Saturday, July 25, 2026

One of the longest-running series in Shueisha's Jump SQ. is finally headed for the exit. Kazue Kato's Blue Exorcist (Ao no Exorcist), the demon-hunting shonen that has run for 17 years and sold about 25 million copies, came back on July 3, 2026 with chapter 167 after a four-month hiatus Kato took to reset her studio and prep for the ending. The break points the sprawling "Of One Cloth" arc, itself about six years deep, toward its finale. Kato's own posts have muddied whether that means the arc wraps or the whole manga does, but after this long, any climax chapter is a moment (via Screen Rant Manga).

A fresh fantasy is joining the racks. Mutsumi Aoki has launched a new series, Seinaru Hime no Kakushigoto (roughly "The Holy Princess's Secret"), the kind of mid-summer debut Japanese magazines use to test whether a premise has legs before committing to it long term (via Anime News Network).

The artist behind a beach-volleyball favorite is back with something new. Nyoijizai, known for drawing Harukana Receive, has started a new manga, a reminder that a hit artist rarely stays idle long once a serialization ends (via Anime News Network).

Yen Press turned its San Diego Comic-Con panel into a shopping list for 2027. The publisher announced ten new licenses covering nine manga and one light novel, a spread that runs from the post-apocalyptic #ImLookingForZombies (getting a complete omnibus) to Champignon Witch, about a solitary dark witch holed up in a poison-mushroom forest, plus queer romances Don't Talk to Me and the girls' love novel Watching the Angel Sleep. No release dates yet, but this is the slate a lot of English readers will be buying next year (via The Comics Beat).

The indie side of the show had picks of its own. Manga Mavericks used its Comic-Con panel to announce Our Insignificant Justice along with more volumes of its Divine Messengers and Demonic Guardians line, the sort of licensing a small publisher does to build out a catalog the big houses skip (via The Comics Beat).

The little publishers are teaming up to stop getting boxed out. At San Diego Comic-Con, Manga Mavericks and Mahjong Pros announced the Independent Manga Alliance, a joint venture led by Manga Mavericks CEO Varun Gupta and Mahjong Pros' Harrison Doan to pool marketing, distribution, and sales muscle for independent manga creators and small presses. In a market where Viz and a handful of majors soak up nearly every bestseller slot, a shared pipeline is how the underdogs try to get shelf space at all (via The Comics Beat).

A startup is wagering that North America still has room for one more manga app, this one with AI under the hood. Orange Inc. launched emaqi Premium, a 6.99-dollar-a-month subscription (9.99 Canadian) that the company says opens more than 400 titles, roughly 100 of them exclusive, with volumes from Kodansha USA, Shonengahosha, and Akita Publishing and Viz and Shogakukan titles promised later. The catch, and the controversy, is that emaqi leans on AI-assisted localization to move titles into English fast, which the company frames as a way to close the gap with Japan's far bigger digital market (via Publishers Weekly).

A quiet coming-of-age romance is stepping up to television. Kadokawa announced that Agri Uma's Studio Cabana, which began on the pixiv Sylph web platform back in 2021, is getting a TV anime in 2027 at studio JUVENAGE, directed by Shin'ichiro Ushijima of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, with Sayumi Suzushiro voicing lead Yukari Maki. Pairing a tender web-born manga with a director known for weepies is a clear signal of the tone they are going for (via Anime Corner).

A cult crime series is getting its long-awaited screen turn. Kana Yoshimura's Murcielago, the pitch-black action manga about a mass-murderer-turned-hitwoman, is being adapted into an anime for 2027, announced by NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan. It is a bet that a title with a fervent niche following can translate its shock value into a broader audience (via Anime News Network).

The envelopes are open, and manga walked away with hardware. At the 2026 Eisner Awards during San Diego Comic-Con, Sanho's Purgatory Funeral Cakes (Dark Horse) won Best U.S. Edition of International Material, Asia, beating a field that included two Keigo Shinzo titles, and Shintaro Kago's grisly "Blood Harvest" took Best Short Story. Katsuhiro Otomo's AKIRA hardcover collection also won Best Archival Collection, a clean sweep of respect for both new voices and the canon (via The Comics Beat).

The night's biggest honor went to a creator who was not there to accept it. The late Akira Toriyama, whose Dragon Ball defined shonen manga for a generation, was inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame alongside Go Nagai and Western greats Chris Ware, Colleen Doran, and Jeff Smith. Toriyama died in 2024, and the induction reads as the industry's formal thank-you (via Anime News Network). Anime News Network's write-up of the short-story win rounds out the manga tally from a strong Eisner ballot (via Anime News Network).

One franchise threw itself a birthday party on the convention floor. A Crunchyroll-powered San Diego Comic-Con panel marked ten years of My Hero Academia with the English voices of All Might, Deku, Bakugo, and Todoroki reflecting on the decade, a milestone for Kohei Horikoshi's superhero series that wrapped its manga run in 2024 (via The Comics Beat).