Dark Horse announced during its panel at New York Comic Con 2026 on Thursday that it will release Gou Tanabe‘s The Outsider and Other Early Adaptations collection, with translation by Zack Davisson. The collection feature’s Tanabe’s manga adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft‘s The Outsider story, and also includes Tanabe’s early adaptations of works by Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky.

Dark Horse describes the collection:

Alone in a decaying castle, with no memory of its origins and no knowledge of the world beyond its crumbling stone walls, a solitary being longs for connection. Driven by an unshakable desire to see the outside world, it escapes the darkness of its prison only to discover a reality more terrifying than the isolation he left behind.

Gou Tanabe (At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth) brings H.P. Lovecraft‘s The Outsider to life with stunning detail. In addition to this centerpiece adaptation, this collection also features his story Ju-Ga and interpretations of Anton Chekhov’s The House with a Mezzanine, and Maxim Gorky’s 26 Men and a Girl, showcasing Tanabe’s remarkable range across literary works.

Dark Horse also announced a new Blue Eye Samurai western-style comic series titled Blue Eye Samurai: Cry of the Yurei by writers K. Perkins and Mike Johnson, and a new graphic novel titled Martial War by co-creators Hiroyuki Takei (Shaman King manga creator), Will Carter, and Aidan White. 

The Blue Eye Samurai: Cry of the Yurei comic’s staff also includes artist Aviv Or, colorist Valentina Bianconi, letterer Taylor Esposito, and cover artist David Mack. Ito and Angela Wu provide the variant covers.

Takei is also the cover artist for Martial War. Jet Kusamura is the graphic novel’s art assistant, Steve Dutro is the letterer, and Karen Corpuz is in charge of translation. The project is inspired by real-world moments in UFC fights, and is made in collaboration with the UFC.

Dark Horse describes the story of Martial War:

When Trash was just a helpless kid, he witnessed the incredible power of ninja at war. Now, in a country piecing itself back together, ninja no longer fight on the streets—but in a special arena known as the Octagon. Although ninja are now disgraced, they are the only ones with the power to wield the mighty Tatara stones. The Octagon is about to be shaken up when Trash crashes the tournament, ready to fight his way to the top. Will he be able to wield a Tatara stone, or will its corrosive aura kill him before he can throw a single punch? Illustrated by master manga-ka Hiroyuki Takei—creator of Shaman King—with art assistance by Jet Kusamura, and lettering by Eisner Award-nominated Steve Dutro (Monster, 21st Century Boys, I am a Hero). Co-created and co-written by Hiroyuki Takei, Aidan White, and Will Carter, this American-Japanese collaboration will follow a right-to-left reading order and is unlike anything else in the world of fight comics!

Dark Horse announced in August that it will release Gou Tanabe‘s manga adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft‘s The Case of Charles Dexter Ward horror novella in spring 2027. The semimonthly manga series is part of a series of adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft‘s works by Tanabe. Dark Horse Comics published his manga of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Hound and Other Stories in August 2017, which includes “The Hound,” “The Temple,” and “The Nameless City.” Dark Horse Comics began releasing Tanabe’s At the Mountains of Madness manga in June 2019. The series was nominated for Best Comic by the 46th Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2019.

Dark Horse has also released a single omnibus volume of Tanabe’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth manga, and has also released Tanabe’s The Call of Cthulhu manga, the latter of which won the Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel award at the Bram Stoker Awards in June 2025. Dark Horse released Tanabe’s The Colour Out of Space in July 2025, and released The Shadow Out of Time in December that same year. Dark Horse most recently released The Dunwich Horror manga on September 29.

Tanabe also released manga based on Lovecraft’s The Haunter of the Dark.

Tanabe launched the Short Stories about Dreamlands manga based on H.P. Lovecraft‘s Dream Cycle stories in November 2023, and ended the series in April 2024. Tanabe launched the Lovecraft no Genei (The Lovecraft’s Phantom) manga in Comic Beam in June 2024, and ended it in December 2024.

Source: Email correspondence

Film also gets home video release

GKIDS announced on Thursdady that it will begin screening the live-action film of Makoto Shinkai‘s 5 Centimeters per Second anime film in North American theaters on October 23. GKIDS will reveal details about a home video release later this year. The company streamed an English-subtitled trailer:

The film opened in Japan in October 2025, and ranked at #2 in its opening weekend. The film sold 278,000 tickets and earned 420 million yen (about US$2.78 million) in its first three days.

SixTONES member Hokuto Matsumura (Suzume‘s Sōta Munakata) stars in the live-action film.

Spoon produced the film, and TOHO distributed. Yoshiyuki Okuyama directed, and Ayako Suzuki wrote the script. Ayatake Ezaki composed the music. Kenshi Yonezu performs the theme song “1991.”

GKIDS describes the film:

After transferring to the same elementary school, Takaki and Akari became best friends. However, their lives change when both their families are forced to relocate. After a year of separation, Takaki is about to reunite with Akari. As he sits on the train from Tokyo, memories of the past rush through Takaki’s head, his meeting time with Akari drawing ever closer. Takaki and Akari begin to wonder if they will ever be able to see each other again, and share their secret feelings. Join Takaki on a journey into three interconnected tales of love and lost innocence that span the minutes and months of their lives.

