Mangaka Makes Strong Rant After His Manga Gets Cancelled

The manga Gekidou, which began publication in June 2025, ended up being cancelled after 35 chapters. The series was being published in Weekly Young Jump, and the author Koko Kako shared an emotional rant on his Twitter.

In a long — and we mean very long — tweet, the author talked about everything he had been holding in regarding the publication of his manga. But before that, what was Gekidou about?

The story followed the student Entaro Mashiba, who managed to secure a spot on his school’s main baseball team. However, during his final year he suddenly quits the team and ends up joining the school’s theater club instead.

With the synopsis explained, here is the author’s rant:

“As of today, ‘Gekidou’ has officially been cancelled. I was responsible for the story (name/script) of the work.

In total, it ran for about nine and a half months with 35 chapters. For a weekly series, that ended up being a rather short run. It was a manga with a somewhat unusual premise: a former high school baseball player who enters the world of high school theater during his final year.

To everyone who read it until the end, thank you very much. The reason for the cancellation is simple: the volumes didn’t sell. And this is no exaggeration — they sold so little it left me stunned.

I obviously knew the concept of ‘cancellation’ (打ち切り), and I had heard explanations about it. But I didn’t know exactly how the decision was made or how it was communicated.

So I was quite shocked when, less than two weeks after the first volume was released, my editor started mentioning the word ‘cancellation’.

‘What!? That fast!? Wait, wait! The story is just getting started!’

I felt like grabbing onto my editor and begging to continue. In fact, there were some embarrassing moments when I kept insisting and complaining almost like I was pleading.

But seeing how devastated and frustrated my editor was — sometimes even more than me — I slowly began to accept an undeniable truth: there was nothing more that could be done.

That day, after our regular meeting ended, I went back to the apartment I had recently moved into when the serialization started, and I just stared at the ceiling blankly.

It felt like the harshness of the commercial manga world had been thrown straight in my face.

From the beginning I knew it was a difficult theme. Even so, since it was my first serialization, I thought:

‘It’s better to write something where I can swing the bat with all my strength.’

So I decided to draw the story that had been in my heart for a long time without hiding anything. But once the serialization truly began, I constantly faced many problems and my own limitations.

That’s when I realized how difficult it really is to deliver that ‘full swing’ I had always talked about so easily.

Even before worrying about whether it would sell or not, I realized a mangaka must work far harder than they imagine just to finish writing what they truly want to write.

Even now, I still think ‘Gekidou’ is an interesting manga. And I feel lucky that I can still think that way.

In terms of numbers — impressions and sales — the results were tough the entire time. But fortunately we received passionate comments every week, and it felt like there was genuine enthusiasm around the series.

When the end of the serialization was announced, far more people than I expected expressed sadness, which made me very happy.

Especially after the cancellation was decided, I gradually felt like I had gotten used to the serialization life, my distractions disappeared, and I was finally getting closer to that ‘full swing’.

The fact that a manga about the ‘curse of winning and losing’ ended up being cancelled is ironically quite poetic.

The cancellation was decided around the time I was writing chapter 22. If you read from there, you’ll notice I started talking about cancellation a lot within the story itself.

In that sense, I think I managed to achieve a kind of ‘narrow but deep’ appeal. But at the same time, I realized that to survive as a manga writer, this level is nowhere near enough.

There’s a saying everyone who wants to work with manga hears early on:

‘Manga is entertainment that readers can easily drop midway. It’s not enough for the ending to be satisfying — you must hold the reader’s attention from beginning to end.’

Now I feel I truly understand the importance of that idea.

Every form of entertainment has a ‘cost’ that must be paid to capture the audience, and I believe ‘Gekidou’ didn’t pay that cost enough.

And the result of that was cancellation.

• Even if I personally feel satisfied with what I wrote, if the work gets cancelled:
• I feel like I failed the artist who drew the manga, Misumi-san,
• I failed my editor,

and I disappointed everyone who supported ‘Gekidou’.

Regardless of personal philosophy about how much a work should sell, a manga you start should always be finished. As a mangaka, it’s your responsibility to deliver something with universal appeal strong enough to allow that.

That was my biggest regret — and also my biggest lesson.

Even so, I still think again: ‘Gekidou is an interesting manga.’

But it didn’t sell at all. Now I spend my days going back and forth between those two realities.

Because of that, we decided to release all chapters of ‘Gekidou’ for free for a limited time to celebrate its conclusion.

(It will be available for one week starting today.)

‘Gekidou’ has many flaws and immaturities, and as a manga it didn’t fully pay the ‘cost’ required for the audience.

That’s why the result was that we couldn’t justify charging enough money from readers.

But at the same time, there were still many people who strongly said it was interesting.

That’s why I wanted to give more people the chance to read it. Whether people think ‘it was obvious it wouldn’t sell’ or ‘hey, this is actually good’, I’m curious about every opinion.

With that feeling, I made this last somewhat selfish request.

Now you can read everything from start to finish for free.

If you followed the series until the end or stopped midway, I would be very happy if you read it again.

And if you could help spread the word, I would be extremely grateful.

It would be nice if we could enjoy this cancellation together.

In the end, cancellations can be interesting too.

Once again, thank you very much for reading ‘Gekidou’.

On April 17, volumes 3 and 4 (the final one) will be released simultaneously.

I also finished writing the afterwords for those volumes last week, and they are even more detailed and deeper than this text.

Every comment from you was a source of energy for me.

I’ll do my best with my next work as well.

See you next time!”