The announcement of Abrams ComicArts’s manga imprint Kana made the coming of new horror manga an inevitability. In fact, two of them are hitting shelves on the 29th of October, 2024: Shiro Kuroi’s Leviathan and Tetsuya Tsutsui’s Manhole. Both are the first in a brand new series of books and they hope to set the tone for Kana’s future ventures into horror.
Leviathan has Event Horizon-like vibes given its setting, hinting at the terrors that’ll be explored in it. The story focuses on a group of kids in space that stumble upon an abandoned spaceship (here’s where that influence kicks in) ripe with clues as to why it’s floating around completely devoid of life. Or so it seems. The ship, called Leviathan, is gigantic, a place with secrets to hide.
Manhole follows two detectives as they investigate a series of bloody murders whose mystery could involve a pandemic-level biological threat. Murder and virulent threats aren’t common bedfellows, so it’ll be interesting to see how they fare in this new story. Murder done in manga is never simple, and Manhole is set to further complicate it with the fear of something that has hit and is still hitting close to home.
Both books release tomorrow, so make sure you give them a look to see if Kana has what it takes to keep up with the best that manga has to offer on horror.
The official PR follows below.
Perfect for fans of Moebius, Star Wars, and Katsuhiro Otomo, Shiro Kuroi’s Leviathan Volume One follows a group of students pitted against each other in a brutal battle for survival in the depths of space. The gripping sci-fi survival horror centers around the Leviathan, an enormous spaceship, abandoned in a galaxy far, far away. When looters break into the abandoned ship, they discover the diary of a middle-schooler, Kazuma, who documented the horrific fate of the ship’s passengers.
Along with the looters, the reader will piece together the decades-old tale of an innocent school trip to Earth with a tragic and brutal ending. Trapped in space without enough oxygen left to wait for rescue, Kazuma documents the mental collapse and treachery of his teacher and classmates as they realize that the only hope for survival is the cryopreservation unit at the heart of the ship, which can only fit one person. A bloody battle for survival ensues as friend turns against friend, teacher against student, and each survivor is forced to confront the value of their own life. As the looters read on, they reach a chilling realization—there is still one survivor somewhere inside! One of the top bestselling new manga titles in Japan, Leviathan’s incredible, brutal illustrations and tightly paced plot will leave readers at the edge of their seats and linger in their minds long after the last page of each volume.
The horror continues with manga star Tetsuya Tsutsui’s Manhole Volume 1, the first in a three-volume horror-thriller that follows two detectives trying to solve a string of mysterious deaths as they stumble upon a much larger conspiracy and a potential manmade global pandemic that’s as perplexing as it is deadly.
As Detectives Ken Mizoguchi and Nao Inoue investigate a series of bloody murders, they begin to uncover a deadly biological agent which could cause an epidemic. An unlikely lead sets them off on the hunt for a mysterious photographer, but as they chase down shadows, the infection keeps spreading. This thrilling detective story with a biological horror hook will keep readers on the edge of their seats.
An exclusive preview of Manhole follows below.
