Anime Creator Mari Okada, Insomniacs After School’s Makoto Ojiro Launch New Manga

This year’s 40th issue of Shogakukan‘s Big Comic Spirits magazine revealed on Monday that anime writer-director Mari Okada and manga creator Makoto Ojiro will collaborate on a new manga titled Shisutarejisuta in the magazine’s 43rd issue on September 20. The manga will have a theme of “idols” and “family,” and will focus on a behind-the-scenes story of idols and the ones who create their clothes.

Mari Okada is known for writing anime featuring relationships with highly charged interpersonal drama, often between teenagers, and often featuring taboo topics or relationships. Her melodrama often works to emphasize the difficulty of human relationships and connection. Some of her signature anime works include anohana, Toradora!, O Maidens in Your Savage Season (also based on a manga she wrote), Anthem of the Heart, Her Blue Sky, Hanasaku Iroha, A Lull in the Sea, Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, and Kiznaiver, among many others. She made her anime directorial debut with Maquia, and most recently directed the 2023 film maboroshi. She is writing the film Fureru., which she is producing alongside her frequent Super Peace Busters creative team, with whom she worked on Toradora!, anohana, and Anthem of the Heart.

Ojiro launched the Insomniacs After School manga in Weekly Big Comic Spirits in May 2019, and ended it in August 2023. Shogakukan published the manga’s 14th and final compiled book volume in October 2023. Viz Media licensed the manga in English and released the sixth volume on June 18.

The manga inspired an anime adaptation that premiered in Japan in April 2023. HIDIVE streamed the series as it aired in Japan. The music video for rock band Macaroni Enpitsu‘s “Enshin” (Centrifuge) song featured art from the manga in 2019.

The manga also inspired a live-action film that premiered in Japan in June 2023.

Sources: Big Comic Spirits issue 40, Makoto Ojiro‘s X/Twitter account

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