Manga Xanadu

I love mysteries and detective stories, so whenever I hear about a new one, I have to talk about it! Shuiesha’s Cocohana magazine has announced that Akiko Higashimura, the creator of Princess Jellyfish and the award-winning Kakukaku Shikajika, will be starting a new detective series in the November issue due on in September.

Mythical Detective Loki is a series I have wanted released in the west for years. It’s had a bumpy history here. ADV Manga first licensed the continuation of the series, Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, and released two volumes before they folded. Jmanga licensed the first series and managed to release five volumes before it folded. A third series, Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok: Gods of the New World, never saw translation here, but has now ended in Japan. The series is about Loki, the Norse god of mischief, who is banished to Earth in the form of a young boy. To return to the land of the gods, he must collect auras of evil, so he opens a detective agency. As well as collecting the auras, he has to deal with other Norse gods who come to visit and/or taunt him, some of whom do not want him returning. I love boy detective titles, as well as any kind of mythology, so I’ve been dying to read this series. I still have the two volumes ADV Manga released, but lost the Jmanga titles when they went under. But this is a series that so deserves another chance! It’s not the manga’s fault…

It was announced in the first 2015 issue of Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump that Yasunori Mitsunaga was launching a new detective series, Kako to Nise Tantei. This mystery series follows a genius boy detective with a shocking secret, and the first chapter featured a color opening page. It just came out on December 11, so not a lot of information is out about it but, I love boy detective stories and am always happy to see more of them. It would be great if Viz Media would consider it once it’s got some chapters under its belt. It’s too bad it’s not a Weekly Shonen Jump series, otherwise we could have gotten a Jump Start on the first three chapters. This isn’t Mitsunaga’s first mystery series. Back in 2011, he launched another detective series, Kan Tantei D&W for Shonen Gahosha’s Monthly Young King. It features two characters, Juro, a man who is very sensitive to the smell of blood, and Hisato, who is a reclusive shut-in, for his own reasons. In the first story, Juro finds the body of an idol. After a run-in with the police, he goes to Hisato, who has his own mysterious powers, for help. This…