Half-German actor Ureo Egawa was likely one of the first six physical models for the original Baruuba himself. Then there was Richard von Coudenhove Kalergi, an actual half-Japanese Austrian politician. Having a Flemish Belgian-Greek nobleman father was one of the minor reasons why the original Baruuba’s mother was also a noblewoman. The caveat is that said mother was a Japanese one whose parent was likely a posh samurai. He was likely the character’s model in the Poplar prints of the first four Baruuba books, which lasted from 1954 to 1959.
The late Filipino cartoonist-writer Francisco V. Coching, who is increasingly acknowledged as a real life (unkempt) Mr. Fanservice himself, was one of the character’s unexpected models (along with the usual Ureo Egawa) in the chapter book companions for Japanese primary school kids of the early 1950s.
Even though the other two are maternally half-Japanese but tended to look a bit more European (their paternal grandmothers might have a stronger bodily role than we’d like to think), the original Baruuba had a more even bodily influence from both parents, which is clearly made canon, largely not only by Yoshimasa Ikeda’s writing, but also by both Omizu Suzuki and Goichi Yanagawa’s artworks within varying degrees.
But it’s Ryutaro Otomo who had the biggest and longest running influence on the classic character and his own Expy Buruuba, likely for obvious reasons. First, he was an actor playing both anti-heroes and straight ones. Second, although not a manly common beauty, he was fanboyed by almost everyone who has watched and still watches films featuring him. Third and last, not only was he one of the ballsiest actors who ever walked the whole Japanese nation, the characters he played were the main inspirations for the first Baruuba’s personality in the pre-PlayStation prints. He also was a model for Buruuba in the Shōnen Club picture stories.
Iconic swimmer and sometime actor Yoshihiro Hamaguchi was the first major model for Baruuba’s (kind of) official expy, Buruuba. However, he wasn’t as pretty looking as Akira Kubo (his indirect understudy) for the 1955 manga tie in and their then-more experienced competitor, who subsequently took the helm from 1957 onwards.
The sixth and second longest running model for both characters might have been Rentaro Mikuni, who was the original character’s model not only in the 1957 Baruuba manga by the little known Jun Toyama, but also as Buruuba’s model in the 1960-61 Shōnen Buruuba manga by Kyuuta Ishikawa, only being partly replaced in portraying the former by the genuinely half-Japanese Masumi Okada in the 1966-67 Ikkosha prints.
Then again, Okada himself was the only actor who properly resembled BaRuuba rather closely, apart from significant height and weight differences.
Okinawa’s Kamen Rider sensation Shuya Sunagawa is likely the closest thing that the canonised Barumba character has to a real life model.
As a plausible wholesale reboot, the more adult and violent Export Edition series, derived from not only the somewhat infamous Sanichi Shobo Shōnen Novel compilations, but also from the original 1948-51 prints of at least six out of seven books. The reason why there are six out of seven books is likely apparent, as the first three published books of the whole series are fairly identical in all but name, and the last one by Yoshimasa Ikeda could not be released until 1992. But since the other three are often more known than both the first two in publishing order, there are only four out of seven books in each subsequent print up until 1988 and 1992 for the end of Showa-early Heisei Sanichi Shobo compilations, which have six out of seven books. The main reason why is that the significant addition of a rather okay manuscript turned seventh book is known as one of the last Yoshimasa Ikeda books with majority-original content known to mankind.
Although the somewhat expanded+slightly renamed 1954-59 Poplar Publishing reprints and the more minimalist 1966-67 Ikkosha reprints tend to have fewer books than the Showa to Heisei Sanichi Shobo compilations, they can still be included in the proposed making of the Export Edition due to being just as historically important as the original Tondo Shinsosha prints, which tend to have fewer surviving copies due to more wear and tear, and the aforementioned successors themselves, which are otherwise still good but tend to be riddled with somewhat questionable changes.
The series will feature a newly canonised Baruuba who’ll be much different from both his older book print+Manga and film+Manga predecessors. He is Baruumba, the son of a southern Okinawan dad and a mixed North Rhine Westphalian-Sinti (Sintesa) mum named Jinhaku. He was born in Hawaii but arrived into the Bwindi rainforest as a baby for a study.
The rest is history. They successfully built a stilt house, but were kidnapped out of their jungle home by murderous cryptid gangsters who would kill them later. It’s been clear that Jinhaku will become something like The Phantom.
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