Welcome to Manhwa Monday!

This week we're diving into Fog Land by POGO, an action horror series on Webtoon that takes Dante's Divine Comedy and turns it into a supermax prison nightmare.

Dante Kang is a science teacher who believes everyone deserves education, even the worst criminals on Earth. So he volunteers to teach inside Fog Land, a mysterious international prison built in a meteor crater that houses the world's most dangerous inmates. His first class ends in a violent riot that kills most of his fellow teachers, and now he's trapped inside with no way out.

Fog Land isn't just a prison though. It's an entire city unto itself, drenched in a mysterious substance called Fog that transforms people into superhuman monsters and keeps them addicted, with withdrawal sending them into a comatose state called Limbo. Now Dante has to navigate through nine circles of literal hell to escape, armed with nothing but his brain and the belief that even the people in here are still human. The author has planned nine seasons to match the nine circles, potentially spanning a decade of storytelling.

If you want a manhwa that goes full Dante's Inferno with body horror, incredible world building, and a protagonist who refuses to stop caring, this one's already being called a masterpiece in the making.

If you enjoy the show, please rate, review, like, and subscribe to Sakura Society | An Anime Appreciation Podcast — and any other podcasts you love. It takes seconds, costs nothing, and means everything to us creators. (The algorithm only accepts 5 stars, just so you know.)

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The Anime & manga worlds did WHAT this week?!

• Kingdom Hearts anime series ANNOUNCED (Disney + Nomura!)

• Tenkaichi: The Greatest Warrior first trailer + cast

• Chained Soldier Season 3 confirmed

• Tower Dungeon hits 1 MILLION copies

• McDonald’s x Hello Kitty x Godzilla collab

If you enjoy the show, please rate, review, like, and subscribe to Sakura Society | An Anime Appreciation Podcast — and any other podcasts you love. It takes seconds, costs nothing, and means everything to us creators. (The algorithm only accepts 5 stars, just so you know.)

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Welcome to Manga Monday!

This week we're diving into My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, As I Expected, Wataru Watari's light novel series better known as OreGairu, with a manga adaptation by Io Naomichi.

Hachiman Hikigaya is a high school loner who's turned cynicism into an art form. He thinks youth is a lie, friendship is performative, and romance is a scam. So naturally his teacher forces him into the Service Club, where he has to help other students with their problems alongside Yukino Yukinoshita, a girl who's brilliant, beautiful, and has the warmth of a freezer. Then there's Yui, the bubbly, kind hearted girl who genuinely wants to be friends with both of them.

What starts as a comedy about a bitter kid slowly becomes one of the most psychologically sharp character studies in the genre. Hachiman's self-sacrificing methods of solving problems by making himself the villain work, but they hurt everyone around him, and the series never lets him off the hook for it.

Three seasons of anime, 14 volumes of light novels, and over 10 million copies sold.

If you want a rom-com that actually interrogates what it means to connect with people, this is the one.

If you enjoy the show, please rate, review, like, and subscribe to Sakura Society | An Anime Appreciation Podcast — and any other podcasts you love. It takes seconds, costs nothing, and means everything to us creators. (The algorithm only accepts 5 stars, just so you know.)

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The anime and manga worlds went WILD this week. Let’s talk about it.

Huge updates and announcements on Gachiakuta, Marvel x Kadokawa, Kabaneri and the Iron Fortress, KonoSuba and Kohei Horikoshi returning with a new one shot manga!

If you enjoy the show, please rate, review, like, and subscribe to Sakura Society | An Anime Appreciation Podcast — and any other podcasts you love. It takes seconds, costs nothing, and means everything to us creators. (The algorithm only accepts 5 stars, just so you know.)

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Welcome to Manga Monday!

This week we're diving into The Apothecary Diaries, based on Natsu Hyuuga's light novel and adapted into manga by Nekokurage, a mystery series set in an imperial court that shouldn't work as well as it does.

Maomao is a 17 year old apothecary raised in the red light district who gets kidnapped and sold as a servant in the emperor's rear palace. She plans to keep her head down and survive her term quietly, but when the emperor's infant children start dying, she can't help herself. She figures out the cause, leaves an anonymous tip, and immediately catches the eye of Jinshi, the impossibly beautiful palace official who promotes her from laundry maid to poison taster.

What follows is a medical mystery series wrapped in court intrigue, where Maomao solves cases with pharmacology, logic, and an unhinged enthusiasm for poison that borders on concerning. She's blunt, stubborn, and completely immune to Jinshi's charm, which only makes him more obsessed. The anime adaptation became a global hit, season two has already aired, and the manga has over 30 million copies in circulation.

If you want a protagonist who's more interested in testing toxins on herself than romance, this is your series.

If you enjoy the show, please rate, review, like, and subscribe to Sakura Society | An Anime Appreciation Podcast — and any other podcasts you love. It takes seconds, costs nothing, and means everything to us creators. (The algorithm only accepts 5 stars, just so you know.)

