Where to Start with Kaiji Kawaguchi
— Choosing Between The Silent Service and Zipang

This article contains affiliate links to Amazon.com. As an Amazon Associate, TokyoComic earns from qualifying purchases.

If you read Japanese and are new to Kaiji Kawaguchi, open Volume 1 of The Silent Service. Aim for Volume 12 first. That is where the story moves from Tokyo Bay to the Arctic Ocean, so you do not need to commit to all 32 volumes. If you like time-slip stories, try Zipang, and if you want near-future Japanese defense, try Kūbo Ibuki (Aircraft Carrier Ibuki). If you read only English, the choice is much smaller, and the next section explains what we could find.

It is easy to feel lost. The Silent Service runs 32 volumes, Zipang 43, A Spirit of the Sun 26 across two parts, and Kūbo Ibuki 31 with its sequel. Those four alone add up to 132 books. On top of that, a third season of Kūbo Ibuki began in April 2026. This guide does not try to cover everything. It narrows the way in to four choices.

If you read only English

None of the four long series has a complete official English edition. Of the four, only Zipang ever had English volumes: four of them, in a bilingual edition. The database MangaUpdates lists The Silent Service, Zipang, both parts of A Spirit of the Sun, Kūbo Ibuki and its sequel Great Game, Seizon LifE, Boku wa Beatles, Hyōma no Hata and Sagara as not licensed in English, and we found no announcement of a new edition. Here is what we could find.

The rest of this guide translates our Japanese guide for readers of Japanese. Its links search Amazon.com for the Japanese books, and you may find few results.

The best place to start in Japanese

Pick the way in closest to your mood. You do not need to follow them all in order.

If you cannot decide, we recommend The Silent Service. The one-line premise, a nuclear submarine captain who declares an independent nation, is enough to make you want to read on, and its way of moving battles at sea and the politics of several countries at once carries on into Zipang and Kūbo Ibuki. If this one suits you, the other long series should be easy to get into.

Confusing titles to check before you buy

Some Kawaguchi books are easy to mistake if you go by the title alone. Here are four to know first.

Make Volume 12 your first goal in The Silent Service

The Silent Service ran in the magazine Morning from 1988 to 1996. Shiro Kaieda, captain of the Seabat, a nuclear submarine that Japan and the United States built in secret, disappears during its trial voyage and declares the independent nation of Yamato. The series runs 32 volumes, yet only about two months are said to pass in the story. Think of it as a story that follows a single voyage closely, through both combat and diplomacy.

The attention it drew went beyond manga, too. At a Cabinet Committee meeting of Japan’s House of Representatives on May 29, 1990, Natsuo Yamaguchi, a member of the house, asked the Director General of the Defense Agency whether he had read it. While it was running, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended in the real world, which affected the setting and the story. A Soviet submarine appears early on, while the later volumes name Russia.

The story continues as one piece after Volume 13, so Volume 12 is a break, not an ending. If you want to know what happens next, go straight on to Volume 32. Readers who prefer debate to battle should enjoy the later volumes most.

If the live-action version got you interested

The live-action series began with a 2023 film. In 2024 came the streaming series The Silent Service Season 1: The Battle of Tokyo Bay, which added unreleased scenes and a continuation to the film, and in 2025 the film The Silent Service: The Battle of the Arctic Ocean. In March 2026 a sequel was announced, and the lead actor, Takao Ōsawa, said they would film to the end of the manga. In September it was announced that the latest entry, the streaming series Chinmoku no Kantai: Mezame yo, New York (The Silent Service: Awaken, New York), will stream in summer 2027.

The live-action version moves the story to the 2020s and changes the setup of Yamato and of the characters, so we recommend reading the manga from Volume 1 as well. If you are in a hurry, Tokyo Bay is Volumes 9–12, the Arctic Ocean is Volumes 13–15 and the climax of the general election is Volumes 16–17. The battle off New York starts at Volume 18. The latest entry has been announced as the story after Yamato reaches the waters off New York, so if you want to read ahead, aim for around there.

There is also a spin-off about Kaieda’s youth, Ruri no Namikaze (4 books). We think it is best read after the main series.

