Manga Monthly: Expand with Prequels and Sequels

by Carrie Wood

Welcome back to Manga Monthly, your usual dose of the best new manga headed your way straight from Japan! This month features a number of great new series as well as prequels and sequels, so be sure to pre-order your favorites at your local comic shop!

First up this month is Psycho Pass: Inspector Shinya Kogami (JAN170173), brought over by Dark Horse! This prequel to the acclaimed anime series follows Kogami as his team learns that the hospital where patients have died due to a genetic timer set in them decades ago was a "privileged" residence for the emotionally unfit. In searching for clues, they discover just how their society perfected itself by pushing some things into the shadows… and the underground network dedicated to keeping those things alive!

Kodansha continues to publish the ever-popular Fairy Tail with the fourth volume of the Master’s Edition (JAN171860)! Lucy is an attractive mage-in-training who wants to join a magician's guild so that she can become a full-fledged magician. The guild she dreams about joining is the most famous in the world, and it is known as the Fairy Tail. One day she meets Natsu, a boy raised by a Dragon who mysteriously left him when he was young. Natsu has devoted his life to finding his Dragon father. When Natsu helps Lucy out of a tricky situation, she discovers that he is a member of the Fairy Tail magician's guild, and our heroes' adventure together begins. This edition collects volume 16-20 of the original serialization.

The “second season” of Genshiken continues with the fourth volume (JAN171862), also by Kodansha. Welcome to the world of the Genshiken, home of the true otaku, the Japanese term for ubergeek. This is the story of a group of friends who are all members of the most hardcore anime and manga fan club in all of Tokyo - and the boys and girls who love them.

Seven Seas Entertainment has a brand new series on their hands with Ghost Diary (JAN171947)! This story is about a young exorcist's search for his sister after she vanishes, leaving behind only a mysterious notebook filled with secrets about hunting ghosts. Sukami Kyouichi comes from a family of exorcists, the strongest of whom has always been his sister, who keeps a special notebook by her side that details how to defeat even the most malevolent of ghosts. One day, shortly after his sister rescues young Kyouichi from a haunted shrine, she goes missing. Six years later, with only the notebook as his guide, Kyouichi is confronted by someone claiming to have been his sister's friend. Who is this stranger, and what does she know about his sister's disappearance?

The Legend of Zelda releases its next main entry, Breath of the Wild, this March – but you can pause and look back at one of the most popular stories in its lore when the Twilight Princess graphic novel (JAN172159) arrives thanks to Viz! Link once trained in swordsmanship, hoping to protect the world of Hyrule. After a fateful meeting, he sought out the anonymity and peace of life in a small village. But danger and adventure always find heroes to set things right, and when the dark minions of the King of Shadows threaten his new home, Link answers the call!

Viz will also be debuting the first volume of Anonymous Noise (JAN172155)! Since both boys promised Nino that they would find her one day through her singing, she holds on to that hope and continues to reach out with her voice. Now in high school, Nino serendipitously reunites with Yuzu, but she yearns to see Momo again...

Yen Press will also be expanding their library with the next volume of the light-hearted Barakamon (JAN172193)! Ya can't see the sunset from here. Tagging along on Handa-sensei's visit home, Naru finally arrives in Tokyo! Trains, tall buildings, the zoo - the big city's full of amazing first experiences! But what will Handa decide when his dad asks him to come back to Tokyo?

That wraps it up for this month’s edition of Manga Monthly, but this just scratches the surface of what’s available in the January PREVIEWS catalog. Keep it here for more manga news and announcements as they happen!