Aoi Honō
Aoi Honō (アオイホノオ, Blue Blazes) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazuhiko Shimamoto. It was serialized in Shogakukan's manga magazine Weekly Young Sunday from March 2007 to July 2008, when the magazine ceased its publication; a chapter was published in YS Special in October 2008, before being transferred to Shogakukan's then-brand-new manga magazine Monthly Shōnen Sunday in May 2009. A fictionalized account of Shimamoto's time as a student at the Osaka University of Arts, which he attended alongside Hideaki Anno, Hiroyuki Yamaga, and Takami Akai.
Aoi Honō
- Creator
- Kazuhiko Shimamoto
- Publisher
- Shogakukan
- Language
- Japanese
- Genre
- school anime and manga
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wikidata · Q11282655 · wikipedia · Aoi Honō
In this article
The object
The object
It was adapted into a television drama series, titled Blue Fire in English, that aired from July to October 2014. The drama was streamed on Viki with English subtitles. The real Takami Akai and Hiroyuki Yamaga make cameos in the television series: Akai plays a bathhouse manager in episode 10, while Yamaga plays the bartender at a restaurant where his counterpart passes out (which, according to Yamaga, is based on an actual incident) in episode 7.
Key facts
Key facts
• Portal — yes
Key facts
Key facts
• Type — drama • Title — Blue Fire • Director — Yuichi Fukuda • Producer — Junpei Nakagawa • Writer — Yuichi Fukuda • Music — Eishi Segawa • Studio — TV Tokyo • Network — TV Tokyo • First — July 19, 2014 • Last — September 27, 2014 • Episodes — 11
Key facts
Key facts
• Type — manga • Author — Kazuhiko Shimamoto • Publisher — Shogakukan • Imprint — Shōnen Sunday Comics Special • Magazine — * Weekly Young Sunday • (March 8, 2007 – July 31, 2008) • YS Special • (October 2008) • Monthly Shōnen Sunday • (May 12, 2009 – present) • First — March 8, 2007 • Volumes — 33
Key facts
Key facts
• Ja Kanji — アオイホノオ • Genre — Coming-of-age
Cast
Cast
• Yūya Yagira – Moyuru Honō • Ken Yasuda – Hideaki Anno • Tsuyoshi Muro – Hiroyuki Yamaga • Tomoya Nakamura – Takami Akai • Mizuki Yamamoto – Tonko Morinaga • Yuina Kuroshima – Hiromi Tsuda • Kaname Endō – Masahiko Minami • Gaku Hamada – Toshio Okada • Kenji Urai – Kentarō Yano • Yui Ichikawa – Jun Iwase • Haruna Kojima – Masumi • Seika Taketomi – Miyuki • Jirō Satō – MAD Holy • Anna Kon'no – Rumiko Takahashi • Toshio Okada – Osamu Tezuka
Voice
Voice
• Tōru Furuya – Narrator and Katsuya Niimi (Nine) • Hiromi Tsuru – Yuri Nakao (Nine) • Makio Inoue – Captain Harlock (manga) (Space Pirate Captain Harlock) • Masako Nozawa – Tetsuro (Galaxy Express 999) • Masako Ikeda – Maetel (Galaxy Express 999) • Teruhiko Aoi – Joe Yabuki (Ashita no Joe) • Hiroko Ushida – Yōko Shiraki (Ashita no Joe) • Kōichi Yamadera – Captain Juzo Okita, Susumu Kodai and Ryu Hijikata (Space Battleship Yamato) • Katsumi Toriumi – Masato Wakamatsu (Miyuki) • Ryōtarō Okiayu – Jun Kenzaki (Ring ni Kakero) • Kappei Yamaguchi – Nobotta Ōyama (Otoko Oidon)
Manga
Manga
Aoi Honō is written and illustrated by Kazuhiko Shimamoto. The manga debuted in Shogakukan's manga magazine Weekly Young Sunday on March 8, 2007. After the magazine ceased publication on July 31, 2008, a chapter of Aoi Honō was published the Big Comic Spirits special supplementary issue YS Special in October 2008. The series was then transferred to the brand new manga magazine Monthly Shōnen Sunday on May 12, 2009. Shogakukan has collected its chapters into individual volumes. The first volume was released on February 5, 2008. As of August 10, 2026, 33 volumes have been released.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
- Japan
Reception
Volume 2 sold 24,521 copies by May 17, 2009, volume 9 sold 20,415 copies by November 18, 2012, and volume 10 sold 17,068 copies by June 16, 2013. Aoi Honō was one of the Jury Recommended Works in the Story Manga division at the 13th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in 2009. In 2010, the manga received 23 points in the 3rd Manga Taishō, placing last among the ten nominees. The manga received Excellence Award of the Manga Division at the 18th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in 2014. In 2015, along with Asahinagu, it won the 60th Shogakukan Manga Award in the General category. In February 2015, Asahi Shimbun announced that Aoi Honō was one of nine nominees for the nineteenth annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize.
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Aoi Honō, revision 1373330451 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
References
Citations
References
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Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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