Popverse's top stories

• Sam Kieth, who turned superheroes strange and deeply human with the Sandman and his own The Maxx, dies at 63
• Where to find Popverse at Chicago's C2E2 2026
• “Dipper is yours”: Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch says the trans Dipper headcanon is valid

Not all heroes wear capes. Some don’t even wear pants, but that doesn’t make them any less heroic. Captain Underpants is one of the most popular children’s novel series out there and has expanded into movies, graphic novels, and, now, manga. While there are some design choices that might confuse manga purists, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Manga still serves as a great introduction to any manga-curious young people out there.

If you don’t have a young person of reading age in your house and need a refresher about the origin of Captain Underpants, it is about two mischievous young boys, George and Harold. The two enjoy two things more than anything: pulling pranks and making comics. In this version, their love of comics is replaced by a love of manga, but it is otherwise a beat-for-beat adaptation of the original The Adventures of Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey, who also wrote and adapted the script for this manga. To avoid getting in trouble for ruining a recent football game with their pranks, the pair hypnotize their principal into believing he is Captain Underpants, the hero of the manga they created, who then goes on to save the world from Dr. Diaper.

The story is largely the same that young readers have been excited about for almost 30 years, but the art certainly looks different. Manga artist Motojiro did the artwork while Wes Dzioba provided the color. It is bright and colorful, with expressive faces and a focus on movement and action. Motojiro does a good job of updating the Captain Underpants world into a new format while still having the same irreverent, carefree sense of humor fans expect. They've even managed to preserve the Flip-O-Rama pages that featured in the original novels.

The elephant in the room when discussing this manga adaptation is that it doesn’t initially read like a manga because it is laid out from left-to-right like an English-language comic book instead of right-to-left like a Japanese manga. According to an afterward in the comic, this was at the insistence of artist Motojiro, who wanted to stay true to how Captain Underpants was originally published.

It is one of those situations where I respect the artist’s decision without fully agreeing with it. This change doesn’t hinder the enjoyment of the comic, but it does stop it from feeling like the manga that was promised. There are Japanese sound effects scattered about as well as the odd katakana sentence here and there, but it is the layout of the panels, which are varied and focused on communicating the action in a way that manga specializes in, that carries the Japanese flair beyond a superficial level. The things that make this a manga rather than a Western comic book aren't immediately obvious.

But I get the sense that this is the point. That is what Pilkey and Motojiro intended when they set out to make a Captain Underpants manga: to give young fans the gentle introduction to manga that they might need. A familiar world with characters and a story they know. The hint that this is something different without it feeling intimidating.

I can only hope that bookstores will put Captain Underpants: The First Epic Manga on the shelf beside other manga, allowing it to serve as a siren song for young American comic book fans to lure them into shelves they dared not travel before. Give them a chance to other, more traditional manga after this opens their eyes to the possibilities hidden in this new section.

I don’t know if Captain Underpants: The First Epic Manga will convert existing manga fans into Captain Underpants fans, but I do think it will convert some Captain Underpants fans into potential manga fans, and that is enough to get me excited for this volume hitting shelves. There is a big, endless world of manga out there for young people to discover, and Captain Underpants could be the thing that opens the door for them. 

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Manga goes on sale on April 7, 2026.

How to read Dav Pilkey's books in order, from Captain Underpants to Dog Man to Cat Kid Comic Club and more.