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Japanese manga series

Major (stylized as MAJOR) is a Japanese sports manga series written and illustrated by Takuya Mitsuda. It was serialized in Shogakukan's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Sunday from August 1994 to July 2010, with its chapters collected in 78 tankōbon volumes. It was followed by a sequel titled Major 2nd, which started in Weekly Shōnen Sunday in March 2015. It was adapted into a 154 episode anime television series by Studio Hibari and later by SynergySP, titled Major. It ran for six seasons on NHK E from November 2004 to September 2010. Two original video animations (OVAs) were released in December 2011 and January 2012. In 1996, Major received the Shogakukan Manga Award for the shōnen category. As of February 2018, the manga had over 54 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best selling manga series.

The story of Major follows the life of Gorō Honda from kindergarten to his career as a professional baseball player. The story focuses on how the main protagonist overcomes tremendous challenges. Subsections are divided according to the official website's story sections.

Gorō's father, Shigeharu Honda, is a baseball pitcher bouncing between the major and minor league teams of the NPB. Nonetheless, Gorō looks up to his father and wishes to be a professional baseball player just like him. Gorō's mother, Chiaki Honda, died from an unknown disease two years before the events of the story. Aside from his father, Gorō is very close to two other people: Momoko Hoshino and Toshiya Sato. Momoko is Gorō's kindergarten teacher and watches out for Gorō, as there are no other children of Gorō's age in the class. Toshiya is another child from Gorō's neighborhood, the only one of Gorō's age, and to whom Gorō taught baseball. The father and son are struck a cruel blow when an arm injury prevents Honda from continuing his baseball career as a pitcher. Gorō is especially shaken by the fact that his father cannot pursue his career as a baseball player. For Honda, Gorō and baseball are all he has left in his life. For his son's sake, Honda takes his best friend's advice, revives his batting instincts, and successfully transforms into a slugger. Amidst these struggles, Momoko is drawn deeper and deeper into the family's life. Eventually, Honda proposes to Momoko. Right when Honda establishes himself in a major league team, the Yokohama Marine Stars, the Tokyo Giants sign a contract with the American MLB player Joe Gibson, famous for his huge physical build and hard fastballs. When the Marine Stars with Honda and the Giants with Gibson finally meet on the field, Gibson strikes out every single Marine Stars batter, except for Honda. At his second at bat, Honda hits a home run off Gibson's pitch. After Honda's home run, the Marine Stars coach launches a series of bunt attacks, scoring additional runs, and psychologically shaking up Gibson who considers the tactic unsportsmanlike. By Honda's third at bat, Gibson has completely lost his mental focus, and accidentally pitches a dead ball that strikes Honda's head. The umpire immediately calls Gibson off the mound, though Honda quickly gets back onto his feet and continues with the game. Honda's excellent play makes him the headline of major newspapers. The next morning, Honda dies due to internal bleeding in his skull, leaving his heartbroken son and fiancé in mourning.

Three years have passed since Momoko adopted Gorō as her son upon Honda's death. When Gorō reaches fourth grade, he is finally old enough to join the local little league team, the Mifune Dolphins. However, the local kids are mostly interested in soccer, and Gorō has to get his new school friends to join him to have enough members to keep the baseball team from being dismantled. Gorō shows himself to be an exceptionally gifted baseball player. The team coach recommends that Gorō join the nearby Yokohama Little team instead, which has better players, coaching, and resources. When Gorō visits the team, he discovers that not only is his childhood friend Toshiya at Yokohama Little, but his father, Shigeharu Honda, was a member of the Yokohama Little team with the current coach when they were younger. Gorō finds himself torn; following in his father's footsteps would mean abandoning the friends he asked to join the Mifune Dolphins. Gorō has a big fight with Momoko over the issue, and Momoko seeks advice from Hideki Shigeno, Honda's old friend and teammate. While meeting with Shigeno, Momoko coughs up blood and is hospitalized. While it turns out to just be a gastric ulcer, it makes Gorō realize that the living people in his life are much more important than the dead ones. Meanwhile, Joe Gibson has just returned to the MLB after pitching in Japan for three years. He offers Gorō an all expenses paid invitation to travel to America and watch the MLB All Star game, where Gibson will be the starting pitcher for the National League. At the game, not a single of the AL's top players can touch Gibson's pitches, and Gibson earns a standing ovation from the audience. Gibson explains that this was his way to show Gorō how great a slugger Honda had been since Honda had hit a home run off Gibson's best pitch. After the game, Gibson offers to allow Gorō to throw a ball at him. Gorō responds that he will postpone this "punishment" until the day he can pitch as well as Gibson. Back in Japan, with renewed determination, Gorō leads the Mifune Dolphins through various trials and practice matches to defeat Yokohama Little, the best team in the region. In the end, the Dolphins do defeat Yokohama Little, but Gorō is injured in the process, making him unable to play for a few months. At the end of the season, Gorō's adoptive mother marries Hideki Shigeno, and the new family plans to move to Fukuoka after Shigeno is traded from the Marine Stars. Gorō, unable to face his teammates, leaves without saying goodbye, leaving them heartbroken.

