12 Beast (Japanese: トゥエルヴビースト, Hepburn: Tueruvu Bīsuto) is a Japanese shōnen manga series written and illustrated by Okayado.[a] The series is published by Fujimi Shobo in Japan, and by Seven Seas Entertainment in the United States.
12 Beast | |
トゥエルヴビースト (Tueruvu Bīsuto) | |
---|---|
Genre | Comedy, fantasy[1] |
Manga | |
Written by | Okayado |
Published by | Fujimi Shobo |
English publisher | |
Imprint | Dragon Comics Age |
Magazine |
|
Demographic | Shōnen |
Original run | November 9, 2013 – September 6, 2020 |
Volumes | 7 |
On September 6, 2020, Okayado announced the manga has been canceled due to multiple reasons.[3]
Touga Eita is a high school student and video-game otaku. He is the heir to the Touga style Ninjitsu, and he has never kissed a girl. All this changes when a voluptuous girl with wings and taloned feet named Aero appears and calls on Eita to help save her people-the harpies of Re-Verse-from the merciless onslaught of giant robot monsters known as Gigas. Aero reveals that she was sent to find him, by his missing brother. Eita will follow his newfound harpy friend into a whole new world, filled with monster girls and fantastical creatures beyond his wildest dreams.
Okayado launched the series in the June 2013 issue of Fujimi Shobo's shōnen manga magazine on May 9, 2013.[6] When Age Premium was shut down on July 9, 2015, the series was one of five titles transferred to Monthly Dragon Age.[7] The chapters have been compiled into seven tankōbon volumes before being cancelled.[8]
North American publisher Seven Seas Entertainment announced their license to the series on July 30, 2014.[9]
No. | Original release date | Original ISBN | English release date | English ISBN |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | November 9, 2013[10] | 978-4-04-712932-0 | April 14, 2015[11] | 978-1-626921-77-1 |
2 | September 9, 2014[12] | 978-4-04-070173-8 | July 7, 2015[11] | 978-1-626921-78-8 |
3 | August 8, 2015[13] | 978-4-04-070664-1 | February 9, 2016[11] | 978-1-626922-61-7 |
4 | June 9, 2016[14] | 978-4-04-070918-5 | December 13, 2016[11] | 978-1-626923-12-6 |
5 | April 8, 2017[15] | 978-4-04-072243-6 | September 26, 2017[11] | 978-1-626924-45-1 |
6 | April 9, 2018[16] | 978-4-04-072666-3 | June 26, 2018[11] | 978-1-626928-00-8 |
7 | June 8, 2019[17] | 978-4-04-073210-7 | April 7, 2020[11] | 978-1-642750-10-2 |
On Anime News Network, Rebecca Silverman gave volume one an overall grade of C, calling the story generic and textbook. She found the art to be interesting and that the characters distinctive, comparing the series to Okayado's Monster Musume characters.[4] Also on Anime News Network, Lynzee Loveridge listed the series at number four on a list of "7 Manga for Monster Girl Lovers".[18]
Two volumes of the English translation have made it onto the New York Times Manga Best Sellers list:
OKAYADO explained that there were many reasons for the manga's cancelation. OKAYADO acknowledged that it was not a good idea to leave a work half-finished, but he reached a mental state where he was unable to draw. He added that, when he floated the idea of canceling 12 Beast to his editor, the editor did not even suggest that the manga only go on hiatus. So OKAYADO felt that the manga was truly being treated as already canceled, and he lost motivation to continue.