Saint Young Men
6The Care · 60聖☆おにいさん · Seinto Oniisan
Jesus and the Buddha take a holiday on Earth, sharing a cheap flat in the Tokyo suburbs and trying to live like ordinary young men.
- Published
- 2006–present
- Demographic
- seinen
- Magazine
- Morning 2
- Status
- ongoing
Created by
6Filed under 6. The Care takes an obligation, and this entry is protects one.
What it is
Hikaru Nakamura's Saint Young Men has run in Kodansha's Morning magazines since 2006. Jesus and the Buddha, after centuries of hard work, take a holiday on Earth. They rent a small apartment together in Tachikawa, a suburb of Tokyo, and live on a tight budget, shopping, going to the bathhouse, blogging and trying not to be recognised.
How it works
The comedy comes from two of the most important figures in human history dealing with ordinary modern life. Jesus loves shopping and blogs; the Buddha is careful with money and draws manga. Their miracles happen by accident: Jesus turns bathwater into wine when he relaxes, and animals gather around the Buddha. Many jokes depend on details from the Bible and the Buddhist scriptures.
The tone
The series is affectionate rather than mocking. Jesus and the Buddha are kind, good friends and very funny, and it pokes fun at modern Japanese life more than at religion. Other figures, including saints, archangels and Buddhist deities, visit them.
Why it matters
It became a best-seller and was adapted as an anime film (2013) and live-action productions. It is a much-loved example of gentle comedy built on an outrageous premise, and Nakamura's other major work, Arakawa Under the Bridge, shares its warm absurdity.
The title by its numbers
The arithmetic is unremarkable and worth doing anyway: 60 across 3 words, reducing to 6. The weight sits in “Young”, which carries 28 on its own and reduces to 1.
Six is nurturer & harmonizer — care, community, and the weight of duty. The reference files it as an obligation. Read that way, what the entry is really recording is the 6's pull toward responsibility, care, and the people involved.
Heart's Desire 6, Personality 9: the presentation folds back into the want: reckoning in service of responsibility.
The letters give 6; the subject's own figures do not agree. 総画 strokes is 25, a 7 and debut year is 2006, an 8. Where the two part company the reference trusts the figures, because a title is a decision somebody made about the thing, and these are the thing.
The 6 smothers. The same instinct that protects a readership produces the paternalism several of these entries document. What the 6 still asks is that you name the people this was answerable to. The other entries that reduce to 6 are collected on The Care.
Quick answers
- Is Saint Young Men finished?
- No. Saint Young Men began in 2006 and is still being serialised.
- Who created Saint Young Men?
- Saint Young Men was created by Hikaru Nakamura.
- Where was Saint Young Men serialised?
- Saint Young Men is serialised in Morning 2.
- What kind of manga is Saint Young Men?
- Saint Young Men is a seinen manga, published for a readership of adult men. Its genres are comedy and slice of life.
If you like Saint Young Men
- K-On!2007 · seinen · comedy, musicFour high-school girls revive their school's light music club, and spend more time drinking tea and eating cake than practising.
- Yotsuba&!2003 · seinen · slice of life, comedyA small adopted girl encounters ordinary things — a swing, a bicycle, rain — for the first time, in a comedy about noticing the world.
- Laid-Back Camp2015 · seinen · slice of life, comedyA girl who likes to camp alone in winter meets a cheerful newcomer, and both discover the pleasures of camping in the countryside around Mount Fuji.
- Bocchi the Rock!2017 · seinen · comedy, musicA painfully shy girl who has spent years practising guitar alone in her room is pulled into a real band, and has to face an audience.