Chameleon Jail: Research Notes

Tucker

Title: 

•  カメレオン ジェイル Chameleon Jail

  • Just the English written in katakan
    

Author

• Writing: Watanabe Kazuhiko

  • Wah-tah-nah-bay Kah-zɯ-hee-ko

• Art: 

  • Pen name: Ino’u’e Takehiko 井上 雄彦（いのうえ たけひこ)

    • Ee-no-ɯ-eh, Tah-kay-hee-ko

    • (fake) family name is a phrase that means “above-the-well,” kinda like the wordy town names in the UK. Think of it as being broken up as “I-no-u’e”

  • Real name: Nari’a’i Takehiko  成合 雄彦（なりあい たけひこ）

    • Nah-ree-ah-ee, Tah-kay-hee-ko
      

Characters

• Chameleon Jail

• Shall/Sharl? 

  • I guess it’s just pronounced like the English word?

• Wan

  • Pronounced like “Juan” without the H sound

  • A Japanese version of the Chinese name usually written as “Wang” in English, but the Japanese pronunciation is a lot closer to the original Chinese, so just use that (the name isn’t supposed to rhyme with “bang”)

• Daniel Gyaro

  • Gya-roh

  • Last name is probably supposed to be an allusion to the Japanese phrase 餓狼 “garou,” meaning “starving wolf”

• Mamale/Mahmaru

  • Ma-mal

  • OR ma-ma-rɯ(?)

• Chochorina/Chocholina

  • Cho-cho-lee-na OR cho-cho-ree-na

• Kat Suri (Katto 掏摸)

  • Sɯ-ree

  • Pronouncing it like “Surrey” in England is pretty close

  • Suri is the Japanese word for pickpocket

Other

• Kara 

  • Kah-rah

  • Perhaps taken from the Spanish word “cara” meaning face? If it’s from Japanese, it’s either a reference to kara meaning “shell/husk” or karada, meaning body. But it could also just be totally made up by the author

  • Update: from the differences between the two fan translations floating around online, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is likely a constructed term from two different kanji meaning something like “storehouse of faces”...but I can’t quite figure out how it would originally be written in Japanese, and digital versions of the original Japanese text seem to have likely been scrubbed from the internet.

MaxyBee

Manga Details

• Kazuhiko Watanabe (Writer)

  • Notable people they were an assistant for

    • None Known

  • Notable people they had as assistants

    • None Known

  • Other works

    • None Known

  • WELL WHO THE FUCK WAS HE, THEN?!?!

    • So 渡辺和彦 as a name gives us a few options, mostly a music critic and a voice actor, which don’t feel particularly likely. A photo of him is in one of the Chameleon Jail volumes, but it’s just a dude. If he was anyone, he didn’t do anything of note past this point. Unless he’s the music critic or voice actor. Again, unlikely.

• Takehiko Inoue (Artist)

  • Notable people they were an assistant for

    • Tsukasa Hojo on City Hunter (for ten months)

  • Notable people they had as assistants

    • Yasuhisa Hara (Kingdom)

      • on REAL and Vagabond

    • Katsumi Tatsuzawa/TATSUZ (Transition Game)

      • Chief Assistant on Slam Dunk, REAL, and Vagabond.

    • Kazuto Mihara (The World is Dancing)

      • on REAL

  • Other works

    • SLAM DUNK (1990-1996, 31 vols, Weekly Shonen Jump)

      • The greatest manga of all time, the 7th highest-selling manga series of all time (over 185 million copies sold), a series so monumental that it shot Weekly Shonen Jump sales to unimaginable heights, and made basketball into a popular sport in Japan. When Slam Dunk ended, MILLIONS of readers dropped Weekly Shonen Jump. Had an anime, four tv movies, an epilogue drawn on 23 chalkboards as an exhibition, and a recent hit film in The First Slam Dunk, which is also written and directed by Takehiko Inoue. Whatever manga you think is the greatest of all time has NOTHING on Slam Dunk, sorry.

        • Learn more about Slam Dunk and where to buy it (physical copies only) over on Viz Media’s official website!

        • Watch The First Slam Dunk on Netflix!

    • BUZZER BEATER (1996-1998, 4 vols, Sports-i ESPN/Monthly Shonen Jump)

      • In the year 2XXX AD basketball is the biggest sport in the universe, played in an intergalactic league where humans are at the bottom end of the table. This is the story of them changing that. A VERY early webcomic, ahead of the curve in many respects, Buzzer Beater was co-published on a sports website and in Monthly Shonen Jump, where it ran to a planned end. Received two anime series that expanded on the original series. 

        • Read Buzzer Beater on Manga Planet!

    • Vagabond (1998-present*, 37 vols, Morning) *has been on hiatus since May 2015

      • A fictionalised biography of legendary Japanese swordsman Musashi Miyamoto, largely based on Eiji Yoshikawa’s novel Musashi. One of the prettiest comics you’ll ever read, especially when Inoue starts using a brush for the majority of his art over a pen. Viz Media have released this in multiple formats, the latest being a large hardcover format starting in January 2025. As of this writing, Vagabond is the 27th highest-selling manga series of all time(82 million copies sold).

        • Learn more about Vagabond and where to buy it (physicals only) over on Viz Media’s official website!

    • REAL (1999-present, 16 volumes, Weekly Young Jump)

      • Three teenagers marginalised by society and physical abilities are joined together by wheelchair basketball. Released sporadically over the years, this is currently Inoue’s only active comics work, releasing a chapter or so every year since a return from hiatus in 2019. Despite this staggered release, REAL has been a huge success, selling over 16 million copies and has cemented Inoue as a respected voice in the world of wheelchair basketball and parasports in general. It is also the only work of Inoue’s other than Buzzer Beater to be available in any digital format. 

        • Learn more about REAL and where to buy it over on Viz Media’s official website!

• Publishing

  • Run Dates: 

    • July 31, 1989 to October 16, 1989

  • Series it replaced

• Cyber Blue by BOB, Takaichi Matsui, and Tetsuo Hara (4 vols, flop, remember this one for later)

• Series that replaced it

  • Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai by Koji Inada and Riku Sanjo (37 vols, HUGE HIT)

• Series that started at the same time as it

  • Ten de Showaru Cupid by Yoshihiro Togashi (4 vols, flop, but that’s okay it all works out for him later on)

• Chapters/Volumes: 

  • 12 chapters/2 volumes (republished as one volume in 2004)

Manga Itself / Misc thoughts

• Takehiko Inoue originally had this series published under his real name, Takehiko Nariai, changing it to Inoue at a later date as a way to try and maintain some privacy.

• It is likely that Takehiko Inoue was selected to be the artist for this series based on his assistant work for Tsukasa Hojo on City Hunter, which this is… trying REALLY hard to be. Risk Hunters are just a poor man’s Sweeper. 

• Chameleon Jail is one of Takehiko Inoue’s manga still kept in a physical-only jail, along with Slam Dunk and Vagabond. It’s believed that this is due to resistance from Inoue himself, a common occurrence in the manga industry.

• Despite being a big old flop, the volume release did have its appeal, with volume 1 including Inoue’s debut one-shot ‘Kaede Purple’, an incredibly well-received basketball story that became the basis for Slam Dunk.

• Explosions can actually change the structure of your face, just not quite in the same way Chameleon Jail does.