Aka Akasaka, the artist behind Kaguya-sama: Love is War, announced this week that he will be changing directions in his career. Instead of continuing to focus on drawing manga, as he has been, he will be shifting to focusing on writing the stories for them instead. The announcement came via the mangaka's Twitter.
While Akasaka has been working on a few manga since he debuted in 2011, his most famous work by far is Kaguya-sama: Love is War, which was first published in 2015. It is a romantic comedy with over 19 million copies currently in circulation, and available in English from Viz Media. It tells the story of the president and vice president of a student council who like one another. Both are too proud to admit it and thus spend their time plotting to get the other to confess first.
Kaguya-sama: Love is War was a popular enough manga to get an anime adaptation in 2019 that had two seasons, along with a live action film the same year. While it had been running since 2015, Akasaka's announcement came alongside its final chapter. The manga has now officially ended as of October 2022.
Akasaka announced that Kaguya-sama: Love is War will be the last manga that he illustrates himself. Instead, he is going to put his full energy into writing new stories for other manga most likely, though there is a chance he could also branch into writing light novels, a genre which often overlaps the manga world. There was some foreshadowing in the final chapter of Kaguya-sama, though, and Akasaka promised it is setting up something else. Could it be that he intends to continue the story in light novel format, instead of a manga?
Akasaka currently has another work that began in 2020, Oshi no Ko, which is illustrated by Mengo Yokoyari. Many people are speculating that he will be pouring a lot more time into writing this project, especially with Kaguya-sama now behind him at least for the time being. Oshi no Ko has already been licensed for an anime adaptation coming soon, and is published in English by MANGA Plus.
This year, Young Jump magazine also held a contest looking for a new manga artist to work on a project alongside Akasaka. At least that means that Aka Akasaka is definitely not out of the game forever. With the closing of Kaguya-sama: Love is War ending, it opens the door for his next opportunity. And while we may be seeing his talent in a different capacity, hopefully it will be just as successful as his famous manga series. Plus, his tweet also said that he intends to keep drawing, at least as a hobby!
Source: AnimeNewsNetwork