Imagine: it’s late at night, and you’re browsing your feed on the micro-blogging site, Tumblr. You begin to scroll past a multi-image post containing manga images of Monkey Punch’s famous manga Lupin the Third…except it somehow looks different. The more you study these manga pages, the more obvious it becomes that these weren’t drawn by Monkey Punch at all, nor is the text “Lupin” anywhere in the images. In fact, this Lupin seems to be accompanied by cartoony kid sidekicks, and he’s experiencing more pratfalls than usual. You then begin to realize this isn’t Lupin the Third at all, actually, this is…”Nusutto”?
Nusutto (ヌスット) was a short-lived manga series by Kano Banchou, originally debuting in 1970. It followed the comedic adventures of a skirt-chasing master thief, who’s always seen sporting his trademark crew cut and sideburns, and a colourful suit jacket…a premise and design completely identical to the long-running Lupin the Third franchise. Make no mistake about it, both Lupin and Nusutto are the exact same character. The Nusutto manga’s existence is a complete anomaly. Modern Japanese copyright law is so strict that authors and studios are sometimes forbidden from even cameoing characters belonging to other companies, and yet, here was an entire Lupin the Third doppelganger starring in his own manga series. This wasn’t a small doujinshi project, either: Nusutto was printed in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine and approved by publishing house Shueisha.
Nusutto was an obscure curio in Japanese fan circles, and a total mystery internationally, going largely unknown outside Japan until 2021 when western Lupin the Third fans began circulating images from the Nusutto manga. In August 2021, an independent translation circle named All By Aiself Translations released the first chapter in English, marking the first time anyone outside of Japan was able to read Nusutto’s adventures. Aiself’s official summary of the series is as follows:
For Nusutto, every day is a new opportunity to be his name, a thief. With his partner Scotts and surrogate daughter Chiko, Nusutto gets into far-out gag-filled situations and barely tries to hide any resemblance to a more well-known thief from a rival publisher.
This summary doesn’t take Nusutto seriously at all, which is fair, because the Nusutto manga didn’t take itself seriously in the first place. The titular Nusutto is a master thief whose name draws from the Japanese word “nusutto” (盗人), which literally means “thief” or “thieving person”. The manga’s title is written in katakana, a character case mostly used for foreign words, headings, or sound effects. If Nusutto’s title were to be localized in English, the closest, most accurate retitling would literally be Thief Man.
Part I: The Series
Nusutto debuted in the January 26, 1970 issue of Shonen Jump, and was published intermittently throughout the year until the September 14th issue, clocking in at a total of 17 chapters. Most outlets state that the manga was abruptly cancelled; it was never collected into a single volume (also known as a “tankoubon“). Some Shonen Jump readers back in the day assumed Nusutto was a re-branded, kid-friendly Lupin side-series. Others are said to have thought he was Lupin’s younger brother. But by all regards, Nusutto was completely unrelated to the Lupin the Third series, nor did original author Monkey Punch authorize its existence. Author Kano Banchou wasn’t a protégé of Punch’s, either. The manga was simply its own entity, brought into existence by a guy who just seemed to want his own Lupin. Nusutto was to Lupin what the GoBots were to Transformers.
One possible reason for Kano Banchou’s visual plagiarism is that Lupin the Third, at least in 1970, was aimed only at older audiences. Monkey Punch’s manga had been in circulation for three years at this point, having debuted in 1967 in Futabasha Publishers’ magazine Weekly Manga Action (WEEKLY漫画アクション). The master thief’s original misadventures were gritty and dark, with Lupin himself being more of a villainous thief compared to his later incarnations; it was not uncommon to see Lupin sexually assault women or kill men for fun. In 1971, Lupin’s antics were toned down for an anime adaptation by Tokyo Movie Shinsha, the first-ever Lupin the Third anime series, which was later known as “Part I” (or “Green Jacket” among fans, due to Lupin’s sport coat being green in this series). The Manga Action magazine was aimed at older teens thru adults (a demographic known as “seinen”), while Shonen Jump was aimed at tweens and teens. Since Shonen Jump was available to general audiences, it had a wider reach than the adult-oriented Weekly Manga Action magazine, and Shueisha may have assumed they could overtake Weekly Manga Action in numbers alone. This strategy could possibly have worked, but they made the mistake of choosing an artist who could draw Lupin a little too well.
