Sora Karin and Kentarō Harada launched a new manga on Shonen Jump+ on Saturday. It is called The Pit of Darkness, read Yami Sute Ana in Japanese, and MANGA Plus is publishing it in English on the same schedule. Karin writes the story and Harada draws.
The hook is a hole in the ground. According to the description MANGA Plus posted with the first chapters, the pit is a void that erases anything thrown into it. Kasuga, a boy his classmates take advantage of because he works hard and does not push back, finds it during a class clean-up on a school trip. He drops something in by accident, and the pit turns out to do more than delete things. It distorts reality.
That is all Shueisha has released in the way of plot, and it is enough to see the shape of the thing: a quiet kid, a supernatural hole, and a rule he will spend the series testing.
Two creators who keep getting serialized
Neither name is new to readers who follow web manga. Karin and Harada worked together on Enkan no Emotions for Shueisha’s Tonari no Young Jump, which ran from November 2024 to January 30 this year. Shueisha shipped the fifth and final collected volume on March 18.
Karin also wrote The Archangel of Death, known in Japanese as Dantō no Archange, with artist Merou Meiji. It ran on Coamix’s Comic Tatan site from March 2022 to November 2023 and came to five volumes. MangaPlaza handles it in English.
Harada’s own track record includes Villain Actor, made with writer Mikumo Seto. It started in Coamix’s Monthly Comic Zenon in July 2022, ended in October 2023, and ran three volumes. Titan Manga released all three in English.
Put those together and you get a pairing that has been serialized in four different places over four years, with one completed five-volume series as a team. Jump+ is the biggest of those venues by a wide margin.
Why the platform matters here
Jump+ is where Shueisha puts series that do not fit the weekly Shonen Jump mould, and it has become the company’s main testing ground for new talent. It is also the platform with the most reliable simultaneous English release, since MANGA Plus carries most Jump+ launches on the same day. Chanta’s Noro-Noro Puku-Puku arrived the same way earlier this month.
For a writer and artist coming off a series that ended in January, that combination is close to ideal. Reader feedback from the Japanese and English audiences arrives at the same time, and a strong first month can turn into a print collection in a way it could not on a smaller site.
Tonari no Young Jump, where the pair last worked, sits on the same company’s web network but has nothing like Jump+’s reach. Moving from there to Jump+ is a promotion, and Shueisha clearly wants to see what they do with it.
Open questions
Shueisha has not said whether The Pit of Darkness runs weekly, biweekly or on some other schedule, which matters a lot for a thriller built on a single mystery. Nor is there a volume announcement yet. Jump+ series usually get collected editions after a few months of chapters, but the timing depends on how the serial performs.
The first chapters are up on both Shonen Jump+ and MANGA Plus now. Readers who want to judge the art before committing can do that for free.
Source: Anime News Network, citing Shonen Jump+ and MANGA Plus
Featured image: Promotional illustration for The Pit of Darkness (Yami Sute Ana) by Sora Karin and Kentarō Harada, shared from the artist’s X account, via Anime News Network.
