Bat Kid

Before Ichiro, before Star of the Giants, even before the Nippon Professional Baseball league, there was Inoue Kazuo’s Bat Kid (1947-49), celebrated as the first major baseball manga in Japan. Originally serialized in the legendary magazine Manga Shōnen, Bat Kid played an essential role in the growth of postwar manga. Its popularity drew aspiring cartoonists to Manga Shōnen’s famous amateur submissions section, many of whom would later go pro. It kept Manga Shōnen in business long enough to host Tezuka Osamu’s first major magazine serial, Jungle Emperor.