Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jun 12, 2026 | 3 comments

“Groovy” in Japanese is “guruuvii”…

Of the 1,000,006 interpretations of Batman there’ve been over his 87 years, one of my faves is Jiro Kuwata’s manga version that was first published 60 years ago, in the June 12, 1966, issue of the Japanese magazine Shonen King.

Quickly recapping: Japan in 1966 got caught up in the Batmania that exploded out of the Adam West TV show. Batman’s American comics were translated into Japanese, but the publisher of Shonen King got the license to print original stories (though they were actually adaptations of DC tales). Jiro Kuwata was hired and his work was serialized in the weekly mag, starting with Issue #150 (aka #23/1966).

But the stories didn’t make it to the U.S. for decades, until Chip Kidd’s 2008 coffee-table book Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan. Since then, Kuwata’s work has enjoyed a cult following in the US, with DC reprinting the whole run, the TV show Batman: The Brave and the Bold animating a sequence, and writers like Grant Morrison riffing on the concept. Finally, McFarlane Toys got into the merchandising act in recent years.

(When I went to Japan a couple of years ago, I was able to score a couple of original Shonen King issues, with help from our pal Yuji Ueda, one of the world’s foremost Batman collectors. Check out his museum-worthy treasure trove.)

But wouldn’t a Bat-Manga Mego be “guruuvii”? Yes, it would. Sadly, one doesn’t exist — unless you have mad customizing skills like 13th Dimension reader Deane — aka @thats_terrific on Instagram — who built his own for himself and some friends (including yours truly, thankfully), using a headzotoys head and various other pieces, like a hand-made box by our pal Anthony “The Toyroom” Durso:

Once Deane had the goods, he went to work:

Mine arrived safely but I’m not playing with him until after Father’s Day, because it feels like a cheat if I do:

That said, nothing’s gonna stop me from reading some Bat-Manga tonight:

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MORE

— The Pure Joy of JIRO KUWATA’s BATMAN. Click here.

— 13 BAT-MANGA COVERS: A JIRO KUWATA Birthday Tribute. Click here.