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The Deer King Manga Resumes on February 7

The February issue of Kadokawa's Young Ace magazine revealed on Tuesday that Taro Sekiguchi's manga adaptation of Nahoko Uehashi's Shika no Ō (The Deer King) medical fantasy novel series will resume on February 7.

The manga went on hiatus last October due to the delay of the novels' anime film adaptation. The Shika no Ō: Yuna to Yakusoku no Tabi (The Deer King: The Promised Journey With Yuna) anime film will open on February 4.

Sekiguchi launched the manga on Kadokawa's Young Ace Up website in July 2021. The manga will end with its second volume.

The novels center on Van, the head of a group of soldiers who expected to die fighting for their lands against a large empire looking to incorporate their home into its kingdom. Instead of dying, however, Van is taken as a slave and thrown into a salt mine. One night, a pack of strange dogs attacks the salt mine, and a mysterious illness breaks out. During the attack, Van takes the opportunity to escape, and he meets a young girl. Elsewhere, rumor is spreading that only immigrants are coming down with this mysterious illness. The medical scientist Hossal risks his life to search for a cure. Doctors also study a father and child who seem to have survived the illness. The novels tell the interconnecting stories and bonds of those who fight against a cruel fate.

The novels won the Japan Booksellers' Award and won the fourth "Japan Medical Novel Award" in 2015.

The film was delayed from a September 18, 2020 opening due to the ongoing new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), and delayed again from September 10, 2021. Anime Limited plans to release the film in cinemas in the United Kingdom in 2021 if the COVID-19 situation permits. GKIDS will theatrically screen the film with both English subtitles and an English dub in North America in early 2022.

The film screened in June in competition at last year's Annecy International Animation Film Festival. The film screened at the Fantasia International Film Festival in August 2021 and won the Bronze Audience Award there. It also screened at the Animation Is Film Festival in Los Angeles in September 2021.

Uehashi's Moribito and The Beast Player Erin novel series both received television anime adaptations. Moribito also inspired a live-action television series adaptation. The North American publisher Scholastic published the first two volumes of Moribito in English. Uehashi won the Hans Christian Andersen Author Award in 2014.

Source: Young Ace February issue