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Gifū Dōdō!! Naoe Kanetsugu -Maeda Keiji Sake-gatari Manga to End in 10th Volume
posted on by Sarah Nelkin
The ninth volume of Yūji Takemura, Nobuhiko Horie, and Tetsuo Hara's Gifū Dōdō!! Naoe Kanetsugu -Maeda Keiji Sake-gatari manga revealed on Friday that the series will end in the tenth compiled volume, which is scheduled to ship in spring 2014.
Hara (Fist of the North Star) first created the 1990-1993 manga Hana no Keiji -Kumo no Kanata ni- to adapt Keiichirō Ryū's novel about another samurai, Maeda Keiji. (Historical Japanese names are listed family name first here, while modern names are listed family name last.)
Hara and magazine editor Horie then brought in manga artist Takemura to launch the spinoff Gifū Dōdō!! Naoe Kanetsugu -Maeda Keiji Tsuki-gatari- manga in Shinchosha's Weekly Comic Bunch magazine in 2008. According to Hara, he felt he did not delve far enough into the life of Maeda's close friend Naoe in the earlier manga. However, Weekly Comic Bunch folded in 2010 after Shinchosha had published nine compiled volumes.
As result, Horie launched a new magazine called Comic Zenon in 2010. The three creators launched the Gifū Dōdō!! Naoe Kanetsugu -Maeda Keiji Sake-gatari- manga in Comic Zenon's inaugural issue.
The sequel manga inspired the Gifū Dōdō!! Kanetsugu to Keiji television anime series, which debuted in Japan this summer. Crunchyroll is streaming the 26-episode series as it airs.
