News

Del Rey Gets Moyashimon, Amefurashi, Maid War Chronicles (Update 2)

Del Rey Manga has announced at New York Anime Festival 2008 on Saturday that it acquired Masayuki Ishikawa's Moyashimon, Atsushi Suzumi's Amefurashi, and RAN's Maid War Chronicles (Maid Senki) manga. The Moyashimon manga follows a college student who discovers that he can see and communicate with the germs all around him — germs that appear as super-deformed characters. Moyashimon won a Kodansha Manga Award for Best General Manga and the Manga Grand Prize in the 12th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prizes. The manga has been running in Kodansha's Evening magazine since 2004.

Suzumi drew the Amefurashi action comedy in Kodansha's Monthly Shōnen Sirius magazine from 2006 to 2007. The titular character is a mysterious rain goddess who lives in a desert and brings rain to a rural village. A boy named Gimy encounters the goddess, who turns out to be an unpredictable girl named Sora. In addition to Amefurashi, Suzumi created the Haridama Magical Cram School and Venus Versus Virus manga — the latter of which was adapted into anime.

Maid War Chronicles also runs in Monthly Shōnen Sirius magazine. The comical war fantasy story revolves around maids who protect a prince after the imperial guard knights have been annihilated. Three volumes have been published since 2007. Ran also drew the Mao-chan manga, which is based on the 2002 animated television series.

Update: More background details added and clarified the Mao-chan manga's relationship with the anime version. Thanks, Emerje.

Update 2: Del Rey also scheduled the second character guide to Clamp's Tsubasa manga and announced a two-volume "film comic" version of Cartoon Network's Bakugan anime series, another based on Ben 10, and a pair of original Bakugan and Ben 10 manga-style graphic novels.