posted on by Alex Mateo
Fantagraphics to publish Atsushi Kaneko‘s 3-volume manga in print in February 2024
©Atsushi Kaneko, Micro Magazine, Mangasplaining, Fantagraphics
Deb Aoki confirmed on Friday that Mangasplaining has licensed Atsushi Kaneko‘s Search and Destroy manga, and will begin serializing it in the Mangasplaining Extra (MSX) newsletter in August. Paid subscribers to the newsletter can access the manga, and the company will occasionally offer chapters for free to all subscribers. Fantagraphics will publish the manga in print in February 2024.
Fantagraphics describes the manga:
This is a tale of rage. Rage against hypocrisy, injustice, exploitation, and the wrongs done to a child who grew into a righteous killer….Complete in three volumes, Search and Destroy transplants the vengeful action of Dororo from feudal Japan into a dystopian future where mercenary robots known as “creatures” serve the human elite and victimize the city’s scrabbling, desperate masses. The violent death of one of these creatures connects an orphaned thief named Doro with a mysterious girl in a stinking animal hide that conceals deadly cybernetic implants. Who is this mysterious girl? How is she killing, one by one, the city’s most twisted and powerful creatures? And why is she so angry?
Ben Applegate is translating the manga, and Phil Christie is doing the lettering.
Kaneko launched the series, based on Osamu Tezuka‘s Dororo manga, in Micro Magazine Publishing Company’s TezuComi magazine in October 2018. The manga had 18 chapters compiled into three volumes. The third and final compiled book volume shipped in Japan in March 2020.
Kaneko launched the EVOL manga in Kadokawa‘s Comic Beam magazine in August 2020. The manga is inspiring a live-action adaptation show in 2023.
Digital Manga Publishing released two of six volumes of Kaneko’s earlier manga Bambi and her Pink Gun in English in 2005. Kaneko’s SOIL manga inspired a live-action television series in 2010. SOIL and Kaneko’s Wet Moon have been nominated for Best Crime Comic at France’s Angoulême International Comics Festival. Kaneko launched the Deathco manga in February 2014 and ended it in January 2018.
Source: Email correspondence
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.
