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Cross Manage's Kaito Launches Buddy Strike Baseball Manga in Shonen Jump (Updated)
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The 50th issue of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine is revealing on Monday that KAITO (Cross Manage) will launch the Buddy Strike manga in the magazine's 51st issue on November 16.
The first chapter of the "vivid baseball story" will have a color opening page and will be 54 pages long. The manga will follow a "no control" pitcher and a catcher who is called a "god of death." The taglines on the announcement read, "the pitcher who experienced a crushing defeat in his final game of middle school, right in front of him is...!?" and "with a dependable buddy."
Viz Media announced in a press release on Wednesday that it will add the manga to its "Jump Start" initiative. The initiative publishes the first three chapters of "almost every single" new series that debuts in Shueisha's original Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in Japan. Viz Media has then added some of the manga from that initiative to its permanent lineup.
KAITO published the five-volume Cross Manage lacrosse manga in Weekly Shonen Jump from September 2012 to July 2013. KAITO had originally published the manga as a one-shot in both Jump Next! and Weekly Shonen Jump before turning it into a series.
Viz Media published the manga digitally in its Weekly Shonen Jump digital manga anthology. The company also published the manga's extra chapter in English digitally simultaneously with the chapter's release in Japan. Viz Media also released the five compiled volumes digitally.
Updated: Viz Media confirmed with ANN that the manga will launch in its Weekly Shonen Jump digital anthology as a part of its "Jump Start" initiative on November 16, not November 9.
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history