To celebrate Weekly Shonen Jump‘s 25th anniversary, Shueisha decided to create a new style event to promote it’s history for the fans. The name of the event was called “Weekly Jump Multi World” and was a exhibition that was held in the Tokyo Dome Prism Hall between July 28th through August 15th, 1993. The event cost 700 yen for admission and guests were able to receive as special booklet which highlighted some of the items on display. The booklet was never available for sale directly. Over 48 authors provided new illustrations and congratulatory messages for this anniversary and are documented in this booklet and this is one of them. To help provide context to this profile that was captured in 1993, we have included some additional information to supplement the transcription and rough English translation.
| Name | Takeshi Okano (岡野剛) |
| Date of Birth | May 5, 1967 |
| Birthplace | Chiba Prefecture |
| Blood Type | O |
| Debut Work | “Explosion! Yuriko-sensei” in 1987 ’87『暴発! ゆり子先生』 |
| 1st Jump Serialization | “AT Lady!” (Pen name: Takeshi Nomura) 『AT Lady!』(PNはのむら剛) |
| Additional Info | His most recent work is “Hell Teacher Nube” (Weekly Shonen Jump 1993 issue 27) 最近作は『地獄先生ぬ~ぼ~』(週刊少年ジャンプ’93年27号) |
To celebrate Weekly Shonen Jump‘s 25th anniversary, Takeshi Nomura provided this illustration, shikishi, and comment, which have been roughly translated below:
Congratulations for 25th Anniversary!
Congratulations for 25th Anniversary!
祝!! 25周年
Congrats!! 25th Anniversary
おめでとうございます。これからもがんばって下さい。
Congratulations. Keep up the great work.
The remaining portion of the article gives a summary of the AT Lady! manga which ran in Weekly Shonen Jump starting in 1989’s 52nd issue and concluded with issue 11 in 1990 for a total of 10 chapters.
The following is some additional context and information not included in the article:
Takeshi Okano’s debut oneshot, Explosion! Yuriko-sensei, under the pen name Takeshi Nomura, was originally published in the 1987 Weekly Shonen Jump Autumn Special. The oneshot was split into 2 parts within the issue. For the author comment on the issue’s table of contents, he left the
ああ! 載ってしまった! 恥ずかしくて人前にでられない! だからせめてお手紙下さい･･･。
Aahh! It’s published! Now I’m too embarrassed to go out in public! So please at least send me a letter….
A oneshot of AT Lady! ran in Weekly Shonen Jump issue 33 in 1988. Below is a rough translation of the author comment from that issue’s table of contents:
授賞式の後、お酒を飲めないにもかかわらず、朝まで宴会やった僕を、僕はかわいいと思う!!
After the award ceremony, I partied until the early morning hours, even though I can’t drink alcohol, but I think I’m still cute!!
The “AT” in AT Lady! is an abbreviation of the word “automatic.”
While the series was very short lived, it did receive two print volumes that collected the 10 stories plus additional stories that were exclusive to the volume release. This brings the complete story to a total of 17 chapters. Notably the print volumes received numerous reprints with these extra stories. Volume 1 had four additional print runs as of January 1991. Volume 2 had two additional print runs by January 1991 as well.
In 2019, the author posted on Twitter that he rediscovered the original drawings used for the 25th anniversary.
年末に物置部屋を整理してて発見した、週刊ジャンプ25周年のお祝い色紙&イラスト。ぬ〜べ〜が始まる少し前くらいに描いたモノだと思われます。（ハイレグ水着に時代を感じる！） このキャラを描くことはもう二度とないんだろうなあ、と思っていた頃なので、また描けて嬉しかったのを覚えています。
While doing some end of year cleaning in my storage room, I came across this shishiki and illustration celebrating the 25th anniversary of Weekly Shonen Jump. I think I drew this just before Nube began. (The high-cut swimsuit was really of the era!) At that time, I thought I’d never be able to draw this character again, so I was happy to draw her one more time.
For the Hell Teacher Nube oneshot that ran in Weekly Shonen Jump 1993 issue 27, Takeshi Okano (now using his real name), gave this comment (with a rough English translation):
女房をアシスタントに使うとお金がかからなくていいらしいぞ! (プリプリ博士風に)
Apparently if you have your wife as an assistant, you can save some money! (Said in the style of Professor Puripuri)
Professor Puripuri (プリプリ博士) was a poop-designed character that would pop out of a western-style toilet and give trivia before being flushed away on the children’s TV show Ugo Ugo Ruga (ウゴウゴルーガ). The TV show aired on the Fuji television networks from October 1992 through March 1994. The character Professor Puripuri was notable for the time as it was a CG designed character, which was a rarity in 1993, especially for a children’s show. Additionally, the character became much more well known due to a timeslot change in some regions on April 1st, 1993. The show took over a previous timeslot used for news programming, but the broadcast was not properly labeled as an April Fool’s Day joke by the staff. As a result, over 700 complaints from rural areas seeing the show for the first time were sent in when shown this poop-designed character. In an attempt to correct the intentional “mistake” for the unlabeled show, the following day’s broadcast was titled “Sound Museum Special” in reference to a joke mentioned by Professor Puripuri that show is better if you wear headphones.
The Hell Teacher Nube (地獄先生ぬ～べ～) manga serialization started in 1993 with issue 38 and would run for 276 chapters, completing in 1999 issue 24 for Weekly Shonen Jump. Takeshi Okano was the artist for the series and Shou Makura (真倉翔) provided the story.
Both Takeshi Okano and Shou Makura would later be interviewed for the Great Jump!! series of articles celebrating Weekly Shonen Jump‘s 30th anniversary.
