Kodansha unveiled a new roster of upcoming print licenses for Spring 2025 during Anime Expo, including new debuts from celebrated creators Hiro Mashima, Tsutomu Nihei, and Shuzo Oshimi, as well as hotly anticipated romance stories, fun, exciting BL titles, and more.
Also announced were two soon-to-debut digital manga series, Tokyo Tarareba Girls Returns 2, the latest installment of Akiko Higashimura‘s Tokyo Tarareba Girls saga, and My Journey to Her, Yuna Hirasawa‘s the poignant diary-like memoir about gender affirming surgery. Both titles arrive this July. The complete slate is featured below.
DEAD ROCK
By Hiro Mashima
Welcome to Dead Rock, the underworld’s top educational institution! A spot at this training facility for demonic mischief is all the young demon Yakuto has ever wanted, but in Hell, there’s no such thing as an easy A. Plenty of Yakuto’s fellow prospects won’t survive the entrance exam, and even fewer will make it to graduation. So why bother? The prize, for those who survive this death game through perdition, is the world, in the palm of their hand!
The Ayakashi Hunter’s Tainted Bride
Manga by Mamenosuke Fujimaru; Created by Midori Yuma
Young, cheerful Nanao can’t wait to marry her betrothed, Reito, the young lord of the Byakurenji family. But that changes one night when she is attacked by a vengeful yokai spirit—an ayakashi—leaving her scarred with the mark of a demonic curse. Her cousin Akemi seizes the chance to steal away her fiance, but it doesn’t matter. Reito now finds her repulsive, and Nanao is forced to wear a monkey mask to hide her scar and live the life of an outcast. Years later, she meets Yako, the willful young scion of another noble family. When Nanao’s mask shatters after an accident, Yako sees her face and is drawn to her beauty and great spiritual power. But there’s more to the handsome young lord then meets the eye, and when Yako offers Nanao a way out of her torturous life, the new life that awaits her is filled with more mystery and intrigue than she could ever imagine…
The Dashing Zaddy and His Icy Protégé
By Fumito
The second sales division at Gosei Trading Company is headed up by Mr. Takanashi, one of the firm’s top performer and a charismatic knockout at age 40. One of his subordinates is the equally hot, cool and calculating 26-year-old, Hiwatari. Practically every woman at the company has attempted to stir up an office romance with the magnetic Takanashi, but this dashing zaddy has turned them all down, because…he secretly has ED! Meanwhile, Hiwatari seems like a scary robot on the outside, but he’s actually looked up to Takanashi since he started working with him four years ago. When Hiwatari gets a chance to spend the evening with Takanashi, he reveals more than he means to!
An irresistible love comedy between a hot older man with a shameful secret and a cunning underling who becomes an unlikely confidant in his quest to once more stand proud and, ahem…erect!
How to Deal When Your Intimidating Neighbor is Actually an Omega
By Nikuya Inui
“He looks like a cold and handsome Alpha…who’d ever think he was actually a twisted and sexy Omega!”
Kota is a college student, and an Alpha. Still, he dreads bumping into his neighbor, a super-intimidating hunk with big, black tattoos. He always assumed this mystery man was an Alpha, too, and avoided him like the plague…until, one day, a scent wafts in so powerful it puts even the dull-headed Kota in a daze. It’s the scent of Omega pheromones, from next door! He assumes his neighbor’s brought an Omega home, but when he tries to leave, what should he find but the source of the pheromones: his hot neighbor! How will he get out of this situation unscathed, and without his neighbor finding out he’s a virgin?!
A Vampire in the Bathhouse
By Niko Izuki
A heartwarming and hilarious comedy manga about a hot vampire who just wants to unwind and the family who runs the bathhouse where he crashes. Escape to a world of steam and relaxation…and get the blood flowing!
A full story in one volume!
Luka is your picture perfect vampire―he’s good looking, he’s regal… He’s also usually incredibly hungover and exhausted, and wants nothing more than a change of pace from his routine! When he takes a peek into the human world, he finds just the cure he’s looking for―a relaxing bathhouse that will surely cure him of his hangover and rejuvenate him from head to toe. To blow his fatigue out of the water, Luka pays a visit to Mangetsu no Yu bathhouse where he meets the bathhouse’s eldest son, Sakura. But between the bathhouse being short staffed and taking care of his little brother, Sakura has enough to worry about without a bougie vampire being added to the mix!
Hauntress
By Minetaro Mochizuki
Hiroshi Mori is an ordinary college student leading an unremarkable life, until one day he hears someone ringing his neighbor’s doorbell over and over again. He goes out onto the landing and finds a strange woman in a trenchcoat―whose tenacious attention soon transfers to him. Stalked and harrassed by this monstrous woman, Hiroshi tries to find out the truth about her before she ruins his life completely.
