Did Kentarou Miura really work as an assistant to George Morikawa?

There is a misunderstanding I've seen come up a number of times about Kentarou Miura having worked as an assistant to George Morikawa, the author of boxing manga Hajime no Ippo (はじめの一歩). In truth, they only met once, and Miura drew a single panel for Morikawa's first series, Kazuya NOW (一矢NOW).

So, how did the facts get skewed? In short: it's a misinterpretation of something Miura said, and so I figured it would be helpful to clarify things. The source of the confusion is a tribute Miura drew to celebrate Hajime no Ippo's 1000th issue, which was published in Weekly Shonen Magazine #1 of 2013 (released on December 5, 2012). Miura added a small message to his tribute, which Puella has translated below:

Congratulations on reaching the 1000th serialization!!

When I was a student, I was a temporary assistant for you once.
However, I was not talented enough at the time so I only bothered your work. It was a great learning experience for me!
(Here's my drawing) with self-reflection and gratitude for that time!

As you can see, he says he was a temporary assistant on one occasion while he was a student. That's enough to tell us that he didn't work as an assistant in the traditional sense of the term, but rather that the two of them met under special circumstances during which Miura briefly helped him out with his work. Unfortunately, the translation people shared around at the time didn't convey this rather important detail, which led to the confusion.

Of course, beyond this, we also know from Miura's many interviews that he never worked as a professional assistant. He was busy developing his own stories while in school, and his mangaka career started immediately after his college graduation.

Anyway, these were all the details we knew on the matter for several years. Then, on May 20, 2021, when it was publicly announced that Miura had suddenly passed away, Morikawa took to Twitter to express his shock and grief. He also revealed how the two of them had met and what Miura had done for him exactly. Below are translations of his messages by Puella.

In a first tweet, he included the two pictures above along with this message.

May Miura Kentarou-kun rest in peace.
This is not well-known, but he made his debut in Shonen Magazine.
The photo shows the school that he, at 18 years old, drew for my serialization when I was 19.
He was so full of talent that it was even chilling.
We both thought we were lucky to be able to remain authors up to this age.
I'm shocked because of this abrupt news.

This tells us precisely what Miura contributed to Morikawa's work: a panel of a school building at the beginning of Kazuya NOW, his first manga to be serialized. Morikawa then proceeded to post a long Twitter thread detailing the circumstances of their meeting and his impression of Miura at the time.

This photo is (a drawing of) Takamura that Miura Kentarou-kun kindly contributed.
I'm very emotional right now.
Let me tell you about my memories.
When I was in trouble because it was my first weekly serialization and I didn't have any staff, he came to help me.
He was 18 and I was 19.
He was a student in the art department of a certain university and came holding a sketchbook in his hand after the lectures were over.

Because I didn’t know how well he could draw, I showed him what I had drawn and asked him to draw something similar.
I was astonished by the outcome.
It was too good for his age.
After a few drawings were done, I was already very much interested in him.
We who were still young talked about manga, stopping (our work).

Asking him to show me his sketchbook that I was curious about, I was even more astonished and got goosebumps.
An elf, a brand and a swordsman holding a big sword were drawn there. It was Guts with Puck behind him.
Drawn with a thick pencil, it was overwhelming.
"What's this?" I asked.

"It's what's in my head. I want to draw it after I improve", he answered.
I wondered since when he had been keeping it.
Berserk was already there.
Time went by and I started serializing Hajime no Ippo.
Almost at the same time, Berserk was published.
I also heard a bit about him having hardships.
But I was sure of it.

A manga that would definitely be a hit had begun.
It was a serialization that someone like Kentarou-kun had started when he was fully ready, judging he had improved.
I was sure that people would undoubtedly be astonished like I had been.
And that's how it went.
The scenes drawn with all his strength, exerting a transcendent drawing ability.
I had nothing but respect for the energy in each issue.

This is the end of my memories.
It's the only time I met him, but I heard that he cared about how I was doing.
For me, it's also a boast and a pride to have met him.

Kentarou-kun, I’m sorry for having babbled as I pleased.
Someday I'll go read your final episode.

This is a touching and emotional message, and I think it clearly shows the respect and admiration Morikawa had for Miura. It also gives us a glimpse of that chance meeting between these two future masters of their craft, where they spent a few hours simply drawing and talking about manga. It makes you wish they could have met again, which is surely what Morikawa must have felt while writing it.

And so, there you have it. While Miura didn't really work as an assistant for Morikawa, they did share a moment that was precious to the both of them in their formative years.


Further details

Miura and Morikawa were born six months apart in 1966: Morikawa on January 17, Miura on July 11. This means that they met in 1985 at some point between late January and early July.

Morikawa made his debut with a one-shot in 1983, while still in high school. He did not graduate from college, focusing instead on his work. He had two serializations, Kazuya NOW that started in January 1986 and Signal Blue (シグナルブルー) that launched a year later, that were both canceled with only two volumes published. Then, debuting in September 1989 (issue #43 of Weekly Shonen Magazine), Hajime no Ippo was his ticket to success.

Miura made his debut with a couple of one-shots published in 1985. After high school, he attended Nihon University, with his graduation project being the Berserk prototype. The prototype caught the eye of Hakusensha, and it was published in Monthly ComiComi in September 1988. Miura then went to work on King of Wolves (王狼), which began serialization in March 1989 as the lead title for new magazine Monthly Animal House, all the while developing the final version of Berserk, which made its proper debut in August 1989.

Kazuya NOW began its serialization in January 1986, in Shonen Magazine #7. Miura's contribution was in that very first issue. From his tweets, it appears Morikawa didn't know that Miura got two of his own works published before Kazuya NOW debuted. His debut one-shot "Again..." (再び…) was published in Shonen Magazine #36 of 1985 (released in August).

Morikawa misspelled Miura's first name a few times in these tweets (and quickly apologized for it afterwards), which isn't too shocking given that they didn't know each other very well.