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On Thursday, August 24, 2023, over 30 manga artists drew characters from the legendary Urusei Yatsura manga series to celebrate its 45th anniversary. The drawings, which include work from One Piece mangaka Eiichiro Oda and Fullmetal Alchemist mangaka Hiromu Arakawa, will be available to view in this week's Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine from Shogakukan.
Author and illustrator Rumiko Takahashi’s Urusei Yatsura manga series was first released on August 30, 1978, and the 45th anniversary of it will be celebrated next week. Shueisha is also celebrating the anniversary in the issue that is set to release before the official date.
The news also comes after Urusei Yatsura season 2 released a new key visual featuring new characters set to appear in the upcoming 2024 continuation. With all eyes on the series as a result of said key visual and these latest celebratory artworks, Takahashi’s series seems set to dominate even 45 years after its initial debut.
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Urusei Yatsura manga’s 45th birthday gets drawings from creators of Gintama, Detective Conan, and more
In total, 33 artists from various manga series have drawn something to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Urusei Yatsura manga series. In addition to Oda and Arakawa, Dr. Stone’s Boichi, Detective Conan’s Gosha Aoyama, Gintama’s Hideaki Sorachi, Baki’s Keisuke Itagaki, and more have all contributed artwork.
Four sample artworks have been released ahead of the Weekly Shonen Sunday from Hideaki Sorachi, Gosha Aoyama, Call of the Night’s Kotoyama, and MIX’s Mitsuru Adachi. Sorachi and Adachi both drew female protagonist Lum, while Aoyama drew Lum’s younger cousin Ten and Kotoyama drew Tomobiki High School’s nurse Sakura.
Although some sample artworks have been released ahead of the Weekly Shonen Sunday issue, the only way to see all the illustrations is to purchase a copy of the magazine. Official digital versions of the artworks will be released at a later point in time for international fans who are unable to purchase a copy of the manga.
The Urusei Yatsura manga series was partially released in English by Viz Media during the 1990s under the titles Lum and The Return of Lum. In Spring 2019, Viz Media began republishing the series under its Japanese title in two-in-one omnibus volume editions. These editions also featured new translations relative to the original publications.
The second half of the new anime adaptation for the series is set to premiere in January 2024. The series first premiered in October 2022 and is currently being streamed by HIDIVE, who also began streaming an English dub in March 2023. The entire run of the anime will adapt select stories from the original manga series, which will run for four cours in total, but not consecutively.
Be sure to keep up with all anime, manga, film, and live-action news as 2023 progresses.
