Billy Bat Books in Order

What Is Billy Bat About?

The story begins in 1949 Los Angeles. Kevin Yamagata is a Japanese-American cartoonist whose popular creation — a wisecracking black bat called Billy Bat — has made him a small celebrity in the US comics industry. When a colleague tells him the character may have been unwittingly copied from a Japanese original, Kevin travels to occupied Japan to investigate, and that investigation pulls him into a conspiracy that turns out to be far older and far stranger than anything he could have imagined.

The Billy Bat symbol — always the same simple cartoon bat, rendered in stark black and white — has been appearing in human history for centuries: in cave paintings, in medieval manuscripts, on the walls of rooms where history-changing decisions were made. The manga asks what connects all these appearances, whether the bat is a witness to history or a driver of it, and what Kevin's own role in the pattern might be.

As the series progresses, the timeline expands dramatically. Chapters move between different eras and different characters, all connected by the bat. The structure is complex — closer to 20th Century Boys than to a single linear narrative — but each thread eventually feeds into a unified whole.

Einstein, Hitler, and the Historical Figures in Billy Bat

One of Billy Bat's most distinctive features is its use of real historical figures as characters. Urasawa did the same in Monster (postwar Germany) and Pluto, but Billy Bat goes further, weaving historical figures into scenes across multiple decades.

Albert Einstein and Adolf Hitler both appear in sections of the manga set during the World War II era. Their appearances are not decorative — the logic of the story requires that the Billy Bat symbol reached people in positions to shape world events, and both men fit that description. Urasawa's treatment is consistent with his approach in other works: historical figures are rendered with care and placed in dramatically plausible situations, rather than used as cameos.

Other historical figures who appear in the series include Lee Harvey Oswald, figures connected to the Kennedy assassination, and characters linked to the Apollo moon program. The manga's thesis — loosely stated — is that the bat has been present at every turning point in modern history. The historical figures are the proof of that thesis, rendered in Urasawa's characteristically grounded, realistic art style.

How Many Chapters Does Billy Bat Have?

Billy Bat has 166 chapters in total, collected across 20 tankōbon volumes. The series ran in Kodansha's Morning magazine — a weekly anthology aimed at adult manga readers — from January 2008 through October 2016. Each volume collects approximately 8–9 chapters.

At 20 volumes, Billy Bat sits in the mid-range of Urasawa's major works: shorter than the 24-volume 20th Century Boys but longer than the 9-volume Pluto. For Western readers collecting the English-language edition, all 20 volumes have been published by VIZ Media under their VIZ Signature imprint.

Billy Bat Plushie and Merchandise

The Billy Bat character — a stark, graphic black bat with a simple white face — is one of the most visually distinctive designs in Urasawa's catalog. Because the bat is itself a cartoon character within the story (Kevin Yamagata's creation), it exists at two levels: as a narrative element and as a piece of in-universe popular culture, which makes it unusually suited to merchandise.

Billy Bat plushies have been produced as official merchandise and are available through Japanese import retailers and secondhand marketplaces. The design works well as a plush — the high-contrast black-and-white look translates directly into soft goods without losing the character's identity. Collector interest has grown steadily, particularly outside Japan, as the English-language edition has expanded the series' readership.

Other merchandise includes enamel pins, tote bags, and art prints featuring the bat design. For North American readers, the most reliable sources are Japanese import shops and auction platforms. Availability varies — print runs are limited and the character has never had the mainstream Western exposure of a franchise property, which makes original merchandise relatively scarce.

Why Billy Bat Manga Is Trending Again

Search interest in Billy Bat has been rising steadily, particularly in Canada and English-speaking markets, driven in part by renewed interest in Naoki Urasawa's body of work. The 2023–2024 adaptation of Pluto as a Netflix anime introduced a large new audience to Urasawa and Nagasaki, and many viewers followed that interest back to the duo's other collaborations — Billy Bat being the most substantial.

Unlike Monster and 20th Century Boys, Billy Bat has not yet received an anime adaptation, which makes it one of the few major Urasawa works still available as a "pure manga experience." For readers who discovered Urasawa through Pluto or a prior anime and want to read something that hasn't been adapted yet, Billy Bat is the natural next step.

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