Kodansha’s Magazine Pocket app has landed a new series from one of the biggest names in its lineup. Shinobu Ohtaka, the creator of Magi and Orient, launches Geek and Crown (Geekrown) on October 27, the app’s official X account announced this week. Kodansha’s English service K MANGA picks it up on October 26, a day before Japan.
The teaser is one line long: expose the traitorous officer hiding inside a war of succession. That is the entire pitch so far. A military man sells out his own side while a royal succession tears itself apart, and the reader is apparently meant to work out who he is. Kodansha has not said whether this is fantasy, political thriller, or something sitting between the two.
The Japanese title is ギークラウン, romanized in the announcement as Geekrown. Magazine Pocket has not announced a page count, a release schedule beyond the October 27 start, or any staff beyond Ohtaka herself.
Why Ohtaka’s name carries weight
Ohtaka is one of the few manga artists whose work has crossed over into anime twice with real staying power. Magi ran in Shogakukan’s Weekly Shōnen Sunday from 2009 to 2017 and finished at 37 collected volumes. A-1 Pictures adapted it into two TV anime seasons plus a sidestory anime, and the property is still one of the better-remembered fantasy adventure series of the 2010s.
She followed it with Orient, launched in Kodansha’s Weekly Shōnen Magazine in May 2018. The series moved to Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine in February 2021, entered its final arc in July 2023, and ended in October 2024. Kodansha published the 22nd and final volume that November. Kodansha USA Publishing handles the English edition and released volume 20 on April 14 this year.
Orient’s anime arrived in two cours: the first in January 2022, the second in July 2022 on TV Tokyo, where it covered the Awajishima Gekitō-hen arc. Crunchyroll streamed both and produced English dubs for each.
So Geek and Crown is her first new serialization since Orient wrapped, roughly two years on. That gap matters to readers who followed Orient to its ending and have been waiting to see what she does next.
A different home this time
There is a small piece of publishing trivia buried in the announcement. Magi was a Shogakukan title. Orient was Kodansha print. Geek and Crown goes straight to Magazine Pocket, Kodansha’s digital app rather than a print magazine, which means the release model changes along with the publisher.
Magazine Pocket publishes weekly chapters on a fixed day, and its readership skews toward people reading on phones during commutes. A series built around a slow-burn political mystery has room to breathe in that format. It also means the first chapter could run long, since app debuts often get extra pages to hook readers.
The same app hosts a large chunk of Kodansha’s mid-tier action lineup, and it took a public hit earlier this year when a pair of PHP flaws took down Magazine Pocket, MANGA Plus and K MANGA at the same time. Kodansha has since patched the issue. If you plan to read the first chapter on launch day, that history is worth remembering: app debuts tend to spike traffic.
English readers get it a day early
K MANGA, Kodansha’s English-language service, will add Geek and Crown on October 26, the day before the Japanese debut. That answers the biggest open question about the launch. Readers outside Japan do not have to wait for a third-party license or a collected volume, they get the series on the same week as everyone else.
The first Japanese chapter appears on Magazine Pocket on October 27. Neither app has said how many pages the opener runs, and K MANGA has not posted a chapter schedule beyond that first date.
Two things are worth watching once the chapter lands. First, whether Ohtaka keeps the succession-crisis premise as a straight political drama or brings in the supernatural elements she leaned on in both Magi and Orient. Second, whether the series gets a color spread or cover placement in its debut week, which is usually a decent signal of how hard Kodansha intends to push it.
For now, the announcement gives readers a date and a one-sentence hook, and Ohtaka’s track record does the rest of the selling.
Source: Anime News Network, citing K MANGA and Magazine Pocket’s official X account.
Featured image: Geek and Crown announcement artwork by Shinobu Ohtaka, via Anime News Network / Kodansha.