Nusutto was much sillier than the manga it was heavily influenced by, probably by Kano’s intention. In his debut chapter, “I’m A Genius!”, Nusutto the Genius Thief is out strolling through town when he’s nearly arrested by Detective Wyde, another Monkey Punch character design lookalike; Wyde is nearly identical to Punch’s early designs for Inspector Zenigata, though Wyde’s facial expressions are more uncanny. Nusutto uses his special slight-of-hand tricks to escape his handcuffs, leaving Wyde cuffed wrist-to-ankle in them. As Nusutto leaves, two punks try to kill him, but Nusutto is able to weasel his way out of the situation once again by swapping out the punks’ bullets with cherry bombs.
On his way home, Nusutto is approached by a tomboyish street urchin named Chiko. She is said to have been searching for adoptive parents for a while now, even pleading with Nusutto to adopt her. He refuses, but has a change of heart after Chiko is insulted and thrown-about by a rich woman and her chauffeur. In retaliation, Nusutto steals their steering wheel. He then tearfully adopts Chiko and they head out on their way.
Nusutto’s next misadventure is especially bizarre; a strong breeze blows a pair of underpants into his face. A woman and her younger sister run over to retrieve them, and Nusutto assumes the drawers belong to the woman, but he is shocked when the younger girl says they’re actually hers, and she runs away. This run causes a breeze, which blows up the woman’s skirt, exposing her to Nusutto. The woman and Nusutto bounce off each other while a determined Nusutto insists on trying to make out with her, and while Chiko tries to get Nusutto’s attention, the woman leaves, stealing his pants and leaving him to blindly make out with a tree. Nusutto tries to report the woman to a police officer who passes by, but the officer doesn’t believe him, so Nusutto steals his pants. End of Chapter One.
We have some idea of what else happens in the series. A numbered list of chapters exists, and some readers have shared information about the later chapters: Nusutto continues trying to raise Chiko as his protégé, and the readers are introduced to Scotts, Nusutto’s best friend and partner-in-crime who strongly resembles a more haggard version of Monkey Punch’s Jigen Daisuke, Lupin the Third’s best friend and partner-in-crime. The makeshift family unit would go on to have adventures while Nusutto presumably continues to search for the “womanly thief” who stole his pants. It’s unclear where the story would have gone past chapter 17, because Shonen Jump – likely after incurring some legal threats, or becoming paranoid of them – soon cancelled the series and moved on as if nothing had happened. Aiself’s English translation is on pause until scans of any other chapters surface online.
Part 2: The Print Editions
However, that might not be for a very long while. As previously discussed, Japanese copyright law is so strict that many web users in Japan are reluctant to upload content, no matter its age, out of concern that they may incur serious fines and criminal charges for piracy. Some scans and photographs do exist of Nusutto chapter title pages and illustrations; these pages are also visibly aged and weathered, which doesn’t provide much hope for how many copies may survive today. It’s unlikely that Nusutto will ever be reprinted due to its copyright infringement and Shueisha’s past efforts to bury the series.
Shonen Jump magazines used to be printed on cheap newsprint with only a few printing colours, with multicolour glossy pages being reserved for the big name mangaka and series. Most of these series were guaranteed to be reprinted after serialization into collected tankoubon, so readers back in the day didn’t typically hold onto their cheaper weekly copies of the magazine. These were generally recycled with other paper waste or traded out to others as soon as the purchaser finished reading them. In the decades since, these older Shonen Jump issues have gone on to become very rare, with many Japanese media collectors pursuing them as collectors’ items. In Nusutto‘s case, these older back issues are one of the very few options to experience the series.
While the series was never officially published as a single volume, a doujinshi collection of all 17 Nusutto chapters surfaced for sale in the late 2010s. This book was primarily available for sale for a limited time on Yahoo Japan Auction and allegedly at some Japanese comic conventions. The book’s binding bears the “JC” logo of Shueisha’s Jump Comics imprint, but nothing else, not even an ISBN or barcode. The book’s origins are still unknown, but it very quickly became a collector’s item, as an alternative to collecting all 17 rare, long out-of-print Shonen Jump issues. On the inside of the book’s dust jacket is a single line crediting the book’s design to Iwao Shuuzou (岩尾収蔵), a book layout designer also known as “Studio Iwao”. It remains to be seen if Iwao was personally involved in designing the book’s cover, or if they were simply given credit for the vintage homage. But, more importantly, the book’s dust jacket’s inner flap contains something very rare: real information about author Kano Banchou.
