Welcome to Hachi Report, a monthly newsletter breaking down recent developments in the manga and manhwa world! Thanks to the efforts of our hardworking delivery fox Hachi, we have all the information you need about upcoming comics, new and notable events, and backstage publisher maneuvering. This month: Battan comes to TCAF, a new imprint from Yen Press, and continued controversy regarding AI translation.
Licensing Highlights
Akari
Writer/Artist: Marco Kohinata
Publisher: Glacier Bay Books
Debut: June 2026
Synopsis: A quietly beautiful standalone story about mistaken identity, found family, and the profound power of art. Marco Kohinata’s warm, softly textured lines and shading subtly evoke the color and shape, the fullness and complexity of human emotion.
The Pitch: This is one of the six titles chosen for the MINT manga initiative; it’s another Jocelyne Allen pick from her blog Brain vs Book.
Fire!
Writer/Artist: Hideko Mizuno
Publisher: Mangalith
Debut: October 14, 2026
Synopsis: Fire! follows the meteoric rise and fall of Aaron Browning, a troubled and poor Ohio teenager. In juvenile detention, Aaron meets the magnetic delinquent Fire Wolf—a motorcycle-riding rebel with an extraordinary musical talent. Their intense bond awakens a fiery passion for music in Aaron.
Aaron moves to Detroit’s gritty factories and underground scene, where he forms the band Fire! to channel his emotions, rebellion, and raw energy. As fame explodes, he plunges into the era’s excesses—sex, drugs, rock ’n’ roll, Vietnam-era shadows—embodying the intoxicating yet destructive pursuit of freedom.
The Pitch: Fire! was an event on its publication in 1969, blowing open the doors of shojo manga and preparing the way for its 1970s flourishing. Now it’s finally coming out in English in one big brick!
Fate Rewinder: All Great Feats Require Time
Writer/Artist: Futa Kimura
Publisher: Yen Press
Debut: October 2026
Synopsis: Meet the Spacetime Strategic Enforcement Unit, an organization dedicated to rescuing people from terrible destinies and tragic deaths. The unit’s nickname, “The Fate Rewinders,” is well earned—armed with Retry Eyes, micro–time machines implanted in their eye sockets, agents of the SSEU are equipped to stick around until they solve the case, whether that means trying once, twice, or ten thousand times!
The Pitch: If you’re one of those folks asking, “where are the manga for kids,” Fate Rewinder is by all accounts a good one. This is also an opportunity to get in on the ground floor before Rie Matsumoto adapts the series into an anime.
The Dragon School is Atop the Mountain
Writer/Artist: Ryoko Kui
Publisher: Yen Press
Debut: October 2026
Synopsis: A hero moves back in with their parents, a middle school angel is stressed about entering high school, and a centaur finds work pulling a cart. From Ryoko Kui, author of Delicious in Dungeon, comes a collection of fantastic tales where the extraordinary is just another part of ordinary daily life!
The Pitch: Ryoko Kui is back! This is an early collection of one-shots published before her currently available Seven Little Sons of the Dragon. Hopefully we see Terrarium in Drawer in English one day as well.
Juji and Aichi
Writer/Artist: codomopaper
Publisher: Glacier Bay Books
Debut: Fall 2026
Synopsis: A mysterious story depicting the complicated relationship between a popular novelist & an unsellable manga artist in the Meiji era.
The Pitch: This was announced a little while ago, but it’s been delayed for some time, so I’m including this new announcement here. Boy is that “unsellable manga artist” relatable…
The Magical Forest of Hoshigahara
Writer/Artist: Hisae Iwaoka
Publisher: Kodama Tales
Debut: November 2026
Synopsis: A charming new tale is coming soon .ೃ࿔*:･
The Pitch: Iwaoka’s previous work available in English was the working class SF slice of life series Saturn Apartments, from the dearly missed manga magazine Monthly Ikki. Curious to see how this new series compares!
Ball and Chain
Writer/Artist: Minami Q-ta
Publisher: Manga Mavericks Books
Debut: March 2027
Synopsis: “Maybe I could have chosen something different…”
Keito is a late-20s company employee who’s planning to get married as a “woman,” despite not feeling cemented into a specific gender or sexuality.
Meanwhile, Aya is a married woman in her 50s who continues playing out the role of “wife” despite being in a marriage that’s long since gone cold.
They both struggle with a gender that was decided upon birth and the “wife” role that became nothing more than a pantomime at some point.
This is a story of two queer people who harbor doubts about how they’ve been treated and shoved into a “normalized” box, and try to take back their true selves.
The Pitch: Minami Q-ta was previously published in the United States by Star Fruit Books, so I’m happy to see their work find a new home at Manga Mavericks. This series also has the Brain vs. Book Seal of Approval!
Her Tale of Shim Chong
Writer: seri
Artist: biwan
Publisher: Inklore
Debut: Spring 2027
Synopsis: Based on a Korean folktale, this GL series follows two very different women who share the same wish–to leave their predetermined lives behind.
The Pitch: Do you like Revolutionary Girl Utena? Then keep an eye out for the print version of this excellent webtoon series.
