Silver Fang

Silver Fang: The Shooting Star Gin (Japanese: 銀牙 -流れ星 銀-, Hepburn: Ginga: Nagareboshi Gin) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yoshihiro Takahashi. It was published in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1983 to 1987, and collected in 18 bound volumes. The manga became digitally available in English through the Apple's iTunes App Store in 2011. It was licensed in North America in 2020 by Manga Planet. The series tells the story of a young Akita Inu pup called Gin (Japanese for "silver") who leaves his master, a young boy named Daisuke, to join a pack of wild dogs. The pack is gathering strong dogs from all over Japan to fight a giant, monstrous, bloodthirsty and deranged Ussuri brown bear named Akakabuto (Japanese for "red helmet") and his entire army of bears. The story begins from the point of view of the humans, but swings to the dogs afterwards. Takahashi was reportedly inspired by a news article about hunting dogs that had been abandoned by their owners and had begun living as wild animals. The manga was adapted as a 21-episode anime television series by Toei Animation, simply titled as Silver Fang, which aired on TV Asahi and its affiliates from April to September 1986. It received the 1987 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen series. A sequel manga by Takahashi, titled Weed, was published from 1999 to 2009, with four other series following since.