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Karuho Shiina Puts Kimi ni Todoke on Hold to Have Baby
posted on by Egan Loo
Manga artist Karuho Shiina is putting her Kimi ni Todoke high school slice-of-life series on hiatus so she can give birth to her baby. The manga series will go on a break starting with the March issue of Shueisha's Bessatsu Margaret shōjo manga magazine, which ships on February 13. Starting with that issue, author Sanae Shimokawa will take the manga's place with a new Kimi ni Todoke story in text form. A future issue of the magazine will announce when the manga will resume.
The manga follows the coming-of-age story of Sawako Kuronuma, a high school girl whose long black hair and pallid skin leads the other kids to call her Sadako (after the ghost character in The Ring horror stories). She eventually changes her life with a little help from the popular boy Kazehaya and her other classmates. Shimokawa's serialized novel, the one which is temporarily replacing the manga in Bessatsu Margaret, will deal with the first time that Sawako and Kazehaya met — before they entered high school and before the manga's story takes place.
The manga has been running in Bessatsu Margaret since 2005, and over 5.4 million copies of the eight compiled volumes have been published. According to the distributor Simon & Schuster, Viz Media is planning to launch this romantic comedy manga in North America this July. The manga was nominated for the first ever Manga Taisho Awards last January, and it won the Best Shōjo Manga award in the 32nd Annual Kodansha Manga Awards last spring. Nodame Cantabile manga creator Tomoko Ninomiya took time off last fall to have her baby.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web
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