More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers is coming back. Creator Yūki Kanamaru took to X on October 1 to announce that the romantic comedy manga will return from its hiatus in this year’s December issue of Kadokawa’s Young Ace magazine, which goes on sale in November.
The return is not just another chapter — it marks the start of the series’ final part, which the author says will be collected from the 14th compiled volume onward.
What Kanamaru Announced
Kanamaru’s message, posted on the series’ official X account, confirmed that the manga has been cleared to resume serialisation in Young Ace. Because the December issue of a Japanese monthly magazine typically hits shelves in November, readers should expect the new chapter before the end of the year rather than in December itself.
The manga had been on pause since March 2025. At the time, Kanamaru explained that the break was intended to allow proper preparation for the final stretch of the story, so that it could be drawn and published “at a healthy pace” instead of being rushed through the conclusion. That framing matters for long-time readers: the hiatus was planned around the ending, not a sign that the series was being wound down quietly.
Where the Story Stands
More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers follows Jiro Yakuin, a high school student with no romantic experience, who is paired with Akari Watanabe, a classmate who could hardly be more different. The pairing happens through a class called “Marriage Practical,” in which students are required to live together and act like a married couple. The reward for making the arrangement work is the right to swap partners and be with the person they actually have feelings for.
What starts as a performance between two mismatched roommates is the engine of the series, which builds its comedy and drama out of the gap between the roles Jiro and Akari are playing and what they begin to feel for each other. Udon Entertainment publishes the manga in English.
An Anime With a Following of Its Own
The manga’s profile got a significant boost from its anime adaptation, which premiered in October 2022. Crunchyroll streamed the series as it aired in Japan and also produced an English dub. The anime helped push the franchise beyond its original readership, which is one reason the upcoming return has drawn attention well outside Japan.
For anyone who came to the story through the show, the December return is effectively the news that the source material is heading toward its conclusion rather than continuing indefinitely.
Why It Matters
Manga hiatuses are common, but returns that also signal the beginning of a final arc are a different kind of event. They set a clear finish line for a series that has been running for years and tell readers that the story’s remaining chapters will be the ones that resolve what the setup has been building toward since the “Marriage Practical” premise was introduced.
The timing also fits a broader pattern in the manga calendar this year, with several long-running and paused titles returning to serialisation ahead of their conclusions. Readers tracking them have had a busy stretch: the Go! Go! Loser Ranger! manga returned from its health hiatus, and Battle in 5 Seconds resumed after a health-related break as well.
For More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers, the practical upshot is simple: the wait is nearly over, and the story is entering the phase that will decide how it ends.
Source: Anime News Network
Featured image: More Than a Married Couple, But Not Lovers manga artwork, via Anime News Network.