Volume numbers differ between editions

When you buy print books or omnibus editions, do not assume the volume numbers match. For example, the first 12 volumes of The Silent Service are only 3 books in the super-omnibus e-book edition.

BOOK☆WALKER’s listing for The Silent Service shows “35 books,” but that is because free trial editions of Volumes 1–3 are counted separately. The main series is 32 volumes.

In Zipang, read to Volume 8 to see where it is heading

Zipang is about the Aegis destroyer Mirai of Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force, which slips back in time to the waters of the Battle of Midway in 1942. It ran in Morning from 2000 to 2009 and fills 43 volumes. History begins to change when the executive officer, Kadomatsu, saves Lieutenant Commander Kusaka, a navy officer who was supposed to die.

The 2004 TV anime (26 episodes) ends early in the manga’s Manchuria arc. If you want to know what happens after the anime, Volumes 7–8, where Kusaka crosses to Manchuria, are a rough guide.

We will also say something about the ending in advance. The story is complete, but the “postwar arc” the author talked about in 2002 takes up only 6 chapters, in the final Volume 43. You will probably enjoy it more if you do not expect a long look at postwar Japan.

Read Kūbo Ibuki in publication order

Kūbo Ibuki begins with a clash over the Senkaku Islands, after which the fleet of the Ibuki, an aircraft carrier in all but name, heads into battle. The series was made with original-concept cooperation from Osamu Eya, and the first series won the Shogakukan Manga Award. As of December 2025 it had passed 10.5 million copies in circulation. With its sequels there are three seasons, and reading them in publication order is the least confusing way.

In Great Game, Kaburagi arrives as the next candidate to captain the Ibuki and becomes the center of the story. Akitsu from the first series also stays on, so reading in order makes the relationships easier to follow. Chokepoint runs in Big Comic.

If you saw the 2019 film Kūbo Ibuki, open the manga as a different story. The film has an original plot, and the opponent was changed from China to a fictional “East Asian Federation” (our translation).

Read A Spirit of the Sun through Part 2

A Spirit of the Sun depicts what follows after a huge earthquake splits the Japanese archipelago into north and south. It ran in Big Comic from 2002 to 2010 and won both the Shogakukan Manga Award and the Grand Prize in the manga division of the Japan Media Arts Festival.

There are two things to know. First, the story jumps ahead early on. Volume 2 is set 15 years after the disaster, and the story of refugees in Taiwan continues through Volume 4. The “Japan” arc starts at Volume 5, so reading that far shows you how wide the series is. Second, do not take Volume 17 of Part 1, Gun’yū-hen, as the ending. The story of the refugees returning to Japan continues in Part 2, Kenkoku-hen (“Foundation Chapter,” 9 volumes). The second half of Part 2 is set in Japan in 2026, which happens to be this year.

The series opens with the earthquake, so if you find that hard, there is no need to push yourself to read it.

Shorter works, and another side of the artist

To try something before a long series, read Seizon LifE (3 books). The story is by Nobuyuki Fukumoto, creator of Kaiji. A father told he has six months to live hunts for the man who murdered his daughter, with six months left before the statute of limitations runs out. The statute of limitations reflects the law when the series ran, which is different from the law today.

If you want works that are not military stories, you can choose from these.

If you also want short stories, there is ’86–’02 Kawaguchi Kaiji Zentanpen (complete short stories, 1986–2002).

When you finish, go back to the roots

Kaiji Kawaguchi was born in Hiroshima Prefecture in 1948 and is said to have debuted in 1968. As a schoolboy he was crazy about Satoru Ozawa’s submarine manga Submarine 707, and in The Silent Service he got to draw the submarines he had wanted to draw back then. What made him start drawing manga was Shinji Nagashima’s Mangaka Zankoku Monogatari. To compare war manga by another artist, Leiji Matsumoto’s Senjo Manga series is a good lead.

Whichever way in you choose, one book is enough to start. If you read Japanese, open Volume 1 of The Silent Service tonight. The long voyage begins when a captain on a trial run disappears. If you read only English, start with Confession.