Interest
Rurouni Kenshin Inspires New PSP Game This Summer
posted on by Egan Loo
The June issue of Shueisha's Jump Square magazine is confirming on Wednesday that Nobuhiro Watsuki's historical manga Rurouni Kenshin is inspiring a new PSP game this summer. Namco Bandai Games already released a PSP game called Rurouni Kenshin, Meiji Kenkaku Romantan Saisen last spring.
In the same Jump Square issue, Watsuki is launching Rurouni Kenshin -Cinema-ban- (Rurouni Kenshin: Cinema Version). This manga series recounts the title swordsman's encounters with Kaoru, Yahiko, and other characters, as a remake of Watsuki's own work. Kanryū, Jin'e, and other enemy characters from Watsuki's original manga will appear in this new series and in the August 25 live-action film — hence the name of the new manga.
Watsuki discusses the new manga and the film in an interview in this Jump Square issue. The issue is also reprinting a selection of color illustrations and offering a random drawing for 1,000 exclusive hand towels.
Watsuki is running a separate Rurouni Kenshin "Chapter Zero" manga in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in August. The chapter will reveal one of the reasons why Kenshin ended up staying at the Kamiya dōjō school.
The weekly Saki-yomi Jum-Bang! (Early Browsing Jump Bang!) program on TV Tokyo will devote a major segment to the new Rurouni Kenshin manga series this Friday. The official Rurouni Kenshin app will launch in early May. Besides the PSP game, the novel version of Rurouni Kenshin will go on sale this summer.
The original manga ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1995 to 1999, and its compiled book volumes have 54 million copies in print. It has been released in 23 countries, and it inspired a 1996-1998 television anime series. The first half of the new Rurouni Kenshin: Shin Kyoto-Hen anime project opened in two theaters in December, and the second half is slated to be completed this summer. Viz Media publishes the manga in North America.
While Watsuki is working on the new Rurouni Kenshin manga, he is putting his Embalming - The Another Tale of Frankenstein manga on hiatus until fall.
Sources: Comic Natalie, animeanime.jp, Oricon
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