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Dark Horse Licenses Shin'ichi Sakamoto's Innocent Rouge Manga

Dark Horse announced on Wednesday that it has licensed Shin'ichi Sakamoto's Innocent Rouge manga. The company will release the first omnibus volume, containing three volumes in one, in bookstores on October 21 and in comic book stores on October 22.

The manga is a sequel to Sakamoto's Innocent series. The story again centers on Charles-Henri, the eldest brother in the Sanson family of executioners, and his sister Marie-Joseph, who lives a free life in Versailles. One day, Marie-Joseph's love Alain is murdered at the hands of aristocrats.

Sakamoto launched Innocent in 2013, and the manga changed its name to Innocent Rouge when it moved from Weekly Young Jump to Grand Jump in 2015. The manga ended it in January 2020. Shueisha published nine compiled book volumes for the original Innocent manga. The 12th and final volume of Innocent Rouge shipped in February 2020.

The manga inspired a stage musical at the Hulic Hall in Tokyo in November-December 2019 and at the Paris at Palais des congrès de Paris in February 2020.

Innocent was nominated for the 18th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize "Reader Award" in 2014, and was also nominated for the eighth Manga Taisho awards in 2015. Innocent Rouge won an Excellence Award at the 24th Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in 2021.

Sources: Press release, Dark Horse's X/Twitter account