The December issue of Shueisha’s Jump SQ., out November 4, confirmed that Kemono Jihen is close to the end. The magazine says the manga’s climax is “imminent.”
The phrasing is loose, and the magazine did not explain it. “Imminent” could mean the final arc has started, or it could mean a handful of chapters are left. Volume 26 stays the finish line either way.
The countdown started in August
That wording has a paper trail behind it. The 25th collected volume, which shipped on August 4, already announced that the series would finish in the next one. So the December issue is confirmation rather than news: the story wraps in volume 26.
Shō Aimoto launched Kemono Jihen in Jump SQ. in December 2016. A little over ten years and 26 volumes is a full run, and the last stretch has been hard on the schedule. The series took a one-issue break in September, after Aimoto’s brother died in August. There was another one-issue break in February, when Aimoto said she had gastroenteritis at the start of the year. In that same note she told readers she was feeling better and had an endoscopy coming up.
Where English readers stand
Seven Seas Entertainment publishes the manga in English. Volume 22 came out on October 6, which puts the English edition four volumes behind Japan. That gap will widen slightly once the final book lands, and no date has been given for volume 26 yet.
What the manga is about
The setup, as Seven Seas describes it: Inugami is a Tokyo detective who takes on occult cases. A call sends him to a remote village, where he meets a boy the locals call Dorotabo, after the muddy-paddy yōkai the name comes from. The boy has no parents and gives off a smell strong enough to make the village hate him. Inugami notices something else about him, and when the two of them look into an animal attack on local livestock, the reason becomes clear. He takes the boy on and starts teaching him to fight the creatures most people never see, using the strange properties of the boy’s own body.
A ten-year run with a rough final stretch
An anime adaptation premiered in January 2021. It covered the early arcs and stopped there, so the bulk of the story has only ever existed in print. No second season has been announced.
The same December issue also carries the ending notice for Seraph of the End, which finishes on December 4. Jump SQ. is closing two of its long-running series in the same month.
Why it matters
What makes this ending interesting is the length of the runway. Aimoto has known the finish line since at least August, and the announcement in volume 25 was unusually early by Jump SQ. standards. Ending a decade-old series in its 26th volume means a fairly tight final arc, and the next few chapters will show whether it reads as planned or as a sprint.
It also lands in a crowded season for final arcs. I Don’t Want to Be Killed by You, My Crown Prince! entered its own final arc recently, and the volume of endings across publishers this autumn has been hard to miss.
English readers are in for a wait. Seven Seas is four volumes back, with volume 23 not yet dated, and the final chapter will be online in Japan long before the last book reaches shelves in English.
Source: Anime News Network, citing the December issue of Jump SQ.
Featured image: Art from Shō Aimoto’s Kemono Jihen (© Shō Aimoto, Shueisha), via Anime News Network.
