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Ushijima the Loan Shark Gets New Spinoff Manga About Namerikawa
posted on by Karen Ressler
Shogakukan's online magazine Yawaraka Spirits announced on Tuesday that it will launch a new spinoff of Shohei Manabe's Ushijima the Loan Shark manga on Thursday. Ōdō Yamazaki is drawing the manga, titled Yamikin Ushijima-kun Gaiden: Ramen Namerikawa-san (Ushijima the Loan Shark Side Story: Ramen Namerikawa).
The "dark (ramen) noir" manga follows the unlucky gangster Namerikawa and his ferocious eating.
Ushijima the Loan Shark (Yamikin Ushijima-kun) has been running in Weekly Big Comic Spirits since 2004, and the manga entered its final arc in October 2016. The manga won in the General category of the 56th Shogakukan Manga Awards in 2011. The series was also nominated for an Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize in 2008 and 2010, as well as for France's Angoulême Comics Awards in 2008.
Yū Hayato has been drawing a different spinoff titled Yamikin Ushijima-kun Gaiden: Nikumamushi Densetsu on Yawaraka Spirits since February.
The manga depicts the human drama in the black market world, as seen through the eyes of the titular loan shark. Ushijima heads Kaukau Finance, an outfit that lends money at an illegal interest rate — "Togo" or 50% every 10 days.
A 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 that same year. The third season premiered in July 2016, while the third film opened in September of the same year. The fourth and final live-action film, Yamikin Ushijima-kun The Final, opened in Japan in October 2016.