Gorō moves back to Mifune when his stepfather is traded back to the Blue Oceans. Gorō finds his little league friends grown up and attending Mifune East Junior High School. Gorō surprises his friends when he tells them that he has been playing soccer and does not plan on playing for the junior high baseball team due to a shoulder injury he sustained in Fukuoka. Gorō reveals to his friends that he has switched to being a southpaw pitcher. At first, Gorō is not interested in playing baseball because he wants to play with hard balls, not the rubber ones used in the junior high league. During a match where Mifune East Junior High faces Mifune West Junior High, Gorō takes to the mound after seeing Mifune West insult his friends. In the game, Gorō's team manages a comeback victory. Together, Gorō and his friend Komori Daisuke rebuild the junior high baseball team. Eventually, they enter the regional junior high tournament, where Gorō once again finds himself playing against his friend and rival Toshiya Sato, who plays on the Tomonoura Junior High School team. Mifune eventually beats Tomonoura in a close game. Gorō's friendship with Toshiya goes downhill when Toshiya decides to go to Kaido High School, where Gorō has no desire to go. A Kaido scout urges Gorō to enter Kaido, but Gorō refuses the offer, saying "as long as Toshiya goes to Kaido, I won't enter Kaido." The scout tells Toshiya to quit applying for Kaido, as they want Gorō instead. Gorō and Toshiya make a bet: their two teams will play against each other, and the winner will attend Kaido. Mifune East wins, but Toshiya and Gorō decide to take on Kaido together. After a tournament defeat against Kaido Junior High, Gorō prepares to attend Kaido High to improve his pitching. Gorō, Komori, and Toshiya try out for the baseball team of the prestigious private high school. Komori is disqualified forced to attend Mifune High instead. Gorō and Toshiya make it through the first round of tryouts. Gorō then succeeds at an academic examination designed to test his determination.

Immediately after they graduate middle school, Gorō and Toshiya are sent to Dream Island, where they undergo six months of hard training and make some new friends. Gorō then proceeds to the Atsugi campus, where he defeats a scholarship team. Gorō and Toshiya make the junior varsity team and spend a year and a half together as teammates. However, in their second year, Gorō reveals that his sincere desire is to challenge the excellent players of Kaido instead of playing on the same team as them. Toshiya is hurt by Gorō's decision but respects him for it. Gorō leads the junior varsity team to victory in a scrimmage against the varsity team and then quits Kaido High School to play for another team.

Gorō has returned home after quitting Kaido. On arrival, his mother voices her dissatisfaction with the fact that he did not consult with her about his departure. She insists that Gorō be accountable for his actions and accept the responsibility to pay the application fee at any school that he chooses to enroll. Gorō's enrollment is rejected by several schools due to the Kaido assistant coach, Egashira, threatening to sue other schools for accepting him. Gorō is finally able to avoid Egashira's interference by enrolling at Seishuu High School. A girls only school until just two years prior, Seishuu does not have a baseball team. Gorō enrolls, determined to create a baseball team from scratch. After he has enough committed players, Gorō and the team enter the summer tournament. First, Gorō and his new teammates play an exhibition match with the second string players from Kaido. In the game, Gorō's foot gets injured when a rival player steps on it in a supposed accident. Despite the injury, Gorō and his team persist in the summer tournament and manage to reach the quarterfinals against Kaido. After a close game that goes into extra innings, Kaido wins and moves on to Koshien, while Gorō collapses from exhaustion.

