While most consider Dragon Ball to be the mac daddy of shonen manga, many of the tropes and plot points found in it can also found years earlier in Kinnikuman. Both start as a gag manga and eventually find their way into tournament arcs and get more serious as they go on, while maintaining the silliness that brought them their original attention; oh both protagonists from another planet and freaky strong. While they both end up diverging in how combat is conducted, they share many of the same aspects that we see used liberally in shonen manga today.

What starts as an Ultraman parody turns into the zany, silly and downright fun intergalactic wrestling tournament manga we all know today. Suguru is a lovable goofball who seems afraid and slow to act at first glance, always finds the courage to win and help his friends. The dynamic between him and Meat is hilarious, and the friends Suguru meets along the way make the story all the more enjoyable, a must read for old school shonen fans and readers who want to experience a manga that is a piece of the origin that we now consider the tournament battle manga.

... Last updated on October 14th, 2020, 9:01pm

Now, I may be biased considering I work a lot with gag manga to begin with, but, kinnikuman has been one of the most exciting and endearing manga I've ever read. I'm not normally even into action manga too much, but the way kinnikuman handles it's characters and story is like no other, and laid the ground work for decades to come.

Yet another brilliant classic I failed to read until now. It started off hilarious and developed into an exciting action story, while still being hilarious. Reading it with no idea what I was getting into I am more than happy. It was a good story and I read the 20-odd volumes out so far taking up nearly all my free time for the last few days.

Yes, a shame indeed. The beginning is very silly, stupid even, but it becomes one of the greatest, if not THE Greatest action-shounen ever. Give it another try. I used to dislike Kinnikuman a lot but nowadays I am totally hooked. Brilliant masterpiece.

What a shame! No one wrote a comment for this wonderful manga! It's a must-read for every manga fan ^___- Really, this is a piece of history of japanese comics. Read it, it's just too fun XD