Viz Media has announced three new manga series, all of which will appear under its Viz Media imprint during 2008: Switch, Nightmare Inspector Yumekui Kenbun, and Record of a Fallen Vampire. Two of the series, Switch and Record of a Fallen Vampire, are shonen manga, while Nightmare Inspector Yumekui Kenbun is a Gothic shojo series; but all three series were published in
The first of the new series to debut (in March) is the 10-volume (on-going) Switch manga, which appears in Square Enix's G Fantasy magazine and follows the adventures of two cops on the trail of drug dealers selling a particularly pernicious poison known as 'Dragon Speed.' This violent, action-packed series from the doujinshi circle known as 'Naked Ape' also has definite shonen ai overtones thanks to its pair of bishonen narcotics investigators, the mercurial Kai Eto and the stoic Hal Kurabayashi, disparate in temperament but both young and gorgeous like the detective known as 'L' in Death Note.
Next up in April will be Nightmare Inspector Yumekui Kenbun, a nine-volume shojo series created by Shin Mashiba. He provides stylish Gothic artwork as well as a compelling narrative about a tea shop where those suffering from excruciating nightmares can find help from a special sort of private investigator who can enter their dreams and eliminate their worst nightmares, but only at the risk of exposing their darkest secrets.
Finally, in May Viz Media will release the first book in the nine volume Record of a Fallen Vampire (Vampire Juuji Kai) series from writer Kyou Shirodaira and artist Yuri Kimura. This epic dark fantasy tale debuted in
