Despera is finally moving forward — as a manga. Chiaki J. Konaka, the script supervisor behind Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze and Hellsing, announced at the Japan Weekend Madrid event in Spain that Yoshitoshi ABe’s long-dormant Despera project will be adapted as a manga in 2027. He posted a visual for the project on X on Monday, September 28.
The announcement revives an anime that has been effectively frozen for more than a decade.
What was announced
Konaka said the manga is planned for 2027 and shared a first visual for it. He added two clarifications that matter for anyone who has followed the project: the manga’s setting and era will differ from what the original project announcement described, and the work is not connected to Serial Experiments Lain.
That last point is worth underlining, because ABe and Konaka are best known together for Lain, and it is easy to assume any collaboration between them inherits that universe. Konaka stated plainly that it does not.
The history behind Despera
Despera was unveiled by ABe at Seattle’s Sakura-Con in 2009. ABe was leading the project and designing the characters, while Konaka — the series script supervisor of Serial Experiments Lain, Texhnolyze and Hellsing — was writing the script.
The project then stalled. Director Ryūtarō Nakamura, who had been attached to the anime, died in 2013, and the production was put on hold. In October 2014, ABe said the project was continuing with a new director, but no finished anime ever materialized.
The title itself is layered. It derives from a poem by the Dadaist poet Jun Tsuji (1884–1944) and from a shortened form of the word “desperado.” The original story centered on Ain, a 14-year-old girl who builds devices despite lacking the scientific background such work would normally require. It was set in Japan’s Taishō era in 1922 — the year before the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake that devastated the Tokyo area.
Why a manga, and why it matters
Turning Despera into a manga is a practical route for a property that never cleared the hurdles of full anime production. Manga can be produced by a smaller team and is easier to get to readers, which makes it a realistic way to finally realize a concept that has been sitting unfinished for years.
It also means the 2027 version should not be treated as a straight adaptation of the 2009 pitch. Konaka’s note that the setting and era will change signals that what eventually arrives will be a reworked take rather than the story as it was originally described. Readers should expect the manga to stand on its own terms.
For fans of ABe and Konaka, the announcement is a rare bit of movement on one of anime’s best-known abandoned projects, and it keeps the memory of Nakamura’s unfinished work alive. We looked at a similar legacy story recently when director Toshio Masuda died at 98, and you can track new 2027 projects such as Code Geass: Star Chaser Aspal in our 2027 anime releases guide.
Source: Anime News Network, citing Chiaki J. Konaka’s announcement at Japan Weekend Madrid and his X account
Featured image: Visual for the Despera manga shared by Chiaki J. Konaka, via Anime News Network.
