Manga Monthly: Crossover Craziness in December

by Carrie Wood

Welcome back to another edition of Manga Monthly! The December PREVIEWS catalog is jam-packed with some great new series as well as some continuing favorites that you can pre-order right now at your local comic shop today!

Dark Horse gets us started this month with the omnibus edition of Neon Genesis Evangelion: Campus Apocalypse (DEC150148), which collects all four volumes of this story into a single book. The original NGE was one of the defining series of the 1990s, but this version of the story is pretty different!

Shinji Ikari's parents are gone, and he lives with his legal guardian, Ryoji Kaji, while attending the elite private NERV Academy.

But no one ever told Shinji about the school's many secrets, or that he'd find his fellow students Kaworu, Rei, and Asuka out on the streets late at night-fighting with sword, spear, and whip against an enemy that looks very human, but that Kaworu insists are beings called the Angels!

Kodansha continues to publish a number of hot titles, and one of them is a great crossover book for video game fans, too!

Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth (DEC151434) is a popular RPG game for the Nintendo 3DS system, and now you can catch the story in manga form!

This story crosses over the Persona 3 and Persona 4 games and their characters, who have to work together to battle shadows with their personas!

Princess Jellyfish (DEC151435) was brought to the North American market as an anime a few years back, and now we’re finally getting the original manga thanks to Kodansha! The story follows Tsukimi Kurashita, a longtime lover of jellyfish. She moves into the “Amamizukan” with a bunch of other girls her age who are considered weird for their hobbies; their lives change drastically after Tsukimi has a run-in with the fabulous Kuranosuke!

Seven Seas Entertainment will be debuting the first issue of Hollow Fields and the Perfect Cog (DEC151559)! With the menace of Miss Weaver's reign of terror supposedly behind them, the students of Hollow Fields can look forward to a more peaceful curriculum run by her ethically-minded successor, Principal Bleak.

But there's one problem: rebuilding the school after Miss Weaver's reign has left Hollow Fields broke! If the school can't scrape together the cash to pay its staff or maintain its grounds, the Board of Unprincipled Mad Science Education will have it shut down and use the student body for scientific experiments. Lucy stumbles upon a chance for Principal Bleak to save Hollow Fields. All they have to do is win the inter-school mad science competition and along with it, a hefty cash prize. But just what kind of things go on at a mad science fair?

Not Lives (DEC151561) will also be making its debut thanks to the folks at Seven Seas! The story is by the same mind behind the popular No Game No Life, Wataru Karasuma.

High school student Mikami has always been an eccentric oddball who doesn't quite fit in. Little do his classmates know, Mikami moonlights as a game designer extraordinaire. His mission is simple: create the ultimate romance game! Sounds easy, right?

When Mikami decides to play a mysterious game that he comes across, things take a turn for the bizarre as he suddenly is thrust into a survival game and transformed into a beautiful girl! Inside the game, if Mikami loses, it's not only his female avatar that's on the line, but his very own life! 

Nichijou (DEC151718) has already been enjoying a degree of popularity around the world, and now the manga is coming out in North America thanks to the folks at Vertical! The story is a humorous look at modern day Japanese life in comic form. Set in a strange school where you may see the principal wrestle a deer or a robot's arm hide a rollcake, the days that transpire through the course of Nichijou are curious and hilarious, if not downright bizzare.

Viz will be bringing the newest story from one of the creators of the ever-popular Death Note to the states, School Judgment: Gakkyu Hotei (DEC151686)!

At Tenbin Elementary, there is only one way to settle a dispute — in a court of law! All disputes bypass the teachers and are settled by some of the best lawyers in the country...who also happen to be elementary school students.

The accused this time is a boy named Tento. His crime? Murder of the beloved class fish Suzuki! Luckily for him, the state has sent him a defense attorney, Abaku Inugami. But is this wild young lawyer skilled enough to argue his client off the hook?

Behind the Scenes!! (DEC151701) is a brand-new series being brought over thanks to the folks at Viz. It's two months into Ranmaru's college career, and if he's learned one thing, it's that he's really uncomfortable around other people. But when he stumbles into a zombie mob attack, he's forced out of his comfort zone in the most dramatic way possible! Of course it's just a movie shoot, but when he wakes up from his ignoble faint, he's been whisked away behind the scenes with the Art Squad! Could this group of weirdoes be what Ranmaru's been looking for all his life?

The latest volume of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Battle Tendency (DEC151689) is also on its way thanks to Viz! The action-packed story continues to follow Joseph Joestar and Caesar Zeppeli as they try to defeat the mysterious and powerful Pillar Men before they can destroy the world! This release is the “JoJonium” edition, featuring new cover art from Hirohiko Araki in a gorgeous hardcover format, and is not to be missed!

Yen Press will be bringing over the manga version of The Boy and The Beast (DEC151724), which was one of the most successful anime films in Japan this past year!

Fleeing tragedy and mistreatment, a young boy named Ren hides among the crowds in Tokyo's busy Shibuya district. His efforts to run away are more successful than he realizes when he ends up in the world of the beasts! A rough-living bear named Kumatetsu gives Ren a new life and a new name, Kyuta, but is Kumatetsu really up to the job of being a mentor?

Demonizer Zilch (DEC151727) is another brand-new series coming to North America thanks to Yen Press! Listless high schooler Haruomi Io is plagued by the memory of his late kid sister. One day, he's suddenly attacked by a group of girls calling themselves the "Seven Gospel Society."

In the thick of a battle he never asked for, Haruomi is rescued by Zilch, a demoness who declares herself the "29th Branch." Upon sharing a kiss with his demonic savior, Haruomi finds a strange power coursing through his body! Will this incident lead Haruomi to cast off the doldrums and delve into a new world of superpowers and the supernatural?

That’s it for this month’s Manga Monthly! But as always, this is just a small sampling of the many wonderful new manga books and series coming to North America from these great publishers, so be sure to pick up a copy of PREVIEWS to get the full rundown of everything headed your way, and pre-order at your local comic shop! We’ll see you in the new year!