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Eri Sakai's Tsubame wa Modotte Konai Manga Ends in January

The February 2026 issue of Shueisha's Cocohana magazine revealed last Thursday that Eri Sakai's Tsubame wa Modotte Konai (The Swallow Won't Return) manga, based on Natsuo Kirino's novel of the same name, will end in the magazine's next issue in January.

Sakai started the manga adaptation in Cocohana in February 2024. Shueisha published the manga's second compiled book volume on August 25.

The novel's story centers on Riki, a 29-year-old woman who quits her caregiving job in her Hokkaido hometown and moves to Tokyo to work at a hospital, but the exhausting and irregular job leaves her with financial problems. She hears of a high-paying side gig her colleague Teru. She heads to the Japanese branch of Arte, a specialized American assisted reproductive technology clinic to become a surrogate.

Kirino published the novel in March 2022. The novel won the Yoshikawa Eiji Prize for outstanding popular fiction.

Sakai published the He's Expecting (Kentarō Hiyama's First Pregnancy) manga in Kodansha's Be Love magazine in 2012, and Kodansha published one compiled book volume for the manga. Kodansha USA Publishing licensed the manga and publishes it digitally. The manga inspired a live-action series in April 2022.

Sakai launched a manga titled Shōsansei no nai Nigorikawa (Unproductive Nigorikawa) in Futabasha's JOUR magazine in Janaury 2024.

Source: Cocohana February issue