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Ushijima the Loan Shark Manga Gets Vertical-Scrolling Color Edition

This year's 10th issue of Shogakukan's Weekly Big Comic Spirits magazine revealed on Monday that Shohei Manabe's Ushijima the Loan Shark manga will get a full-color, vertical-scrolling edition. The new edition will be available in various e-book services in Japan starting on February 28. The manga will also have a 20th anniversary art exhibition from March 25 to April 6 at the Shinjuku Marui Men department store's event space in Tokyo, and from July 11 to July 27 at the Namba Marui department store's event space in Osaka.

Manabe launched the manga in Weekly Big Comic Spirits in 2004, and ended the series in March 2019. The manga's 46th and final volume shipped in May 2019.

Satoshi Sasasani recently launched a spinoff manga titled Naniwa Time Leap Aizawa-kun (Osaka Time Traveling Aizawa-kun) in Shogakukan's Monthly Spirits magazine in April 2024.

Ōdō Yamazaki launched another Ushijima the Loan Shark spinoff manga titled Shōnen-in Ushijima-kun (Ushijima-kun in Penal School) in Shogakukan's Manga ONE app in January 2023.

Yamazaki launched the Yamikin Ushijima-kun Gaiden: Ramen Namerikawa-san (Ushijima the Loan Shark Side Story: Ramen Namerikawa) manga, also a spinoff of Manabe's manga, on Shogakukan's online magazine Yawaraka Spirits in December 2017. The manga ended in its fifth compiled book volume in May 2019.

Yū Hayato also launched the ongoing Yamikin Ushijima-kun Nikumamushi Densetsu (Ushijima the Loan Shark: The Legend of Nikumamushi) spinoff manga on Shogakukan's online magazine Yawaraka Spirits in February 2017. Shogakukan published the manga's 22nd volume on November 28.

The main manga won in the General category of the 56th Shogakukan Manga Awards in 2011. The series was nominated for an Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize in 2008 and 2010, as well as for France's Angoulême Comics Awards in 2008.

The manga's live-action television series adaptation ran from October-December 2010, and the first film opened in August 2012. A second season premiered in January 2014, with a second film then premiering in May 2014. The third season premiered in July 2016, while the third film opened in Japan in September 2016. The fourth and final live-action film, Yamikin Ushijima-kun The Final, opened in Japan in October 2016. A live-action spinoff series titled Yamikin Ushijima-kun Gaiden Yamikin Saihara-san (Ushijima the Loan Shark Side Story: Saihara the Loan Shark) premiered in Japan in September 2022.

Source: Weekly Big Comic Spirits issue 10