Kodansha Announces Five Digital-First Manga Series Debuts for May

Kodansha aims to put out a “more diverse and robust library of manga officially than what’s available in print” by releasing a number of series digitally. They call them “digital-first” because the most successful ones may come to print release later. For the month of May, they’ll be putting out these five new series, one per week on Tuesdays.

I find it interesting that they also include the Japanese title in their press releases, which suggests they’re building on awareness from scanlators or others following the original-language releases. These series often are more likely to be shojo or josei. Following are descriptions provided by the publisher.

May 1: Beware the Kamiki Brothers!, Yuji Onda’s romantic-comedy manga about a high-school girl who finds herself living with some scary new stepbrothers (Japanese title: Kamiki kyoudai okotowari)

May 8: Heaven’s Design Team, an imaginative new manga series about Heaven’s Animal Design Department, where designers create a variety of new animals while contending with the unreasonable requests of their client (Japanese title: Tenchi souzou design-bu)

May 15: The Wizard and His Fairy, Chisato Nesumi’s pretty fantasy manga about an eccentric wizard and the beautiful and strong-willed fairy he takes in (Japanese title: Kirikagohime to mahoutsukai)

May 22: Can You Just Die, My Darling?, the hit dark manga thriller of murder, love, and delusion by Majuro Kaname and Sousou Sakakibara (Japanese title: Konya wa tsuki ga kirei desuga, toriaezu shine)

May 29: A Kiss, For Real, Fumie Akuta’s sweet, but sadistic, high-school romance manga about a mask-wearing girl and a free-spirited boy (Japanese title: Sekirara ni Kiss)