Breaking News
Featured Guest Battan Draws Poster for Toronto Comics Art Festival
Toronto Comics Art Festival (TCAF) revealed that its poster for 2026 will be drawn by Battan, the acclaimed manga artist behind such works as Run Away With Me, Girl and Secondhand Sisters. Battan will be a featured guest at the convention alongside Keita Katsushika, Marco Kohinata, Tokushige Kawakatsu and Moka Onmae, all of whom have been selected by the Manga International Network Team (MINT) project. Previous featured guests at TCAF include Akane Torikai (Sensei’s Pious Lie), Junji Ito (Uzumaki), and Taiyo Matsumoto (Tekkonkinkreet).
Yen Press Launches Avocado House Imprint for Prose in Translation
According to Publisher’s Weekly, Yen Press is launching a new imprint, Avocado House, for translated novels and nonfiction. The imprint is headed by publisher and editor-in-chief JuYoun Lee, for whom Yen Press’s junior readers imprint JY is also named. “Avocado House aims to be a true home for authors,” she is quoted, “a place where their voices can connect with readers far beyond borders and language barriers.” Initial titles include Keigo Higashino’s science fiction mystery Laplace’s Witch, Yuki Shashendo’s suspense thriller Sickness unto Love, and Gyatei Murasaki’s short story collection 1,000 Words Left to Live. Right now the imprint is planned to include works translated from Japanese and Korean.
Fiction in translation goes through booms and busts in the United States; an article from Public Books describes a series of waves leading “to a blossoming of linguistic and generic trends within the market before dissipating rapidly. Between these waves, in the trenches, bestsellers in translation fall to nearly zero.” Nevertheless, we’re in the middle of a boom, with GQ stating in 2025 that “translated fiction is everywhere right now.” With luck, Avocado House will publish some great work before the bust comes–if it does.
Studio White Combines the Powers of WEBTOON, Kadokawa and Redice
Per Comics Beat, WEBTOON is collaborating with Kadokawa and Redice to form Studio White. This new studio will adapt Kadokawa novel series, starting with Ryo Mizuno’s Record of Lodoss War, into vertical strip comics. Future works will include Sword Art Online, Slayers and The Familiar of Zero.
WEBTOON has already blurred the lines between webtoons and manga by creating vertical strip comic versions of series like Fullmetal Alchemist. Now it’s going one further by subjecting Japanese novel series like Lodoss War to the same process of adaptation as Redice’s previous hits Solo Leveling and Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint.
At the same time, I wonder if Redice has the range to do justice to these works. I can imagine a version of Sword Art Online that looks just like Solo Leveling. But a comedic series like Slayers? I’d rather each of these works be given a fitting artist than be flattened out into the same aesthetic. WEBTOON itself has the roster of cartoonists necessary to do this. It’s just a matter of whether they care to.
Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize Winners Announced
Previously on Hachi Report, we discussed the nominees for the 30th Annual Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize. Now Japan Anime News, from Oricon News, has announced the winners. The Grand Prize went to Ao Kojima for Hon Nara Uru Hodo, a series about a bookseller running in the magazine Harta. The series previously won the Manga Taisho as well as topping Kono Manga ga Sugoi!’s list for male readers.
The other winners are Mado Saito, who won the New Creator Prize for monster autopsy series Kaiju wo Kaibou Suru; Kawajiro, who won the Short Work Prize for Atarashii Tomodachi Kawajiro Short Story Collection; and Kazuyoshi Takeda, who won the Special Prize for the World War II series Peleliu Guernica of Paradise. The last looks particularly interesting for fans of Onwards to Our Noble Deaths and Cocoon.
Manta Adds Kodansha Manga Series to Platform
Manta announced via their website on April 7th that it is adding over 650 series from Kodansha, including The Fragrant Flower Blooms With Dignity and Blue Lock, to its service. “We plan to continue expanding our catalog by bringing in stories from a wide range of creators and partners,” it says, “ so you’ll always have more to discover.” An advertorial on Anime News Network included a statement from current CEO Asher Won asserting that “Manta will continue to strengthen content competitiveness so that more stories can be enjoyed broadly within a single ecosystem—without having to move between platforms.”
Manta was founded in 2020 by RIDI Corporation founder and CEO Kisik Bae. It initially specialized in Korean webtoons, particularly those adapted from Ridibooks titles like Under the Oak Tree. As you may remember from an earlier Hachi Report, though, Manta opened submissions to artists outside of South Korea this February. Other platforms like WEBTOON have also experimented with making vertical strip versions of popular manga like Fullmetal Alchemist and Hell’s Paradise.
GlobalComix Heralded For “The Most Powerful AI Stack in Digital Comics”
On March 18th, a Forbes article reported that GlobalComix had acquired the website INKR. This meant access to its library of titles, but also (more importantly) its slate of “collaborative, AI-assisted tools for translating, formatting and distributing IP globally…” New CEO Henrik Rydberg referred to these tools as “Figma for comics.” A few days later, on March 20th, GlobalComix updated their AI policy to forbid comics made solely by generative AI, as well as such works misrepresented as human-made, from its website.
