Kodansha USA Licenses Parasyte Reversi Manga

Image via Kodansha USA

© Moare Ohta, Kodansha, Kodansha USA Publishing

Kodansha USA announced on Tuesday that it has licensed Moare Ohta's Parasyte Reversi (Kiseijū Reversi) action-horror manga based on Hitoshi Iwaaki's Parasyteseries. The company will release the manga in English digitally on October 8.

Kodansha USA describes the story:

Three dismembered bodies were found in an abandoned basement parking garage, sliced limb from limb while they were still alive…and if the boy who discovered them is to be believed, the murders occurred in an impossibly short window of time. Nothing is adding up for veteran detective Fukami of the East Fukuyama police department, and his gut is telling him the boy is hiding something. In fact, he's quite certain that Tatsuki Hirokawa saw exactly what happened, and who did it. But what the boy knows will go far beyond even his wildest nightmares… A riveting parallel episode to Hitoshi Iwaaki's acclaimed sci-fi horror series, from the author of cult classic Teppu.

Ohta debtued the manga on Kodansha's Comic Days service in March 2018, and ended it in May 2021. Kodansha published the manga's eighth and final compiled book volume in July 2021.

Iwaaki's original manga serialized in Kodansha's Afternoon magazine from 1990-1995. The manga takes place in a world where alien beings called Parasites come to Earth and start taking over humans by entering in through their noses and ears and attaching themselves to their brains. One alien called Migi is only able to take over high school student Shinichi Izumi's right arm, and is unable to control Shinichi completely. Migi and Shinichi learn to co-exist, and the two battle other Parasites who see humans only as food.

Kodansha USA published the series in English. The company also published the Neo Kiseijū tribute manga series under the title Neo Parasyte m in 2017, which features stories by different artists, including Ohta. The tribute manga ran from September 2014 to March 2016 in Kodansha's Afternoon magazine.

The manga most recently inspired a television anime adaptation in 2014, and two live-action films in 2014 and 2015.

The manga is inspiring a South Korean live-action adaptation titled Parasyte: The Grey (Kiseiju: The Grey) that will debut worldwide on Netflix on April 5. The series will run new episodes until June.

Source: Email correspondence