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Glow-in-the-Dark Mandragora Manga Merch is Frightening

Anime News Network's merchandise coverage sponsored by Tokyo Otaku Mode.

About 40 years ago the manga magazine Shōnen Champion ran a series called Macaroni Houren-sou by manga creator Tsubame Kamogawa. The comedy manga inspired a video game in 1995 for the dead on arrival 3DO game system.

The series otherwise never broke ground over in the States. The story stars Sōji Okita, a first year student at Piiman Gakuen (lit. Pepper Academy). He's a member of the Fine Arts and Morality Committee and is a serious, handsome, and smart student. He goes to school and shares a classroom with a particular duo, Nichiyō Kindō & Toshizō Hizakata, who regularly cause him grief. Kindō and Hizakata aren't your regular class clowns. Kindō is a 40-year-old man who has attended high school for the last 24 years and is also enrolled in law school. Toshizō is 25-years-old and has attended high school for the last 10 years. His father is an alien and his mother is an Australian giant earthworm.

All of this introductory text is to prepare you for the seemingly random decision to release merchandise based on this weird, old manga. Akita Bookstores' online shop are offering a soft vinyl, glow in the dark figure of "Kindō-san Mandragora-gora." The item was previously shown at last year's Winter WonderFest event.

The previously released Mandragora

The figure is based on an image of Kindō dressed as a Mandragora (Mandrake) from a color image included with the manga chapter "Kagayakeru Seishun no Mushiboshi!!" The figure was released previously, but this version does not make whistling sounds like the other figure. Only 70 Mandragora are scheduled for production and each costs 8,640 yen (US$81). Orders will ship in May.

Akita Bookstores are also planning t-shirts and tote bag merchandise of the manga's characters.

Source: Comic Natalie