Part 3: The Man Behind the Clone
Shikano Satoru (鹿野覚) was born in 1930 in the city of Rumoi. He entered Tohoku University in 1949, and during his time as a student, Shikano began working on manga as a hobby. It was in 1970, at the age of 40, when he took on the pen name of Kano Banchou and began to work on some comedic manga stories. “Kano” is shortened from his surname of Shikano; it is written with the kanji “叶”, which can be read as “kanou” but is generally part of the verb “realize” or “come true”, as in, a wish coming true. His pen first name comes from the word “banchou” (番長), a rank within the Japanese Imperial Guard that was used from the 8th to 10th Century. However, during the earlier half of the 20th Century, “banchou” became slang referring to the leader of a group of teenage delinquents, which is most likely the meaning Kano chose. “Banchou” (バンチョウ) as a name is written in katakana, rather than in the traditional kanji, much like how Nusutto’s name was written only in katakana. In the bootleg tankoubon, Kano’s bio reads:
Word from the Author… “When I was a young boy, I wasn’t in the best position to read books because it was the midst of World War II. Maybe because of that, when books were available after the war, I became obsessed with publishing. It’s a crazy thing. I especially love detective stories. McCulley is one of my favorite novelists, and I remember re-reading The Avenging Twins many times. When I heard there were plans to adapt this novel for the silver screen, I was so happy that I jumped up and down. I was so happy to hear that the novel was going to be adapted into a comic strip, and the fact that it was more of a comical action movie than a mystery story made it all the more enjoyable, especially the antics of Detective Griff, who brings an unconventional detective drama that never fails to make me laugh. It’s one of the books I want to keep. “
Much of Shikano’s life has been kept private. Under the name of Kano Banchou, he created a total of 18 manga series and oneshots between 1970 and 1975, with these manga running in many different magazines, from Jump competitor Shonen Sunday to the girl-oriented shojo Margaret Magazine. Nusutto wasn’t Kano’s only Lupin the Third lookalike; the protagonist of Bakan’s Big Story (バカンデカ物語) has been described by one Japanese collector as “a Lupin-faced Zenigata“. Meanwhile, under his birth name, Shikano published a few adult-oriented dramatic manga. Most interestingly, the September 1980 issue of Manga Sexca published two of his stories – a drama by Shikano and a sex comedy by Kano – with no indication that either one was written by the same individual.
His most successful work with the Kano pen name was a licensed adaptation of Astromyuu 5 (アストロミュー5), a super sentai TV series that is best known for its soft vinyl action figures. The manga ran in Adventure King (冒険王) magazine from April 1974 to March 1975 to some success. It too was never collected into a single tankoubon (though the first chapter was reprinted for a promotional pamphlet), but Japanese media collectors still collect these Adventure King issues to this day. Some photocopied bootlegs do circulate, but only among other collectors who hope to preserve Kano’s Astromyuu 5 in their personal libraries.
It seems that Shikano simply moved on from making manga to go live a quiet life. However, in 1991, things in Shikano’s life were shaken when he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He began holistic outpatient treatment, fortunately to much success, so much so that in 1993, he published a book about his experience called I Beat Cancer. According to personal accounts, Shikano was alive and well and living in Saitama as of 2009. If he’s still alive at this time of writing, he would be 92 years old.
Part 4: The Legacy
How did this happen? We unfortunately may never know for sure. It is definitely a combination of several factors…perhaps a well-intentioned newcomer mangaka wanted to try his hand at a Lupin-type character, but his character design was far too on-the-nose. Meanwhile, Shueisha saw what success Futabasha was having with Monkey Punch’s Lupin the Third and wanted a piece of that success. Most clues point to an author and publisher who just had no idea what they were doing.
The Nusutto doujinshi collection seems to have been made by someone close to Kano Banchou, or at least someone who knew of him, possibly collecting the Nusutto manga as a way to fulfill Kano’s dream of having a published book. Kano fortunately didn’t put all of his eggs in the Nusutto basket, and he seemed to comfortably move on from its cancellation and keep experimenting with manga into the 1980s. Nusutto was his first published work, after all, and moving on from failure is the best possible thing Kano could have done.
Nusutto has gone on to outlive its creator and his other works, albeit in comedic infamy, but perhaps that’s for the best. Separate from Kano, Nusutto has gone on to become a minor meme within Lupin the Third fandom circles. Official artwork and promotional media featuring Lupin is often spoofed by replacing him with Nusutto, as if it came from an alternate universe wherein Nusutto became anime’s most iconic master thief. Both Japanese and English communities regard Nusutto and his friends as bizarre bootleg creatures who somehow managed to slip through the cracks of copyright law, surviving only in the pages of crumbling newsprint. His manga remains as an interesting specimen from an era when Japan’s entertainment industry was still finding its footing…and its copyright allowance.
The Gonzo Brigadoon 
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