Uniqlo just dropped its Shueisha 100th anniversary manga shirts

Uniqlo is releasing the first wave of its "Manga UT Shueisha 100th Anniversary Collection" in Japan on March 16, 2026. The lineup includes designs based on Captain Tsubasa, Kingdom, and Kinnikuman. According to Game Watch Impress, this launch kicks off a broader celebration of the centennial of Shueisha becoming an independent company, which occurred on August 8, 1926.

Shueisha was founded in August 1925. Over the last century, they built an empire primarily through the Jump magazine family. Those publications defined multiple generations of manga, anime, and video games. Uniqlo's UT line has collaborated with them dozens of times before. Past collections usually focused on currently airing anime adaptations or specific magazine anniversaries. This collection pulls from a wider historical timeline to celebrate the publisher as a whole.

Famicom classics on cotton

The initial lineup leans heavily into older properties that also have deep roots in retro gaming. Kinnikuman started in 1979 as a parody of Ultraman before evolving into a massive professional wrestling franchise. North American players likely know it best from the 1985 Famicom game Kinnikuman: Muscle Tag Match, which was localized on the NES as M.U.S.C.L.E..

Captain Tsubasa followed in 1981 and essentially popularized association football in Japan. Tecmo turned the series into a brilliant hybrid of sports and role-playing games on the Famicom, where players selected cinematic special moves from menus rather than directly controlling the players on the pitch. Kingdom is the modern outlier of the trio. It started in 2006, though its historical warfare setting gives it a classic weight that fits alongside the older series.

Manga UT releases typically use original comic panels rather than anime production art. This gives the shirts a distinct halftone aesthetic that appeals to older fans. For properties like Captain Tsubasa, seeing Yoichi Takahashi's original linework on a shirt hits a very specific nostalgic nerve that polished anime vectors usually miss. The 100th anniversary tag suggests Uniqlo is leaning hard into that archival approach.

A dedicated sub-brand since 2018

Uniqlo formally launched the "Manga UT" banner around 2018 to consolidate its various comic and animation crossovers. Before that, you would just see random Dragon Ball or One Piece shirts mixed in with the regular graphic tees. The dedicated sub-brand allowed them to dig deeper into publisher catalogs. They previously did a massive 50th anniversary collection for Weekly Shonen Jump in 2018 that included deep cuts like Hell Teacher Nube and Cobra.

Multiple Regions Confirmed

This first wave is confirmed for release in multiple regions, including Japan and Malaysia, on March 16, 2026. Uniqlo has a well-documented habit of launching these collaboration lines in their home territory weeks or months before they appear internationally. Sometimes specific designs never make the jump overseas due to regional licensing quirks.

I am hoping this entire lineup makes it to their other stores, especially since older properties like Kinnikuman rarely get official apparel outside of Japan. The 100th anniversary branding implies we will see more waves throughout the year. Shueisha's back catalog includes everything from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure to the Dragon Quest coverage in V Jump. That gives Uniqlo plenty of material to mine for future drops. If they dive into the V Jump archives, we might even see apparel based on classic game guides or promotional manga. We will have to watch the international storefronts to see if these shirts cross the Pacific.