Kurumizawa's Folly

Kurumizawa's Folly
First tankōbon volume cover
来見沢善彦の愚行 (Kurumizawa Yoshihiko no Gukō)
Genre	Suspense
Manga
Written by	Yohira Tokiwa
Published by	Shueisha
English publisher	NA: Viz Media
Imprint	Jump Comics+
Magazine	Shōnen Jump+
Original run	September 6, 2025 – present
Volumes	2

Kurumizawa's Folly (Japanese: 来見沢善彦の愚行, Hepburn: Kurumizawa Yoshihiko no Gukō) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yohira Tokiwa. It began serialization on Shueisha's Shōnen Jump+ manga service in September 2025.

Synopsis

Set in 1971, Yoshihiko Kurumizawa is a once famous manga artist who has pitched several ideas to his editor in order to launch a serialization, but his editor has been unsatisfied with his ideas. Out of desperation, he turns to rookie manga artist, Kensaku Hata, a young man who is a fan of Kurumizawa's work, in order to launch a serialization.

Characters

1971

Yoshihiko Kurumizawa

A pen name initially coined by two schoolmates, Masahiko Kusumi and Yoshitaka Sawai. They both grew up admiring the work of Tetsuro Oosamu (a fictionalized version of Tezuka Osamu). Together, they created with wildly popular manga Cyber Joe, but have failed to publish another series since it ended (along with their partnership) in 1965.

Kensaku Hata

A nearly illiterate 20-year-old factory worker who idolized Kurumizawa and Cyber Joe from a young age. He draws a manga entitled Balal between shifts at the lathe workshop. Although the art is excellent and the characters are well-written, his lack of formal education means his handwriting is illegible and filled with misspellings, proving too distracting for editors to approve the publication of Balal. While posing as Kurumizawa's assistant, he uses the assumed name Tsukasa Hasegawa.

Kojima

The Shonen Victory editor assigned to Kurumizawa. He discovers the true author of Balal early and is co-opted by Kurumizawa into silence.

Kin Sagara

The mangaka responsible for the naughty comedy No-No Dojo, one of the more popular titles currently running in Shonen Victory.

Mariko Yoshikawa

One of Sagara-sensei's assistants; she is an attractive young woman.

1945–1952

Masahiko Kusumi

A sickly schoolboy from a once-wealthy family who is a talented artist. Although his father indulges his love of manga by purchasing copies and giving them to the boy, Kusumi's mother is strict and destroys any manga she sees, believing it stunts his intellect. The family estate, which had been confiscated by the military during the war, is returned to the Kusumis in 1952, somewhat restoring their status, but Kusumi's father remains busy with rebuilding the business, leaving him in the care of the family retainer, Miss Tsuya.

Takemi Kabayama

The neighborhood bully, who steals candy and manga from the other children and forces them to do his work. Kabayama's father admired the book The Moon Upon the Earth (Hakudo Awai) and enlisted in the army, but returned from the war with severe trauma and after abusing his family, was committed to a sanitarium in Chiba. When he learns that Sawai is Awai's son, he demands money. Although he dies after an accidental fall, Kusumi assumes that Sawai killed him for learning the truth and chooses to cover up his death by burying his body in a shallow grave on the Kusumi family's property.

Yoshitaka Sawai

A student who transferred from Kyushu to Kusumi's school near Tokyo. He is popular, receiving high marks and demonstrating remarkable athletic ability; when Kabayama tries to bully him, he turns the tables and beats Kabayama (and his gang). Sawai befriends Kusumi after Kusumi stands up for him; together, they discover a love of Oosamu's manga and prove to be an effective partnership, with Sawai writing and Kusumi illustrating, but here too, Sawai proves more talented, feeding Kusumi's jealousy. Sawai uses a false name and allows Kusumi to be the public face of their work because his father, Hakudo Awai, was a famed author who died by suicide after Japan lost the war because his most famous book was used as military propaganda.

Mitsuko Fukahori

Nicknamed Micchan, she grew up with Kusumi, Kabayama, and Sawai, transferring to their school in 1945 with Sawai. She is Kurumizawa's self-proclaimed number one fan. Although she also claims to be from Kyushu, she is actually from Nagasaki and is slowly dying from radiation poisoning after the bombing.

Publication

Written and illustrated by Yohira Tokiwa, Kurumizawa's Folly began serialization on Shueisha's Shōnen Jump+ manga service on September 6, 2025. Its chapters have been collected in two tankōbon volumes as of May 2026.

The series' chapters are simultaneously published in English on Shueisha's Manga Plus app, and Viz Media's Shonen Jump service.

No.	Release date	ISBN
1	December 4, 2025	978-4-08-884862-4
Chapters: 1–5
After his latest pitch is rejected, famed mangaka Yoshihiko Kurumizawa is labeled a has-been by the editors of Shonen Victory, who fear that his style and plotlines, like Tetsuro Oosama's, are hopelessly old-fashioned, as none of his ideas have been published for the last six years. Walking home, he sees a young man, Kensaku Hata, throwing a sheaf of completed manga pages off a bridge. When Hata collapses from hunger, Kurumizawa feeds him and asks about his work, struck by the similarity to his own style. Hata flees after the meal, saying that Kurumizawa gave him a reason to live; Kurumizawa returns to collect Hata's discarded manuscript and submits it to Shonen Victory, where his editor Kojima agrees to submit it to the larger panel for evaluation. Kurumizawa tracks down Hata at the factory and meets with him, tricking the illiterate young man into signing an unfair contract by claiming that he can get Hata published in Shonen Victory; Kurumizawa offers his help to edit the story and gives Hata a studio in his expansive house, but plans to pass off Hata's work as his own, which he confesses to a shadowy figure over the telephone. Kurumizawa is motivated to publish again by his love for Mitsuko, his former classmate who is dying from cancer. Hata's next submission Balal is accepted for publication, telling the story of the eponymous outlaw antihero; Hata proves to be a talented storyteller, praising his mentor as the greatest influence in his life and demonstrating a deep understanding of Kurumizawa's most famous work, Cyber Joe.
2	May 1, 2026	978-4-08-884886-0
Chapters: 6–17

Reception

The first volume featured a recommendation from manga writer Kuwahali.

The series was ranked eighth in the web category at the twelfth Next Manga Awards in 2026.

External links

• Official manga website (in Japanese)
• Kurumizawa's Folly (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia