News

DC Comics' Superman Gets Gourmet Manga in Kodansha's Evening Magazine

The official website for Kodansha's Evening magazine announced on Thursday that Satoshi Miyakawa (Space Battleship Tiramisu) and Kai Kitagō will launch a new manga starring the DC Comics character Superman, titled Superman vs. Meshi: Superman no Hitori Meshi (Superman vs. Food: Superman Dining Alone), in this year's 14th issue of Evening on June 22. The manga will also serialize on Kodansha's Comic Days website. Miyakawa is penning the story, and Kitagō is drawing the art.

The story will center around the daily pastime of the strongest man on Earth, who can hear the growling of stomachs throughout Japan at lunchtime with his superhuman hearing.

The title is an apparent nod to Masayuki Kusumi and Jiro Taniguchi's The Solitary Gourmet (Kodoku no Gourmet) manga, which follow a solitary salesman named Gorō Inagashira as he travels all over Japan and samples the local cuisine found on street corners. This manga inspired an ongoing live-action series with eight seasons and a net anime, and Fanfare and Ponent Mon are planning to publish the manga in English.

The Superman vs. Meshi: Superman no Hitori Meshi manga is part of the second phase of DC Comics' collaboration with Kodansha, which included the launch of the Batman: Justice Buster manga by manga creator duo Eiichi Shimizu and Tomohiro Shimoguchi (Ultraman, Linebarrels of Iron) in Evening's sister magazine Morning last December.

The collaboration's first phase also spawned the Wanope Joker (Joker: The One-Man Operation), which launched in Morning on January 7 earlier this year. Miyakawa also writes the story for the manga, with art by Keisuke Gotō.

Masato Hisa (Nobunagun, Area 51) launched a manga adaptation of the Batman Ninja anime in Monthly Hero's in June 2018, and ended it in September 2019. The manga won a Seiun Award in August 2020.

Source: Evening's website, The Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web