The official website for CAPCOM‘s Monster Hunter Outlanders, a new game based on its Monster Hunter action game franchise, announced on Tuesday that the game will launch for iOS and Android devices on October 29. The game’s mainland China version is scheduled for 2027. 

The game is an open-world survival game featuring elements of the Monster Hunter action series and multiplayer support. There is a system to switch between characters. The game previously revealed a new Elder Dragon monster named Ruger Aidal.

Chinese developer TiMi Studio Group, a subsidiary of China’s Tencent conglomerate, is developing the title. Franchise composer Tadayoshi Makino is again handling the music.

TiMi Studio Group announced in November 2022 that it was working on a new mobile game based on Monster Hunter. The company is best known for developing Call of Duty Mobile, as well as the Pokémon Unite game. The latter debuted for smartphones in September 2021.

CAPCOM and Niantic released Monster Hunter Now, an augmented reality (AR) smartphone game in the franchise, for iOS and Android devices in September 2023.

The Monster Hunter Wilds game debuted globally on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam in February 2025. The game sold over 8 million copies worldwide in its first three days. According to the company, this is the fastest that one of its titles has reached this milestone. As of March 2025, the game had sold 10 million copies worldwide. The game’s Monster Hunter Wilds Ascendance expansion will launch in 2027. The game is in development for Nintendo Switch 2.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection launched on March 13 for Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam.

Source: Monster Hunter Outlanders game’s website via Gematsu

NHK announced on Tuesday that Tomohiro Hata will perform the theme song “Fragments” for the live-action series of Yūki Kodama‘s Ao no Hana, Utsuwa no Mori (Blue Flower, Forest of Vessels) manga. NHK also unveiled a new visual for the series:

The manga takes place in Hasami, a town in Nagasaki prefecture famed for its pottery, and centers on Aoko, who is a ceramics painter, and her romance with a young man named Tatsuki who visits her studio.

Former SKE48 and Nogizaka46 idol Rena Matsui (Ultimate Otaku Teacher) will star in the series as Aoko Baba. Hayate Ichinose (Kishiryū Sentai Ryusoulger) plays the male lead Tatsuki Manabe.

The series will debut on NHK‘s “Yorudora” programming block on October 26. 

The manga launched in Shogakukan‘s Flowers magazine in March 2018, and ended in March 2022. Shogakukan published the manga’s 10th and final compiled book volume in August 2022.

Kodama (Tsukikage Baby, Chiisako no Niwa) launched her nine-volume Sakamichi no Apollon (Kids on the Slope) manga in Flowers in 2007, and ended the series in March 2012. Shogakukan published a one-volume spinoff manga titled Sakamichi no Apollon: Bonus Track in November 2012. 

The Kids on the Slope manga inspired a television anime on Fuji TV‘s late-night Noitamina programming block in April 2012. Crunchyroll streamed the anime as it aired under the title Kids on the Slope, and Sentai Filmworks released the series on home video in 2013. 

The Kids on the Slope manga also inspired a live-action film that opened in Japan in March 2018.

Kodama launched the Wolf’s Daughter: A Werewolf’s Tale (Ōkami no Musume) manga in Flowers in October 2022, and it is still ongoing. Shogakukan published the manga’s 10th volume on April 10. Seven Seas is releasing the manga in English, and it released the third volume on April 14.

Sources: NHK, Comic Natalie