Hikaru Nakamura’s Black Night Parade ended on Monday. The final chapter ran in the November issue of Shueisha’s Ultra Jump, and Nakamura’s official X account marked the occasion by promising two things in the next issue: a side story, and a “major announcement” arriving on December 18.
The collected edition follows almost immediately. Shueisha ships the 12th volume on December 17, which means the last book lands one day before whatever the announcement turns out to be. That timing is not an accident. Publishers usually try to put a finale volume and a franchise reveal in the same news cycle so the two sell each other.
Black Night Parade started in Weekly Young Jump in November 2016, and Shueisha published the first volume that December. In 2019 it began serialization in Ultra Jump as well, where it has run ever since. Along the way it also appeared in Digital Margaret, Shonen Jump+, LINE Manga, pixiv Comic, Nico Nico Seiga and Cinra.net, which is an unusually wide spread for a single series. Most manga live in one magazine and a digital app. This one was distributed across a dozen storefronts and platforms over a decade.
The premise is a Christmas story with a nasty little twist. Hino Miharu is spending another holiday alone and underemployed when he runs into a Santa Claus dressed in black. That Santa handles the naughty list, and Miharu, being on it, gets recruited to work for him. Good pay, decent benefits, cute coworker, and a job that may or may not be a nightmare. Seven Seas Entertainment publishes the manga in English in print and digitally.
It has already been adapted once. A live-action film opened in Japan in December 2022, which gives the December 18 tease some context. The series has never had an anime. That is the obvious guess, and it is only a guess: nothing has been announced, and Nakamura’s account did not say what the announcement covers. A sequel film is the other possibility worth keeping in mind, since the first one exists.
Nakamura has another series running
Nakamura has been busy elsewhere for two decades. Saint Young Men, the comedy about Jesus and Buddha sharing a Tokyo apartment, started in 2006 and is still running. It spawned a two-volume original anime DVD project from A-1 Pictures in 2012 and 2013, a 2013 anime film, and a live-action adaptation. Before that came Arakawa Under the Bridge, which ran from December 2004 to July 2015, reached 14 volumes, and produced two television anime, a live-action series and a live-action film. Nakamura also illustrated NisiOisin’s Juni Taisen: Zodiac War, which Viz Media released in English in October 2017 and which later became an anime.
So this is not an author fading out. It is one long-running series closing while another keeps going, which is roughly the healthiest position a manga creator can be in.
Why the ending matters more than the ending
What makes this worth noting is the shape of the run rather than the final chapter. Ten years, twelve volumes, a film, and a publication history that jumped between a weekly magazine, a monthly, and half a dozen digital platforms. Very few series get to test that many formats and still finish on their own schedule, with the last chapter placed in the magazine the author chose.
Endings have been clustering this month. Hirayasumi wrapped on October 19 with two final chapters, and The Coppersmith’s Bride is three chapters from its end. Most of those series ran in one place. Black Night Parade did not, and that is the part of its record that will be hard to repeat.
For English readers, Seven Seas has the series in print and digital, and the Japanese finale is dated. An English release of volume 12 has not been announced yet, so anyone collecting in English is waiting on a date.
The December 18 issue of Ultra Jump will carry the side story and the announcement. That is two months from now, and the next Ultra Jump issue is the only place the answer will come from first.
Source: Anime News Network, citing the Ultra Jump November issue and Hikaru Nakamura’s official X account
Featured image: Black Night Parade manga cover art, via Seven Seas Entertainment and Anime News Network.
