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Saturn Apartments' Iwaoka Adapts Shinichi Hoshi Short Story
posted on by Lynzee Loveridge
The December issue of Akita Shoten's Mystery Bonita magazine announced this month that Hisae Iwaoka (Saturn Apartments, Koshoku Robot) will publish a manga adaptation of acclaimed science-fiction author Shinichi Hoshi's "Tōsō no Michi" (Escape Route) short story in the January issue when it ships on December 6.
The story begins when two criminals board a train to escape justice. However, their escape isn't as clean as they had hoped when they notice all the passengers and even the conductor are all mannequins. Suddenly, the train starts going faster.
Iwaoka is drawing the short as part of the ongoing "Comic Shinichi Hoshi" omnibus series. Other contributors have included Shūzō Oshimi (The Flowers of Evil), Masakazu Ishiguro (Sore de mo Machi wa Mawatteiru, Trigun: Multiple Bullets), and Tsuchikana Nishimura (Nakayoshi-dan no Bōken).
NHK adapted the story into a live-action short for its Hoshi Shinichi Short Shorts television series in 2008.
Hoshi's works were adapted into an award-winning television program in 2009, and Studio 4°C had previously animated Hoshi's Kimagure Robot (The Capricious Robot) science-fiction short story into a series of 10 2-minute television shorts in 2004. Hoshi has been called the "God of Short Shorts" for writing over a thousand short stories in science fiction, comedy, and other genres.
Iwaoka launched Koshoku Robot (Solitary Eating Robot) as a series in the December issue of Shueisha's Jump X magazine on Saturday. Iwaoka ended her Narihirabashi Denki Shoten (Narihirabashi Electric Appliance Store) manga series in the 20th issue of Kodansha's Evening magazine on September 24.
Iwaoka's Saturn Apartments won the Grand Prize in the Manga Division of the 15th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in 2011. The series was also honored by the American Library Association's Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) division as one of the the top 10 graphic novels for teens in 2012, and received an Eisner nomination in 2012. Viz Media released the seven-volume series in North America.
