Beast Children: Research Notes

MaxyBee

Six word summary: ‘No side’ for a decent debut

Author - Kento Terasaka (here depicted as a rugby ball, in a striped rugby top)

• Prior works:
  RINGO (2016, 4 chapter, Jump GIGA)<— oh, would you believe it? More rugby! Mini-series like this are kind of seasoning works for new creators, and often lead to a serial that’s VERY similar.
  
• Later works:
  I’m Arm (2020, one-shot, Jump GIGA)It’s about arm wrestling
  
  Gain (2022, one-shot, Weekly Shonen Jump)It’s about golf. Has a vomic promoting it! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TlcL_dLdHlE
  
• Notable people they were an assistant for:
  Tadatoshi Fujimaki (Kuroko’s Basketball, Robot x Laserbeam)As mentioned in press coverage at the time such as oricon https://www.oricon.co.jp/news/2136282/full/?utm_source=Twitter
  
• Notable people they had as assistants:Unknown. No assistant credits in the volumes.
  
• The author played the lock position in school rugby.

Publishing

• Series it replaced:Teenage Renaissance! David by Yushin Kuroki
  
• Series that replaced it:Agravity Boys by Atsushi Nakamura
  
• Series from the same serialisation round:Samurai 8 by Masashi Kishimoto & Akira Okubo
  Double Taisei by Kentaro Fukuda
  Tokyo Shinobi Squad by Yuki Tanaka, Kento Matsuura
  
• Cover appearancesWeekly Shonen Jump 29/2019 (DEBUT)
  Weekly Shonen Jump 36-37/2019 (group cover, pirate theme)
  
• Purchasing options:English: Vol.1, Vol.2, Vol.3 (all Viz links, with supporting digital platforms included)
  Japanese: Bookwalker Japan
  

Manga Itself

• This is one of like… three rugby comics Weekly Shonen Jump has ever had. They are:Scrum (1982, 1 vol) by Koji Koseki
  No Side (1987, 2 vols) by Taku Chiba
  Beast Children (2019, 3 vols) by Kento Terasaka
  
• Logically this means we can one day look forward to a FOURTH rugby manga that lasts four volumes one day. Pattern recognition!
• Would this have gotten serialised without the influence of the Rugby World Cup? You decide!
• Beast Children’s failure, and lack of any other viable candidates, meant that when Haikyu!! ended the following year we had a Weekly Shonen Jump without any sports series for what I think was the first time EVER, in just over 50 years of publication. They blew the streak!
• Volume extra pages includeCharacter profiles
  Equipment explanations
  Technique explanations
  Rules explanations
  Small bonus comics
  Little personal messages and anecdotes from the author
  
• Rugby’s a good sport, watch it. Play it, even.