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This was one of the biggest anime weeks of the year. Grab a seat, we’ve got lots to talk about out.

A brand new Mobile Suit Gundam universe was announced, more live action Parasyte, LEGO One Piece, a new romcom called Kusunoki’s Flunking Her High School Glow Up is on the way, and Steel Ball Run is FINALLY returning in September!

If you enjoy the show, please rate, review, like, and subscribe to Sakura Society | An Anime Appreciation Podcast — and any other podcasts you love. It takes seconds, costs nothing, and means everything to us creators. (The algorithm only accepts 5 stars, just so you know.)

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Welcome to Manga Monday!

This week we're diving into Choujin X by Sui Ishida, the creator of Tokyo Ghoul returning to manga entirely on his own terms.

Tokio Kurohara has spent his whole life as a bystander, stumbling along in the shadow of his best friend Azuma who's better at everything. When the two are attacked by a superhuman mutant called a Choujin, Tokio injects himself with a transformation serum to save them both and is thrust into a world where superhumans are feared, policed, and hunted.

But this isn't just another power fantasy. It's about a passive kid learning who he actually is when he stops living in someone else's footsteps. Ishida publishes on his own schedule after burning out on Tokyo Ghoul, and you can feel it. The art is rawer and more experimental, the tone swings from unhinged comedy to gut punch horror without warning, and it reads like an artist finally making exactly what he wants to make. Over 2 million copies in circulation. This one shows.

If you enjoy the show, please rate, review, like, and subscribe to Sakura Society | An Anime Appreciation Podcast — and any other podcasts you love. It takes seconds, costs nothing, and means everything to us creators. (The algorithm only accepts 5 stars, just so you know.)

• Stay up to date with me on Bluesky | Instagram | TikTok | Twitter
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The anime world was on a whole other level this week. Let’s talk about it.

HUGE updates on Solo Leveling, The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn’t a Guy At All, Delicious in Dungeon, Jurassic Shadows, and Grotesqqque 🙀

If you enjoy the show, please rate, review, like, and subscribe to Sakura Society | An Anime Appreciation Podcast — and any other podcasts you love. It takes seconds, costs nothing, and means everything to us creators. (The algorithm only accepts 5 stars, just so you know.)

• Stay up to date with me on Bluesky | Instagram | TikTok | Twitter
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Welcome to Manga Monday!

This week we're diving into The Color of the End by Haruo Iwamune, a post-apocalyptic seinen running in Harta that reads like the intersection of Blame! and Mushishi in the best way possible.

Fifty years after alien creatures called Executioners wiped out most of humanity, a young researcher named Saya walks alone through the beautiful, empty ruins of civilisation. Her mission is simple: find survivors and cleanse the land of the toxic disease the aliens left behind. Every chapter is a quiet, devastating encounter with what's left, abandoned robots still performing tasks for masters who died decades ago, pockets of survivors clinging to reasons to keep going, and a world that is simultaneously breathtaking and completely hopeless.

The art is stunning, the pacing is patient, and it treats loneliness not as a plot device but as something you physically feel on every page. Ranked on Kono Manga ga Sugoi 2024 and licensed by Yen Press.

If you want something that sits with you long after you put it down, this one will.

If you enjoy the show, please rate, review, like, and subscribe to Sakura Society | An Anime Appreciation Podcast — and any other podcasts you love. It takes seconds, costs nothing, and means everything to us creators. (The algorithm only accepts 5 stars, just so you know.)

• Stay up to date with me on Bluesky | Instagram | TikTok | Twitter
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My amazing sponsors:

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You won’t believe what went down in the world of anime this week! 🤯 let’s talk about it.

Massive news and announcements on Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2, Fool Night, Witch Hat Atelier, Kill Blue, Wistoria Wand & Sword, Rent-a-Girlfriend, Eleceed and Bugle Call: Song of War.

If you enjoy the show, please rate, review, like, and subscribe to Sakura Society | An Anime Appreciation Podcast — and any other podcasts you love. It takes seconds, costs nothing, and means everything to us creators. (The algorithm only accepts 5 stars, just so you know.)

• Stay up to date with me on Bluesky | Instagram | TikTok | Twitter
• Join our Discord — a community full of anime and culture fans just like you
• Follow my anime Spotify playlist

My amazing sponsors:

• Audio-Technica — the best in audio equipment
• Iced Tea Aesthetics — anime streetwear done right (use code SAKURASOCIETY5 at checkout to save $5)
• Japan Crate — Japanese snacks and treats delivered to your door (use code ATEBIT15 at checkout to save 15% + get free shipping)

Affiliate links:

• Captivate.fm - the best podcast hosting platform
• Komi.io - the best linkinbio website
• Riverside.fm - the best remote video/podcast recording platform