Hulk: The Manga is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 re-telling of The Incredible Hulk

Hulk (comics)

The Hulk is a fictional character, a superhero in the . Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1 ....

 within a Japanese setting. It was originally published in Japan in 1970 in Weekly Bokura Magazine and written by Kazuo Koike

Kazuo Koike

is a prolific Japanese manga writer, novelist and entrepreneur.-Biography:Early in Koike's career, he studied under Golgo 13 creator Takao Saito and served as a writer on the series....

 of Lone Wolf and Cub

Lone Wolf and Cub

is a manga created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, a television series starring Yorozuya Kinnosuke, and is widely recognized as an important and influential work.Lone Wolf and Cub...

 fame, with art by Yoshihiro Moritou (also the artist on Microman

Microman

is a line of toys manufactured by Takara from 1974 to the present. Microman toys were originally imported to the United States by Mego Corporation as Micronauts until the company went bankrupt in 1982...

, the Japanese version of Micronauts

Micronauts

The Micronauts comic books feature a group of characters based on the Micronauts toyline. The title was published by Marvel Comics, Image Comics, and Devil's Due Publishing. Their first comic appearance was in Micronauts #1 with characterizations created by Bill Mantlo and Michael Golden...

) and Kosei Saigou. At the time, Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

Marvel Worldwide, Inc., commonly referred to as Marvel Comics and formerly Marvel Publishing, Inc. and Marvel Comics Group, is an American company that publishes comic books and related media...

 was attempting to introduce some of their super-hero concepts to Japan, by having Japanese creators produce their own unique stories loosely based around the characters.

Spider-Man and the Hulk were the only two characters to get this treatment at the time, with the Spider-Man

Spider-Man: The Manga

Spider-Man: The Manga is a Japanese manga illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami which retold the story of Spider-Man in a Japanese setting. It was originally published in Japan from January 1970 to September 1971 in Monthly Shōnen Magazine....

 stories (primarily by Ryoichi Ikegami

Ryoichi Ikegami

is a manga artist. He was assistant to manga artist Shigeru Mizuki in 1966. In 2001, he won the Shogakukan Manga Award for general manga as the artist of Heat. He became a professor at Osaka University of Arts in 2005...

) proving quite popular, leading to many reprints over the years, other attempt was made at the 1990s with X-Men

X-Men: The Manga

X-Men: The Manga , is a manga by Bamboo Comics/Marvel Comics Group inspired by its American counterpart produced for a Japanese audience. Marvel used this title as another attempt to break into the Japanese comic market...

. The Hulk stories were less fortunate, and have never been reprinted or translated since their initial outings. Consequently, very little is known about any of the stories or how different the characters were to their US counterparts.

Distinctively, these stories were just referred to as Hulk, rather than The Incredible Hulk as with Japanese reprints of Marvel U.S. stories.