SEAN: Somehow it’s still 2025.
ASH: My brain has managed to jump ahead to 2026 and back to 2024 simultaneously, which I guess evens out to 2025?
SEAN: In print, Airship has I Abandoned My Engagement Because My Sister is a Tragic Heroine, but Somehow I Became Entangled with a Righteous Prince 2.
MICHELLE: I like the title, at least!
SEAN: And digitally they have True Love Fades Away When the Contract Ends 2.
Drawn and Quarterly debuts a classic, The Legend of Kamui (Kamui Den). This 60s manga was serialized in Garo, and is NOT the 80s version that was put out by Viz Media. An Edo-Period historical drama with ninjas, it’s so influential even Tezuka praised it for bringing drama and ideology to manga. This is the first omnibus, and is 600 pages.
ANNA: Oooh, interesting.
ASH: This is huge. I am so incredibly happy and excited for this release. And was fortunate to receive an early copy which I am absolutely loving.
SEAN: No debuts for J-Novel Club, but we do see After-School Dungeon Diver: Level Grinding in Another World 4, the 10th Campfire Cooking in Another World with My Absurd Skill manga, Demon Lord, Retry! 9, From Old Country Bumpkin to Master Swordsman: My Hotshot Disciples Are All Grown Up Now, and They Won’t Leave Me Alone 5, the 11th How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom manga, Let This Grieving Soul Retire 6, The Misfit of Demon King Academy 8, My Instant Death Ability Is So Overpowered, No One in This Other World Stands a Chance Against Me! —AΩ— 9, Record of Wortenia War 27, and the third The Water Magician manga.
Kodansha also has no debuts. In print, they have Ajin: Demi-Human Complete 2, Blue Lock: Episode Nagi 2, ORIGIN 8, The Seven Deadly Sins Omnibus 14 (the final volume), Sheltering Eaves 2, Versus 2, and Witch Hat Atelier 13.
MICHELLE: I really liked the first volume of Sheltering Eaves!
ANNA: I cannot believe I am so far behind in Witch Hat Atelier it is a personal failing.
ASH: I have a few volumes I’ve been saving which I’ll be reading all at once.
SEAN: And for digital we see Blue Lock 29, Gang King 25, Manchuria Opium Squad 4, Tokyo Tarareba Girls Returns 2 5, and We’re New at This 18 (the final volume).
MICHELLE: How am I already this far behind with Tokyo Tarareba Girls Returns 2?!
SEAN: One Peace have the 5th light novel volume of The Wrong Way to Use Healing Magic.
Just one debut for Seven Seas. Glasses with a Chance of Delinquent (Megane, Tokidoki, Yankee-kun) is a shoujo title from Betsufure. A girl who was bullied by gangs in the past attends a new high school free of them, and meets a glasses-wearing kid… and it turns out he’s a secret gang member! This was so popular Japanese fans got it un-cancelled at one point.
MICHELLE: Looks potentially cute!
ANNA: I generally enjoy delinquents in shoujo.
ASH: Same! And megane, too!
SEAN: Also coming from Seven Seas: 365 Days to the Wedding 6, The Barbarian’s Bride 2, The Duke of Death and His Maid 16 (the final volume), Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything With Low-Level Spells 9, I Quit My Apprenticeship as a Royal Court Wizard to Become a Magic Item Craftswoman 2, The Idaten Deities Know Only Peace 7, The Most Notorious “Talker” Runs the World’s Greatest Clan 8, My New Life as a Cat 8, Mysterious Disappearances 4, Soara and the House of Monsters 4, The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary 4, Tiger and Dragon 2, The Titan’s Bride 6, Tokyo Revengers 27-28, and The White Mage Doesn’t Want to Raise the Hero’s Level 4 (the final volume).
ASH: I recently picked up the first volume of Soara and the House of Monsters; I have time to catch up!
SEAN: And for danmei they have Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang 5 (the final volume).
Square Enix has Just Like Mona Lisa 4.
From Steamship we get I Can’t Refuse S 5 and A Suitable Fetish 2.
Steamship also has an early digital release of the 2nd light novel volume of The Villainess and the Demon Knight.
SuBLime has My Dearest Patrolman 3 (the final volume) and Stigmata: Love Bites 2 (the final volume).
MICHELLE: The latter has such a gorgeous cover, I might read it on that basis alone!
ASH: Oooh, that is evocative!
SEAN: Two debuts from Viz. Beyblade X is the latest in that toy-based series, and runs in Monthly CoroCoro.
Firefly Wedding (Hotaru no Yomeiri) is an award-winning shoujo manga that runs in Manga One. An ill girl who is being married off so she can have some value to her family before she dies now finds that she’s also being targeted by an assassin! Can she find a way to solve both these problems in one fell swoop? This is definitely on the more ‘dramatic’ end of the shoujo manga scale.
MICHELLE: Hm. Maybe!
ANNA: Shoujo with assassins???? I’m going to check this out.
ASH: This definitely holds promise. Now I just have to figure out why the premise sounds vaguely familiar to me…
SEAN: Also from Viz: Case Closed 93, Destroy All Humans. They Can’t Be Regenerated. A Magic: The Gathering Manga 2, Disney Twisted-Wonderland: The Manga – Anthology 2, Komi Can’t Communicate 32, Mao 19, Spy x Family 13, and Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon 6.
And that’s it! Titles from 1964 to 2024 in this batch. What are you buying?
ASH: No wonder I can’t figure out what year it is!