×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

News
Vertical Licenses Blame!, Dissolving Classroom, Immortal Hounds Manga

posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Company to release Blame! in 6-volume "master's edition"

North American manga and novel publisher Vertical Comics announced at its panel at Katsucon on Friday that it has licensed Tsutomu Nihei's Blame! manga, Junji Ito's Yōkai Kyōshitsu (Dissolving Classroom) manga, and Ryō Yasohachi's Shinazu no Ryōken (Immortal Hounds) manga.

Nihei launched the science-fiction action story Blame! as his first manga series in Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine in 1997, and ended it in 2003. Tokyopop published the 10-volume manga in North America and describes the story:

Killy is a man of few words. He wanders, seemingly endlessly, through a lonely, gargantuan labyrinth of concrete and steel, fighting off cyborgs and other futuristic nightmares, searching only for something called Net Terminal Genes. And he has a very powerful gun, which he uses without hesitation whenever anything resembling danger rears its ugly head.

Who is this quiet, violent, determined man and what are these Genes he seeks? The small communities he finds tucked into the crevices of this towering, dystopic ruin hardly give him leads on his treasure, driving him to find larger enclaves of civilization where people can reveal more about the world he lives in and the quarry he seeks.

If Killy is going to find the treasure he seeks, he will need more help and information than the inhabitants of these beleaguered outposts can offer. He needs to find a larger cluster of civilization, but he'll have to survive the trip to get there, first...

Kodansha published a new six-volume "master's edition" of the manga last year. Vertical Comics will release this edition.

The manga inspired an original net anime project in 2003, and the production company Micott & Basara (Appleseed) announced at Tokyo International Anime Fair 2007 that a CG film was in the works. However, this proposed CG film project was not released before Micott & Basara filed for bankruptcy in 2011.

The manga was then animated within Knights of Sidonia: War of the Ninth Planet, the second Knights of Sidonia anime season. Specifically, the adaptation aired as an anime within the world of Knights of Sidonia, as seen by the characters in episode 8 of the second season.

The manga is also receiving a theatrical anime adaptation by POLYGON PICTURES.

Vertical is also publishing Nihei's Knights of Sidonia manga in English.

Ito's Yōkai Kyōshitsu centers on a strange brother and sister. The older brother Yūma is possessed by a demon, and the younger sister Chizumi has the world's worst luck. When the two go to different places, strange and fearsome events occur. Part of the manga's first chapter is available online for free. Akita Shoten published the one-volume manga in December 2014 after it ran in the publisher's Comic Motto! magazine.

Viz Media published Ito's Uzumaki manga, which inspired a live-action film. Viz Media also published Ito's Gyo manga, which inspired an OVA. ComicsOne published Ito's Tomie manga, which also inspired live-action films.

Viz Media has also published Ito's Fragments of Horror manga, ComicsOne has also published his Flesh Colored Horror manga, Dark Horse Comics has published his Museum of Terror manga, and Kodansha Comics has published his Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu manga.

Yasohachi launched Shinazu no Ryōken in the sixth issue of Kadokawa's Harta magazine in 2013, and Kadokawa released the manga's third compiled volume in August.

The "splatter gun action" manga takes place in a world where humans no longer die. Even if they are stabbed or shot, humans revive within a few seconds. However, a new illness called RDS is suddenly spreading that deprives humans of the revival ability. No one knows whether RDS is a conspiracy, a part of natural selection, or something else. Kenzaki, who lost his precious sister, is chasing the mystery of RDS, when he meets a lone girl.

Amazon is listing that Vertical will ship the manga's first volume in July.


discuss this in the forum (14 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

News homepage / archives