The Bottle (lost unreleased one-shot manga from mangaka Hirohiko Araki; 1978)
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The only Illustration of The One-Shot that is Public.
Status: Lost
The Bottle is a lost one-shot manga written and drawn by Hirohiko Araki in 1978. He would later go on to create his popular manga series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
Background
Before Araki became famed due to Jojo's Bizarre Adventures, his first job as a mangaka was for The Bottle, in which a character dressed in old western-style outfits is featured. This was considered crude character design at the time. The work was intended to compete for the 14th Tezuka Award in the first issue of the magazine, Weekly Shōnen Jump (1978). However, as it did not win the award, and its content was never shown to the public.
In the words of Hiroshi Motomiya, judge of the contest at the time:
No one is capable of being a freelance manga artist unless they have a story with originality. Of these, I'm interested in seeing an original story by the artist from 'The Bottle.' Considering his age, it's safe to say that he's a very smart and promising newcomer.[1]
It's possible the story could have been set in the Wild West and featured cowboys, as Araki had made several oneshots and characters that were Wild-West-themed or cowboys themselves.[2] However, the story, characters, and overall premise of the story is unknown, so it cannot be said for sure. It's possible Araki owns the one-shot himself, or the people who held the contest have it. However the status of this one-shot still remains unknown.
Availability
Due to Araki losing in the finals, no prints or premise of the story exist other than the only one-shot that is left. Whoever has ownership of it is unknown, and due to Araki having no possible way of contact on social media, it's possible that The Bottle could be lost forever.