It was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Jump Square from September 2008 to April 2010, with its chapters collected in three tankōbon volumes.

Genkaku Picasso, written and illustrated by Usamaru Furuya, who based the main character on himself,[2] was serialized in Shueisha's shōnen manga magazine Jump Square from September 4, 2008,[3] to April 3, 2010.

[17] Lissa Pattillo of Anime News Network (ANN) found the design and visual presentation of the first volume impressive, but worried that the plot will become repetitive.

[18] Chris Kirby of Mania.com also praised the art and the allegorical depictions of inner states in the first volume but felt that Hikari and Chiaki are underdeveloped and "merely act as plot devices".

[19] Ain't It Cool News' Scott Green praised Furuya's "skill at rendering the surreal and transgressive", but felt that the characters' problems in the first volume are unrealistic but not strange enough to add to the surrealist nature of the work.