Despite this, there was evidence that GlobalComix was still interested in generative AI. Its policy lists examples of “acceptable use of AI,” including color correction and re-touching. This month, as discovered by Comic Book Yeti, LEAD Venture Corporation explained via their Substack why they had invested in GlobalComix: what they call “The Most Powerful AI Stack in Digital Comics.” Not only do they argue that GlobalComix’s “AI translation copilot delivers 85–90% cost savings compared to industry-standard manual translation,” but they also highlight the INKR acquisition for its “advanced AI localization and visual redrawing capabilities.”
I can understand why some might see AI tools as acceptable compared to complete AI generation. After all, if the root of a comic is its artist, don’t they matter most? But a comic is more than just its artist. Letterers, colorers, translators and others all play invaluable roles in the final product. Says letterer Sara Linsley, “these AI tools will always rely on underpaid freelancers doing three jobs for a fraction of the wage of one. They’re merely a justification for not paying people.” No matter how much these companies insist that they are “a home for human creativity,” “not paying people” is more often than not their core value.
Fakku Issues Statement Regarding December Payment Processor Incident
Jacob Grady, founder and CEO of the hentai manga publisher FAKKU, made a statement on his site regarding an incident in December 2025 when “the payment processor we had worked with for the past 11 years terminated our account abruptly, without any prior notice or warning.” Many series were removed from the site as a result, although some were later re-uploaded after being edited, re-named or both. Grady links this incident to a larger phenomenon affecting sites like SubscribeStar, itch.io and Steam, where payment processors determine what can and cannot be sold. This threatens not just pornography but also mainstream successes like the video game Doki Doki Literature Club, which was removed from the Google Play Store early in April.
Grady says that in order to ensure this never happens again, FAKKU has “already implemented direct bank transfers for all regular FAKKU purchases.” It is also “investigating implementing crypto, pre-paid cards, and a dedicated point system as alternative methods of payment.” In the meantime, Grady recommends supporting the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, which assists artists and publishers with First Amendment cases involving comics of all kinds.
Go for it, Nakamura-kun!! Artist Leaves X After Online Harassment
Per KComicsBeat, Go For It, Nakamura-kun!! artist Syundei was bullied by online users into deleting her X account. “Because I only ever receive complaints consisting of “Why would you ever draw this?”,” she wrote, “and I seem to lack the ability to create works that bring the joy everyone expects, I don’t think there’s any point in continuing as a manga artist.” [Translation by KComicsBeat’s Kalai Chik.] This comes in the wake of the ongoing anime adaptation, which has reignited fan debate regarding Syundei’s past art depicting student Aiki Hirose and his teacher, the side character Sou Otogiri.
Anime News Network then reported on several manga artists came forward on X (formerly Twitter) to express their frustration with the current situation. Said Yu Toyota of Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!: “No creator could possibly draw a manga that predicts what’s right in the future…I’m posting a happy couple on this depressing Monday.” Yuiko of Dear Sister, I’ve Become a Blessed Maiden was more explicit: “I got the impression people reading on pirate sites are severely lacking in the ability to ‘understand other cultures,’ ‘read the room,’ and ‘imagine the thoughts of characters who aren’t depicted.’”
A week later (also per Anime News Network), Syundei released a statement through her publisher Hero’s Web regarding the fifth episode of the Go For It, Nakamura-kun!! anime, which features a scene in which Aiki and Sou exchange contact information. “Neither I, the creator, nor the animation production team endorse teachers and students exchanging personal contact information,” she said. Despite drawing art depicting teacher/student relationships in the past, recent incidents in the industry regarding “horrific crimes by adults against minors” have led her to “no longer use such themes in future works.”
Manga has always been used to explore taboo material; even CLAMP’s beloved series Cardcaptor Sakura features an infamous relationship between Sakura’s 12 year old classmate Rika and her adult teacher Terada-sensei. This would not fly in reality. But while manga can influence reality, it is not reality itself. Artists and readers can make their own choices regarding what they want to draw, share or discuss. Unfortunately, social media smashes these circles together, leading to context collapse, misunderstandings, and abuse even by like-minded people. That’s why a manga artist like Syundei is a target, why actual systemic predators escape justice, and why this will all probably happen again.
Hachi Snacks
- For The Comics Journal, Tegan O’Neil wrote about Maid to Skate and the question of Utopia.
- For Tsundoku Diving, Baxter reviewed Shinkou Shuukyou Omoide-Kyou, “a novel full of noise and yet distinctly lacking it.”
- For Comics Beat, Samantha Puc interviewed Harrison Doan, Head of Partnerships at Mahjong Pros.
- For Direct Edition, Dave interviewed genius manga artist Atsushi Kaneko.
- For Anime News Network, Marcille wrote about rakugo, a Japanese narrative tradition that inspired the ongoing manga series Akane-banashi.
ICYMI (In Case You Missed It)
Meanwhile, don’t forget to check out these Yatta-Tachi’s articles:
- May 2026 Manga, Manhwa, Light Novel, & Book Releases
- May 2026 BL / Yaoi Manga, Manhwa, Manhua, Danmei, & Light Novel Releases in Print
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