This year will bring new manga from Dav Pilkey, Gengoroh Tagame, and Naoki Urasawa, as well as a classic space opera and two cat manga, one cute, one not so much. Here’s a look at some interesting upcoming titles.
Graphix will publish Captain Underpants: The First Epic Manga, adapted from Dav Pilkey’s prose book by manga artist Motojiro, on April 7 (see “Graphix Announces ‘Captain Underpants’ Manga”). The 192-page, full color manga reads from right to left, and it follows the storyline of the original, but it’s unmistakably manga, and Motojiro has brought new energy to the story with lively characters and action-packed sequences. It’s rated for ages 7 and up and will be available on April 7 as a hardcover with an MSRP of $24.99 and a paperback with an MSRP of $14.99.
Chi’s Sweet France takes the family from Chi’s Sweet Home to Paris, where they enjoy the urban life but Chi keeps trying to get outdoors; they finally move to the suburbs so she can be an outdoor cat again. The slim volume has a similar look and feel to the original Chi books, with full-color watercolor-like art that reads from left to right the artist is different but the style is the same. The first volume, rated for ages 8 and up, will go on sale on April 21 with an MSRP of $9.95.
Billy Bat, by Naoki Urasawa and Tagashi Nagasaki, is a much-anticipated title about a Japanese American comics creator who fears he may have inadvertently plagiarized his highly successful character. It’s 1949, and Kevin Yamagata served in the postwar occupation, so he travels back to Japan to get some answers and quickly gets embroiled in a complex situation. This is a thriller/sci-fi/mystery with a fast-moving plot and a cast of characters who all seem to be hiding something, and it’s a logical pick for Urasawa’s other series, Monster and 20th Century Boys. Abrams is publishing the series, which is rated 16+, and the first volume will be released on June 2 with an MSRP of $13.99.
Gengoroh Tagame’s Fish and Water is the story of two guys, Akira and Koji, who like to hang out. A lot. Their friendship starts with a wedding and gets deeper when Akira brings Koji a case of fresh cabbage. As the COVID-19 pandemic gets under way and the world shuts down, these two friends form their own bubble, and they begin to wonder if their friendship will become something more. Like Tagame’s earlier manga My Brother’s Husband and Our Colors, Fish and Water will be published by Pantheon (see “New Gengoroh Tagame Manga”), which will release the 192-page one-shot on June 23 as a hardcover with an MSRP of $30.00.
Five Star Stories, by Mamoru Nagano, is a vast and ambitious space opera set in distant star cluster and featuring mech fights, genetic engineering, and an immortal emperor at the head of it all. The first story arc, which takes up the first three volumes, was adapted into an anime film that was released by ADV Films, and the manga was published in English by Toyspress in 2002 (see “Diamond Signs Three More for Bookstores”). Nagano launched the series in 1986 and is still keeping it going; the 18th volume was released in 2025. Titan Comics will publish the first volume, which includes character information and timelines as well as the story itself, on July 7 with an MSRP of $19.99.
Sassy Cats, by Yamada Murasaki, is not your standard cat manga; the cats speak to each other, but their musings reflect the thoughts of their creator, who took a break from manga to have two children and came back to the field years later. The cats are limber and expressive rather than cute, and the conversations are frank. Murasaki, who died in 2009, is also the creator of Talk to My Back (see “Drawn & Quarterly Spring 2022 Lineup”), and like that manga, these short chapters originally ran in the alt-manga magazine Garo. Sassy Cats is a one-shot, and Drawn & Quarterly will publish it in November as a 160-page paperback with an MSRP of $22.00.
Click Gallery below for covers!
For more great manga features, see “ICv2 Manga Week 2026.”
Source: ICv2
