There have been plenty of Magic: The Gathering comics released in the west, including a free digital manga tie-in for the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty set, but frustratingly the series that’s been serialized in Monthly Shōnen Ace since 2018 has remained Japan-exclusive—until now.
Viz Media, the manga publisher who also release those lush Magic: The Gathering art books, has announced the first volume of Magic manga Destroy All Humans: They Can’t Be Regenerated will receive an official English language release in “Fall 2024” (according to Barnes & Noble, it’ll be out on October 8). It’ll also come with an exclusive Magic card, just like the Japanese compilations.
Destroy All Humans isn’t your typical card battle manga. For starters it’s not set in the multiverse of the card game, but instead in the equally fantastical world of the 1990s. The main characters are teenage students in late ’90s Japan who play Magic: The Gathering in its earliest incarnation, and so the action dramatizes the characters playing iconic cards from the before times like Swords to Plowshares.
But it’s also a romantic comedy, where two young Magic players from opposite sides of the tracks find their rivalry slowly turning to love. It’s more of a slice-of-life story than something like Yu-Gi-Oh!
There are currently 15 volumes of the series available in Japanese with the most recent one releasing in April, which means there’s plenty of Destroy All Humans to be getting on with if Viz translates the whole lot. The first volume came with a promotional version of the Diabolic Edict card, and subsequent volumes included cards like Shock, Duress, and Voltaic Key. Who knows what the English version will include, but old school cards with manga-style art would be a fun bonus.
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