Saikyō! Toritsu Aoizaka Kōkō Yakyūbu

Saikyō! Toritsu Aoizaka Kōkō Yakyūbu (最強!都立あおい坂高校野球部, lit. "Strongest! Aoizaka Metropolitan High School Baseball Club") is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Motoyuki Tanaka. It was serialized in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday from January 2005 to April 2010, with its chapters collected in 26 tankōbon volumes. In 2008, the manga won the 32nd Kodansha Manga Award for the shōnen category.

Saikyō! Toritsu Aoizaka Kōkō Yakyūbu
First volume cover
最強!都立あおい坂高校野球部
Genre	Sports
Manga
Written by	Motoyuki Tanaka
Published by	Shogakukan
Imprint	Shōnen Sunday Comics
Magazine	Weekly Shōnen Sunday
Demographic	Shōnen
Original run	January 4, 2005 – April 14, 2010
Volumes	26

Story

Six years ago following a crushing defeat, a group of friends promise that they will one day take their friend Suzuo to the Koshien. Now in their first year of high school, the friends have reunited behind the pitcher Kitarō Kitaōji to keep their promise. With Suzuo as their manager and Kitarō's signature left-handed, underhand "Submarine Pitch", they may just go all the way.

Publication

Written and illustrated by Motoyuki Tanaka, Saikyō! Toritsu Aoizaka Kōkō Yakyūbu was serialized in Shogakukan's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Sunday from January 4, 2005, to April 14, 2010.^[1][2] Shogakukan collected its chapters in 26 tankōbon volumes, released from April 18, 2005, to June 18, 2010.^[3][4]

Volumes

No.	Japanese release date	Japanese ISBN
1	April 18, 2005[3]	978-4-09-126374-2
2	June 16, 2005[5]	978-4-09-126375-9
3	August 8, 2005[6]	978-4-09-126376-6
4	October 18, 2005[7]	978-4-09-126377-3
5	January 14, 2006[8]	978-4-09-120046-4
6	March 17, 2006[9]	978-4-09-120129-4
7	May 18, 2006[10]	978-4-09-120375-5
8	August 11, 2006[11]	978-4-09-120567-4
9	November 17, 2006[12]	978-4-09-120677-0
10	January 13, 2007[13]	978-4-09-120870-5
11	March 16, 2007[14]	978-4-09-120879-8
12	June 18, 2007[15]	978-4-09-121078-4
13	August 10, 2007[16]	978-4-09-121158-3
14	November 16, 2007[17]	978-4-09-121217-7
15	February 18, 2008[18]	978-4-09-121284-9
16	June 18, 2008[19]	978-4-09-121400-3
17	September 18,2008[20]	978-4-09-121467-6
18	December 18, 2008[21]	978-4-09-121517-8
19	March 18, 2009[22]	978-4-09-121597-0
20	May 18, 2009[23]	978-4-09-122006-6
21	August 18, 2009[24]	978-4-09-121718-9
22	November 18, 2009[25]	978-4-09-121885-8
23	January 18, 2010[26]	978-4-09-122110-0
24	March 18, 2010[27]	978-4-09-122186-5
25	May 18, 2010[28]	978-4-09-122327-2
26	June 18, 2010[4]	978-4-09-122350-0

Reception

In 2008, the manga won the 32nd Kodansha Manga Award for the shōnen category.^[29][30]

See also

• Be Blues!, another manga series by the same author