Major 2nd Manga Takes Extended Hiatus

This year’s 45th issue of Shogakukan‘s Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine announced on Wednesday that Takuya Mitsuda‘s Major 2nd baseball manga is taking an extended hiatus due to Mitsuda’s poor physical health. Mitsuda noted that he is having problems in another part of his body different from his previous health issue, and he will need time for treatment and recuperation.

The announcement did not list when the manga would return, but Mitsuda assured his readers that it will not be a year-long break.

The manga had gone on a five-month hiatus starting in November 2018 because Mitsuda’s physical condition had slightly worsened. The manga returned in April 2019.

Mitsuda launched the manga in Weekly Shonen Sunday in March 2015 as the first new installment in the manga series in five years. Shogakukan shipped the manga’s 23rd compiled book volume on June 17.

The sequel manga inspired an animated commercial in December 2015, and a television anime adaptation premiered in April 2018. The second anime series premiered in April 2020 on NHK Educational.

Crunchyroll streamed the anime series as it aired in Japan, and it describes the story:

Shigeno Daigo is an elementary school student whose father, Goro, is a professional baseball player. Inspired by his father, who was once a Major League player, Daigo started playing baseball with the Mifune Dolphins, a youth league team. He was unable to live up to the expectations of being the son of a professional, however, and quit baseball after less than a year. Then, in the spring of his sixth-grade year, Daigo’s school welcomes a transfer student who’s just returned from America. The transfer student is Sato Hikaru, and it turns out his father is Sato Toshiya, a former Major League player and Goro’s close friend. The fate of these two young men begins to move forward!

Mitsuda serialized the first Major manga series in Weekly Shonen Sunday from 1994 until 2010. Shogakukan published 78 compiled book volumes for the series. The story begins when Goro Honda’s father, a professional baseball player, dies in an accident. This gives him the motivation to try and become a pro baseball player himself.

The first Major manga inspired its first television anime series in 2004, and the sixth television anime series ran in 2010. The manga also inspired an anime film titled Major: Yūjō no Winning Shot in 2008.

Sources: Weekly Shōnen Magazine issue 45, Comic Natalie