Kodansha USA has announced today that it will release a new paperback print edition of Hitoshi Iwaaki’s Parasyte manga series for Fall 2025.
The new paperback editions are inspired by Kodansha’s best-selling full color edition. It will feature the restoration of Iwaaki’s original black-and-white art, as well as an updated translation, interior design, lettering, and new cover designs.
Iwaaki first launched the original manga in a special issue of Kodansha’s Morning magazine called Morning Open Zōkan on August 1, 1989. It then began full serialization in Monthly Afternoon on November 25, 1989 and concluded on December 24, 1994. A total of 10 tankobon volumes were originally released in Japan during its initial publication. It was later republished in eight kanzenban volumes from January 23, 2003 to June 23, 2003. Tokyopop previously released the manga in English between 1998 to 2002.
A spinoff manga titled Parasyte Reversi by Moare Ohta was launched on March 2, 2018 and ended on May 7, 2021. Eight tankobon volumes were released in total. Kodansha USA licensed the spinoff manga last September and released it in English digitally on October 8, 2024.
The series has also inspired two tribute work collections, Neo Parasyte f and Neo Parasyte m, as well as a 24-episode TV anime series in 2014 and a two part live-action film series released between 2014 and 2015. A live-action South Korean spinoff drama titled Parasyte: The Grey began streaming on Netflix on April 5, 2024.
Kodansha USA describes the Parasyte manga as:
In the world of Parasyte: teenager Shinichi wakes up one night to discover a creature crawling under the skin of his right arm. This is a Parasite, a creature that takes control of a person’s body and turns it into a shapeshifting monstrosity hungry for human flesh.
Shinichi has managed to stop his parasite with a tourniquet, and as a result, it takes over only his arm, leaving two consciousnesses sharing one body and dependent on each other to survive. As parasites take control of more and more people, rumors spread of brutal murders committed by terrible abominations—heads splitting open to reveal mouths of sharp teeth, batlike wings erupting from backs, blades tearing through soft bellies. Only Shinichi knows for sure that these rumors are all true. But can he find a way to live without destroying everyone he cares about, much less save the rest of humanity?
Source: press release
