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Goth, Moribito, Bebop Creators Start Young Gangan Manga

The next five biweekly issues of Square Enix's Young Gangan magazine will launch five manga titles, including ones by the creators of Goth, Blade of the Phantom Master, and Cowboy Bebop. This year's eighth issue (on sale on April 4) will start Vari Drive (pictured at right), a manga created by Kazuya Machida and drawn by Kendi Oiwa (Goth, Welcome to the N.H.K.). Masaru Gotsubo, the artist of the Samurai Champloo manga, designed the characters in Vari Drive who want to drop out of school and start a punk rock band. The next Young Gangan issue, on sale on April 18, will feature the Jin ~Anime Seirei no Moribito Gaiden~ manga written by Miki Nakae. This side story will center on the character Jin from the Moribito - Guardian of the Spirit (Seirei no Moribito) anime and will feature the art of the anime's character designer, Gatou Asou.

The Korean writer/artist duo of Youn In-Wan and Yang Kyung-Il will launch the Let's Bible manga in the 10th issue on May 2. The two recently finished their Shin Angyo Onshi (Blade of the Phantom Master) title, which was one of the first Korean works serialized in a Japanese manga magazine. Prolific anime scriptwriter Dai Satō (Cowboy Bebop, Eureka Seven, Freedom) will create a manga with Gotsubo called Yuzu Paper Mint in the following issue on May 16. Finally, Hideki Ohwada (Beach de Q, Dai Mahou Touge, Kidō Senshi Gundam-san) will start an as-yet-untitled work in the 12th issue, which goes on sale on June 6.