Despite losing the match against Kaido, Gorō attracted the eyes of many scouts during his time with the Seishuu High School team, including some from the Yokohama Marine Stars and the Tokyo Warriors. However, upon learning that Joe Gibson is still pitching in MLB and has dedicated his 300 win season to his "young friend in Japan", Gorō loses interest in Japanese professional baseball and leaves for America to try out for MLB. Meanwhile, Sato is recruited by the Tokyo Warriors, while Mayumura is hired by the Yokohama Marine Stars. Gorō's fastball, while ineffective against Major League sluggers, allows him to start in Triple A instead of the rookie league. At first, he joins the Cougars but is soon released after a fight with Joe Gibson Jr. from the Oklahoma Falcons. Eventually, Gorō joins the Memphis Bats. In Triple A, Gorō finds a new rival: Joe Gibson Jr, son of Joe Gibson and an outstanding slugger. Junior views the death of Gorō's father as the cause of a tragedy that occurred on his own family, and he challenges Gorō to a bet: If Junior can hit a home run off Gorō, Gorō is to return to Japan and never set foot on American soil again. On the other hand, if Gorō can strike out Junior, then Junior will visit Gorō's father's grave and apologize for his insults. Gorō manages to strike out Junior with his increasingly deadly fastball. The Bats go on to win the Triple A playoffs.

After the baseball season is over, Gorō returns to Japan. Shimizu finally admits her feelings for Gorō, and they became a couple. Meanwhile, Gorō learns from Toshi that there is going to be a Baseball World Cup the following year hosted in America, and for the first time, Major League players will be allowed to compete in it. Due to Gorō's impressive performance in the practice match between Rookies and the All Star Japan team, he is selected as a replacement pitcher starting the second round of preliminaries. Gorō pitches as the closer against Venezuela and South Korea, earning a win and a save, respectively. Then, Mayumura earns a win pitching as closer against the Dominican Republic, advancing Japan to the semi finals. Shimizu comes to America to cheer Gorō on and encounters Toshiya's younger sister, Miho Sato. The day before the semi finals match against Cuba, Toshiya runs into his sister, and the traumatic memories of being abandoned by his parents seven years prior are rekindled. Toshiya's body goes into involuntary shock, and he is hospitalized. Miho feels guilty about the incident, but Toshiya calls her and asks her to watch the next game. Toshiya makes several excellent plays against Cuba's aggressive offense in the semi finals, and Gorō gets the win as the closer. After the Cuba game, Gibson Jr. reveals to the Team USA's manager, as well as to Gorō, that his father, Joe Gibson, has angina pectoris. Junior hopes that the manager and Gorō might be able to dissuade Gibson from getting on the mound and potentially killing himself. However, with the players mostly in an "exhibition game" mentality, Gibson takes the mound in the 8th inning of the USA vs. Venezuela semi finals, risking his life to raise the spirits of his teammates. The following day, Gibson collapses during a practice session, and Gorō rushes to the hospital to see him. Gibson reveals to Gorō that, in a chance meeting with Momoko 10 years prior, he asked her why she had not accepted any monetary compensation from him. Momoko simply asks Gibson to remain a top class baseball player until Gorō grows up so that Gorō can be proud of having a father who hit a home run off of such a great pitcher. Momoko's words were the pillar that supported and drove Gibson all these years. He felt that if he did not play in the Baseball World Cup and face Gorō on the mound, he would have failed Gorō and Momoko. Gorō comforts Gibson, telling him that he has done enough, and urging him to watch Gorō and Junior's showdown on TV. The Japan vs. USA finals game begins with Japan taking a five run lead, prompting Gibson to leave the hospital and go to the stadium to cheer his teammates on. Japan sends out Gorō in the 8th inning to protect their 1 run lead, but Junior hits a home run off Gorō's 100 mile (161 km) fastball. The game goes into extra innings. Gorō and Junior keep up consecutive no hit innings until the 15th inning, in which Toshiya's bat breaks during an at bat. The bat's flying shrapnel hits Gibson in the heart. Gibson catches the ball and uses his remaining strength to throw out a runner. He collapses soon after. Gorō, determined to strike out Gibson Jr, pitches the fastest pitch of his life: a fastball. However, Junior hits a home run off the pitch, sealing the World Championship for the USA team. After the finals, Gorō loses his desire to play baseball and returns to Japan instead of going to Florida for spring training. But upon seeing his old teammates play in Japan, Gorō rekindles his desire to play and leaves to join the Hornets in Florida.

