The Bottle

"No one is capable of being an independent manga artist unless they have a story with originality. Out of these, I'm interested in seeing an original story from the artist of the "The Bottle." Considering his age, it's safe to say this artist is a very smart and promising newcomer."

- Hiroshi Motomiya

The Bottle (ザ・ボトル) is a Japanese shonen manga one-shot manuscript written and illustrated by Hirohiko Araki. It was mentioned in the 1978 Issue #1 of Weekly Shonen Jump as a final candidate for the 14th.

Araki submitted the work using the pen name Toshi Arakino (荒木之 利).

Summary
The Bottle was a story written by Araki when he was seventeen years old. It seemingly featured a character dressed in old western attire. As it did not win the Tezuka Award, its contents were never released to the public. However, Hiroshi Motomiya, who was a judge for the Tezuka Award at the time, stated that he would be interested in seeing an original story from the artist of The Bottle.

The contents of the story is unknown, although Araki stated it was a western story in an interview in JoJo6251.