The 5 Centimeters per Second anime opened in Japan in 2007.

Shinkai directed, wrote, and storyboarded the anime film, and was also the sound director, producer, and art director. Tenmon composed the music.

Source: Press release

During a season that boasted the long-awaited return of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha after an eleven-year absence from our screens, and with an unexpected revival of Magical Princess Minky Momo (after 32 years!) announced as an upcoming fall 2026 OVA, the second season of the delightful Magilumiere Magical Girls Inc. seems to have been lost amongst the retro magical girl clamor. Perhaps summer 2026 was an unusually stacked anime season overall, with Magilumiere hidden away on Amazon Prime Video, where almost no one goes looking for anime to stream.

2024’s first season was similarly overlooked, though it still scored enough votes for ANN to feature weekly episode reviews. Not so for the second season, which seemed to fly its broomstick beneath everyone’s radar, whether they’d watched the first season or not. This is a real shame, as it’s a clever, entertaining, optimistic show that deserves an audience. I can’t help thinking that if it had been streaming on Crunchyroll, or even Netflix, more viewers would have paid attention to the magical corporate startup adventures of Kana Sakuragi and her friends.

To recap, Kana is a plucky college graduate who, unable to score a job at the usual soulless megacorporations, finds herself hired by scrappy startup Magilumiere Inc. Her natural ability to absorb and retain information, along with her calm, strategic mind, cements her as the company’s star employee. Along with brash but friendly fellow magical girl Hitomi Koshigaya, they’re sent on jobs to fight and suppress “Kai”, blobby monsters that wreak havoc in the city. Magilumiere is one of many companies in a thriving, deregulated, and privatized magical girl industry, protecting the populace with magic and technology.

This season finds the Magilumiere team expanding significantly in size, with the addition of two more magical girls to the mix: Akane Makino, who first appeared in season one as an employee of ADPA Co., and Iroha Akasaka, former vice-chief of RIMT, a research organization introduced at the beginning of this season. After their initial introductions, they slot into Magilumiere‘s structure and do little else in the narrative besides support Kana and Koshigaya.

Koshigaya herself gets some development, at least in the tense relationship with her father. Overall, the season leans heavily on flashbacks: not only for Koshigaya, but for Magilumiere CEO Shigemoto, and later even for emotionally repressed AST magical girl Mei Tsuchiba, who begins to develop a friendship with Kana. Mei and Kana’s nascent relationship forms the emotional core of the season’s third and final story arc, which is head and shoulders above the first two in terms of both drama and stakes.

This highlights the biggest fault of Magilumiere season 2: the pacing. Both the first arc, which introduces nerd stereotype Iroha and the concept of artificially evolved Kai, and the second arc, which moves the action to Kyoto and a shrine that harbors a “tame” kai, are at least an episode too long. I suspect they’re padded to bring the season to a natural stopping point at the end of episode 12.

When I reviewed the manga earlier this year, I predicted the second season would adapt through the end of manga volume nine, and I was correct, though the studio decided, for some reason, to omit that volume’s brutal cliffhanger ending. This leaves the anime on a hopeful, if inconclusive, note, and I worry it means we won’t get a third (and likely fourth) season needed to fully adapt the manga. It also means anime-only fans who want to pick up the manga can’t easily start with volume ten, because the anime adaptation of volume nine surgically removed half a chapter of essential context.

Although the first two-thirds of the season drags on too long, that doesn’t mean those story arcs lack merit. Both demonstrate the benefits of Maglilumiere‘s creative and supportive working practices, in contrast to the harsh, money-oriented strategies of its rivals. As is common for anime, shadowy figures in both government and industry have Dastardly Plans, motivated by greed. While the girls of Magilumiere Inc. succeed in foiling said plans, the architects behind them remain frustratingly immune from consequences. Those are likely to follow in a future storyline we may never see animated. Its critique of unrestrained capitalism isn’t overly complex or revelatory, but it is unique enough for a magical girl show to stand out from the crowd.

Visually, the show rarely rises above merely “fine”. The magical girl costumes are bright and colorful without being distractingly revealing, and the character designs (especially Kana’s) are adorable without being cloyingly cutesy or unrealistic. Most of the limited animation budget is saved for a few, admittedly spectacular, action sequences, especially in the season’s tense climax. In general, it isn’t a show that showcases the unlimited possibilities of anime, but at least it’s never ugly.

Fittingly, the soundtrack is bright and cheery, with opening and closing numbers to match. The opener, “Latte Magic,” is accompanied by visuals of the characters’ normal lives, including Kana commuting to work on the train rather than riding a broom, as one might expect. The amusing walking-cycle animations of each magical girl really capture their personalities, especially Koshigaya’s laissez-faire arm swings and Kana’s determined gait. The hyperactive ending sequence “BooooM!!!” by VTuber Marine Housou is like an intravenous shot of concentrated sugar and caffeine.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy season two as much as the first, mainly because of pacing issues. It definitely picks up in the final third and is worth sticking with. I live in hope of a third season, because the manga’s next arc, starting in volume ten, is fantastic, and tonally very different from the previous. If you’ve held off on trying this unique magical girl show, I’d recommend giving it a shot and sticking with it. Mostly, it’s an entertaining, emotionally rewarding show that manages somehow to be both fantastical and down-to-earth at the same time.