As the new MLB season begins, Gorō performs exceptionally well for the Hornets in exhibition matches. In his first official MLB game, he pitches a no hit no run game up until the 8th inning, when he suddenly loses his control. In his second game, his pitches start to go wild in the 5th inning. Suspecting "yips", the team's catcher, Keene, stops Gorō from voluntarily stepping off the mound, gambling on the chance that Gorō will overcome his struggles. Gorō throws at the batter's head and is ejected by the umpire. In his third game, Gorō is unable to retire a single batter. He is removed from the game in the first inning and sent back to the Triple A Bats to improve his play. Believing that Gorō's defeat at the hands of Gibson Jr. was the cause of his yips, the Hornets send Gorō to Billy Oliver, a sports psychologist, for treatment. After Gorō recovers from his yips, he feels aimless, leading to performance struggles. Later, Gibson retires after a defeat at the hands of Gorō and the Hornets. Gibson's departure from baseball is treated as voluntary retirement, but in reality, Gibson takes the opportunity to start from scratch. He signs a minor league contract with Double A Bulls. Gibson fights his way back up to the majors and waits for Gorō to rechallenge him. Ultimately, the Hornets lose to the Salmons, ending their World Series chances. Gorō heads back to Japan to take a rest and solidify his relationship with Shimizu. A flash forward eight years shows Gorō being brought out to close the last game of the World Series, where the Hornets face off against the Raiders. During the match, Shimizu is shown giving birth to her and Gorō's first child. The ending finds Gibson Jr. against Gorō in one final face off.

Following the events of Season 6, the Major OVA finds Gorō, after a splendid fourteen year career, forced to retire from the Hornets. He can no longer pitch due to a shoulder injury despite surgery and rehabilitation. He rejects some offers of coaching positions and decides to return to Japan to continue playing baseball as a hitter and fielder. Before leaving, Gorō promises Toshi he will meet him again on the field as a batting opponent in the Major League, and Sato pledges to wait for Gorō. Gorō takes two years to train himself as a fielder and a hitter. Afterward, he joins the Blue Oceans and returns to being a professional player, inspiring his daughter and his son as his father had inspired him.

Major has been adapted into an anime television series by Studio Hibari and later by SynergySP, titled Major (メジャー). The series was broadcast on NHK E for 154 episodes divided in six seasons from November 13, 2004, to September 25, 2010. An animated film telling the story between the first and second seasons of the anime was released on December 13, 2008. Two OVAs were released on December 16, 2011, and January 18, 2012. The OVAs adapted the World Series chapter, which was skipped in the TV series.

As of February 2018, the Major manga had over 54 million copies in circulation. Major won the 41st Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category in 1996. On TV Asahi's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, in which 150.000 people voted for their top 100 manga series, Major ranked 83rd. In 2006, the anime series ranked 46th in an online poll conducted by TV Asahi on Japan's favorite animated TV series. A Celebrity List of the same poll placed the anime series at the 70th spot. In 2005, sporting goods manufacturer Mizuno entered into a one year agreement with Shogakukan to have their company logo appear in the baseball equipment used by Goro Shigeno and other characters in the manga series. Under the agreement, Mizuno would also use the Goro Shigeno character in other promotional events. An article from The Boston Globe credits the manga series for helping increase the popularity of the gyroball pitch. Following Japan's victory against the United States in the 2023 World Baseball Classic final, Matsuda created a commemorative illustration featuring Goro alongside Shohei Ohtani that was published in Sports Nippon.