Tower Dungeon
By Tsutomu Nihei
An evil sorcerer slays the king and takes over his body, kidnapping the princess and spiriting her away to the legendary Dragon Tower.
The Royal Guard is rebuffed in their attempt to rescue her, and to replace the wounded, a young farmhand named Yuva is called up into service. With only a pot lid for a shield and a strong back to carry supplies, Yuva joins the soldiers on the perilous quest to climb the tower and rescue the princess. But the Dragon Tower houses untold horrors…!
Toxic Daughter Chi-chan
By Shuzo Oshimi
Yua Hayakawa used to love playing with Chi, a mysterious girl with a murky family life who likes collecting dead insects, but it’s been years since they’ve spoken. Now, Chi hardly ever even comes to school. One day, Chi shows up to class in beat-up gym clothes with a handful of dead bugs and starts a commotion that gives Yua’s classmate, golden boy Koudai, an idea: he’s going to save Chi, and he needs Yua’s help to do it. But clean-cut exteriors don’t always promise good intentions, and the darkness in Chi may be more dangerous than Yua had ever imagined.
23:45
By Ohana
Two months after moving to Tokyo, college freshman Iku is living his otaku nerd life to the fullest. There’s just one problem: he’s started being able to see ghosts. One spirit in particular, a young man about Iku’s age, spends day after day standing on the pedestrian bridge on the way to Iku’s apartment. Though determined to live and let not-live unnoticed, Iku accidentally bumps into the handsome phantom and soon ends up with the very chat-deprived spirit of Mimori Seo haunting his apartment. Not long after, Iku notices that every night at 23:45, Mimori is drawn by some mysterious force back to the bridge and forced to repeat the fall that made him a ghost in the first place. Will Mimori be stuck in this loop forever, or can Iku find a way to save this specter from an eternity of unending tragedy?
Spacewalking With You
By Inuhiko Doronoda
Kobayashi just can’t focus—not on studying, not on work—and the adults in his life think he’s in danger of becoming a worthless dropout. Then, one day, a strange new presence arrives in his class: an energetic and naïve kid named Uno. Kobayashi saves Uno from getting scammed, and that close encounter launches a new friendship. Uno’s definitely a space cadet, but Kobayashi can’t help admiring the way he floats through life, and before he knows it, he might start feeling his feet lift off the ground, too…
Magic Knight Rayearth Part 2 Vol. 1 (Paperback)
By CLAMP
The three teenage girls who saved a world at great cost return to Tokyo, a little older and much wiser. They assume that they’ll never see the magical, troubling world of Cefiro again…when they find themselves back there once again. But Emeraude couldn’t be the one who summoned them this time. What if the tragic climax of their first adventure was only the beginning?
Codename: Sailor V1
By Naoko Takeuchi
A year before meeting Sailor Moon―and her destiny as a member of the Sailor Guardians―Minako was the first hero to find her calling. At age 13, all this teen can talk about is finding a boyfriend, but her dreams change when a talking cat with a crescent moon on his forehead reveals her true identity as the Soldier of Justice, Sailor V! Miracles have returned to modern Tokyo, and she must use her powers to stop the Dark Agency, which is trying to manipulate Japan’s entertainment industry and enslave the population.
Kodansha has also announced two new digital licenses that will be released later this month and are featured below.
Tokyo Tarareba Girls Returns 2
By Akiko Higashimura
30-year-old Reina Hirota’s chill life of snacking and binge-watching TV shows gets a wake-up call through a forgotten childhood dream buried in a time capsule. Suddenly, her content solitude seems more like a forever-solo voyage, prompting her to crawl off the couch and start husband hunting—not just to find love, but to help her family find their groove again. Now, if only she knew what she wanted—not just in life, but in a guy, too.
This title will be released by Kodansha on July 9, 2024.
My Journey to Her
By Yuna Hirasawa
After graduating university, Yuna spent several years going through the motions and working an office job. Until one day, while in pursuit of an essential missing piece of her life, she receives a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, which opens up new doors for her. As she takes on medical treatments and tries out new makeup and outfits, she sees just how lonely and difficult the process of transitioning can be. But in 2015, when Yuna travels to Thailand for her gender-affirming surgery, the support of her siblings, new strangers, and documenting her experience through manga helps her begin to heal in more ways than one. Told in an honest and, at times, humorous tone, this memoir is a blend of manga and detailed prose that does not shy away from sensitive topics, such as suicidal ideation, transphobia, and the simultaneously harrowing, yet joyous, experience of gender-affirming surgery.
This title will be released by Kodansha on July 23, 2024.
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