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is a manga series by Koji Takahashi that was published in Weekly Young Jump from 1985–1996. It centers on the misadventures of the various thugs and delinquent students that make up Kangokou High School's infamous Karate Club. Osu!! Karate Bu was wildly popular in its native Japan, but is otherwise almost completely unknown in most other countries. It spawned a four episode OVA mini-series released from 20 October 1990 to 25 July 1992, a 1990 live action movie, and a 1994 Super Famicom fighting game. ==Background== The series began as a fairly humorous and lighthearted satire of Japan's teenage delinquent-gang subculture told from the perspective of Matsushita Tadashi (who also narrates these early Karate Bu stories), a 2nd year student at Kangokou High and a constant target of Kangokou's numerous bullies who beat him up routinely after school. He is almost always accompanied by his best friend Saitou Takaki, who is also constantly harassed. As the pair grow increasingly tired of being victimized they decide to join the titular Karate Club, which is notorious throughout Osaka's youth gangs for training and producing the city's most hardened and toughest teenage thugs while maintaining the facade of a legit school sports club. But when they join the club, they find themselves picked on just as much if not worse by the club's current members. But as the story progresses they grow to be increasingly capable fighters. These early volumes of the series focused more on satirical jabs at the subculture of student gangs in Japanese high schools, as well as Osakan stereotypes (Osakans are often stereotyped as being loud and quick-tempered yokels). As the series went on it gradually changed its tone to a more serious and violent martial arts manga, with the narrative shifting from the perspective of Matsushita to Takagi Yoshiyuki, the smart mouthed, tough-as-nails captain of the Kangokou Karate Club. In the early Matsushita-centered stories Takagi was more of a supporting character, but quickly grew to become such a fan favorite that he soon wound up as the main character for the rest of the series. While Karate Bu maintained much of its Osaka-related humor (particularly with the characterization of Takagi), the student gang element of the story was treated with increasing seriousness. Along with the manga's change in attitude and central character, the various teenage fighters throughout the series grew increasingly stronger and even began to tap into superhuman ki abilities, putting Osu!! Karate Bu in the company of other similar epic Shōnen fighting manga such as YuYu Hakusho and Fist of the North Star. There is often some confusion as to the title's English translation, as the word ''Osu!!'' has several meanings: it normally translates to ''Go!!'' or ''Push!!'' (to be used in the context of "to push through and endure any hardship" as the character can be transliterated as "pushing patience"), but it's also used as a Japanese kiai phrase in Karate (and various other martial arts), something very much in keeping with Karate Bu's subject matter. It can also be used as an informal greeting (roughly the equivalent of ''yo!!'') as it is an abbreviation of ''Ohayou gozaimasu'' which means ''Good Morning''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Osu!! Karate Bu」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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