-chapter sketches
  • A profile for the gang
  • A sketched layout for the boxing arena
  • Historical context provided by supervising partner Prof. Ryuichi Narita of Japan Women’s University