2011 Preview: 25 Hot New Manga

Author and Artist: Kohta Hirano
Publisher: Dark Horse
Release Date: Fall 2011

From the creator of Hellsing comes a new seinen manga series filled with the same kind of over-the-top violence and dark humor that made the supernatural adventures of Alucard such a fan fave.

Drifters is set a post-feudal Japan, where a young samurai, wounded on the battlefield finds himself transported to a strange but fantastic world.

Author and Artist: Jiro Matsumoto
Publisher: Vertical
Release Date: August 9, 2011
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Zombies are hot in comics-land, and hot girls armed to the teeth are a big deal in certain manga circles. Put them together (with some tense friendship dynamics and a few OMG gross-out scenes) and you've got Velveteen & Mandala, a one-shot for grown-ups.

Billed as an extreme horror manga story, Velveteen & Mandala is about two teen girls who go on a mission to exterminate the zombies who have infested in their once-pleasant Tokyo town.

Author: Ryou Ryumon
Artist: Kouji Megumi
Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Release Date: August 23, 2011
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With all the attention on computer espionage thanks to the Wikileaks controversies, Bloody Monday seems particularly timely as it tells the story of a high school hacker who is called upon to prevent a terrorist attack.

As a series that has already generated enough interest in Japan to warrant an 11-volume first series, and a current sequel series that's now up to five volumes, Bloody Monday just might hit a sweet spot with tech-savvy, thrill junkies in North America too.

Author and Artist: Min-Woo Hyung
Publisher: TOKYOPOP
Release Date: May 2011
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With the feature-film debut of Priest due out in 2011, TokyoPop is pulling out the stops to offer several new and original Priest stories based on Min-Woo Hyung's ultra-violent, quasi-religious sci-fi/action manhwa. But TokyoPop isn't stopping there — they're also publishing Ghostface, a new full-color series from Hyung.

In a not-so-far-off future, the most dangerous criminals are sent to Sodo, a high-security island prison that has been cut off from society for 50 years. But when a top-secret drug is stolen, the pharmaceutical company sends government agents to infiltrate Sodo to retrieve it.

Author and Artist: Hotaru Odagiri
Publisher: Yen Press
Release Date: June 21, 2011
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Hotaru Odagiri is best known as the creator of the bittersweet boys love story Only the Ring Finger Knows, but she's got more than high school puppy love on the agenda in The Betrayal Knows My Name, bishonen-packed supernatural thriller.

Also known as "Uraboku," (Uragiri wa Boku no Namae o Shitteiru), this story centers around Yuki, a boy who was left at an orphanage shortly after his birth. Yuki can sense what others are feeling just by touching them. Now a teen, Yuki discovers that his powers has put him at the epicenter of a multi-generational war between two supernaturally-powerful clans.