Kodansha Comics to Debut a New Digital Manga Series Every Week, Starting With Apocalyptic 90s Cult Classic Dragon Head February 27
San Francisco, Calif. (February 27, 2018)—Kodansha Comics announced today it is bringing back Minetarō Mochizuki's 1990s Manga Cult classic Dragon Head as a digital release, with the entire tightly wound ten-volume run dropping February 27 at all major digital book platforms. In addition—for one week only—Volume 1 of Dragon Head will be available for 99-cents on all platforms.
Originally released in English by TokyoPop, Dragon Head shocked readers used to lighter fare from the manga boom of 2000s and went on to become an underground classic. Publishers Weekly in a Starred Review called it “an emotionally and psychologically compelling drama that promises to be an unforgettable journey into darkness.” A relentless tour de force of disaster and psychedelia, it's been long out of print, until now. Chapter 1 can be read for free here.
The end of everyone was just the beginning … Returning home by train after a class trip, Teru Aoki takes a most frightening ride inside a mountain tunnel. When the train derails, nearly everyone aboard is killed. Amidst the bloody carnage, Teru discovers two survivors—but salvation is far from their grasp. As they try to dig out from the wreck in order to come up with a plan to stay alive, the lack of light and food, combined with the stench of death and decay, will lead one member of the group down a dark and demented path. And with sudden, violent earthquakes shaking the tunnel, escaping to the outside world may lead them to an even greater danger …
Dragon Head's release kicks off a renewed barrage of “digital-first” manga releases from Kodansha Comics—an exciting new initiative begun last year to put a greater diversity of manga series into the market. Starting March 13, Kodansha Comics will be debuting one new digital manga series every week for the forseeable future and today Kodansha Comics announced 3 new series coming in the month of March, which will be available at all of Kodansha Comics's partner digital platforms:
Starving Anonymous (debuting March 13), an intense dystopian horror thriller in the apocalyptic vein of Dragon Head and Attack on Titan, from the team that brought you zombie actioner Fort of Apocalypse;
Perfect World (debuting March 20), Rie Aruga's touching drama about the romance that develops between an abled interior designer and her first love, whom she reencounters one day only to find he is wheelchair-bound;
Liar x Liar (debuting March 27), Renjuro Kindaichi's devious romantic comedy about an off-kilter affair that's kicked off by a high-school uniform and a case of mistaken identity!
More information about Kodansha Comics's “digital-first” initiative can be found here.
About Kodansha
Founded in 1909, Kodansha Ltd. is Japan's leading publishing house, based in Tokyo, Japan. Under the leadership of Yoshinobu Noma, company president since 2011, Kodansha continues to play a dominant role in the media world, producing books and magazines in a wide variety of genres including literature, fiction, nonfiction, children's, business, lifestyle, art, manga, fashion, and journalism. Recently, the company has focused on creating and developing a wide range of digital businesses. Company profile can be viewed here.
Kodansha Comics is the manga-publishing imprint of Kodansha USA Publishing (KUP), established in New York in 2008. Kodansha Comics's first works were Katsuhiro Ōtomo's Akira and Shirow Masamune's The Ghost in the Shell. Kodansha Advanced Media is a digital-content distributor and producer established in San Francisco in 2015. More at kodanshacomics.com
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