Heisei Haizan-hei ☆ Sumire-chan is coming back. Kodansha’s Weekly Young Magazine announced on November 9 that Satomi U’s series will resume in the magazine’s 51st issue of the year, which ships on November 16.
The manga went on hiatus in mid-July when Satomi U began maternity leave. The magazine said at the time that the break would last until mid-October, so the return is about a month later than originally planned.
The author’s own announcement
Satomi U marked the return with a handwritten message, which Weekly Young Magazine shared. In it she confirmed she had given birth and that she and her baby are both healthy. She thanked readers for waiting and said she was glad to be drawing Sumire again.
In the lower right corner of the message she drew her expanded family, including what looks like a “YounMaga” bear plush that the magazine’s staff gave her baby. It is a small detail, and it says more about the mood of the announcement than any press release could.
What the manga is
The series follows Sumire, a 31-year-old former idol whose career never took off. Her high school student cousin talks her into releasing a gravure book as a way of getting revenge on the entertainment industry, and the story runs from there.
Satomi U launched it in Weekly Young Magazine in January 2024. The twelfth compiled volume ships on December 4, so readers get a new chapter and a new book within about three weeks of each other.
The critical response has been solid. In May the manga was nominated in the Best General Manga category at Kodansha’s 50th annual Manga Awards, alongside a field of titles from the publisher’s own magazines. A nomination is not a win, but it puts the series in the conversation in a way that most gag-adjacent idol comedies never manage.
Satomi U’s other series
Sumire-chan is not Satomi U’s first long run. She ended Beauty and the Feast (Yakumo-san wa Eduke ga Shitai) in 2021, a series she had launched in Square Enix’s Young Gangan in March 2016. Square Enix shipped the eleventh and final volume in March 2021, and Square Enix Manga & Books released the final volume in English in November 2023.
That series was a slow-burn food manga about a widow and a high school baseball player who eat dinner together, and it built its following on atmosphere rather than plot. Sumire-chan is a louder, angrier book, but both share an interest in characters who are stuck and coping.
Why it matters
Maternity leave in weekly manga is still rare enough to be news. A weekly serialization schedule is brutal under normal circumstances, and the standard practice in the industry has long been to end a series rather than pause it. Weekly Young Magazine holding the slot open for four months, and the series coming back with a new volume already scheduled, is a healthier version of that story than readers are used to seeing.
The delay past the announced mid-October date is worth noting without turning it into a controversy. Births do not run to publishing schedules, and the magazine’s original estimate was a guess rather than a commitment.
For readers following the current wave of hiatuses and returns, our reports on Battle in 5 Seconds returning from its health hiatus and Captain Tsubasa: Rising Sun Finals coming back in October cover the same pattern from different angles.
The magazine’s 51st issue of the year lands on November 16. The twelfth volume follows on December 4.
Source: Anime News Network, citing Weekly Young Magazine‘s X account and Comic Natalie
Featured image: Satomi U’s handwritten return message for Heisei Haizan-hei ☆ Sumire-chan, via Anime News Network.
