General Kingdom Hearts Manga Discussion

[WaltK]

New chapter is up. It adapts the "Xehanort explains his intentions" scene, and ends with the GoL sealing KH away.

 

[KudoTsurugi]

Been a minute since I’ve seen the English dub of the cutscene, but here’s how the monologue/exchange roughly translates from the Japanese(again, using Google Translate, so there may be errors) for anyone wanting to compare:

Xehanort​

The origin of the world is darkness... Light was born from darkness. And from that light, people were born... The "heart" was born.

The heart...

When people stained their hearts with malice, darkness was born again.
And so, the darkness born from the heart covered the world...

The hope of light that was born will eventually turn to darkness. This world is no good anymore. It has failed. So, with the light of the beginning -- Kingdom Hearts -- we can start again from a pure white world with nothing in it...

Sora​

That’s not your decision to make.

Xehanort​

…So who gets to decide?

Those without power only create darkness for themselves

So it's up to the strong who have the power to decide!!!

Sora​

If that's the case.. you're not a strong person, Xehanort.

A truly strong person doesn't hold the fate of the world in their hands

I don't have that kind of power!!!

Xehanort​

You... You remind me of an old friend...

The rest of the chapter pretty much plays out as expected. Riku and co swooping in, Eraqus calling checkmate, Sora getting the X-Blade, and the Wayfinder trio saying their goodbyes to Eraqus before he and Xehanort head off to presumably heaven. Though I do love the shot of TAQ barely holding back tears before they have their goodbye


Now all that’s left is that final chapter, assuming Amano doesn’t decide to add extra in the volume releases. And while it wasn’t a perfect ride, I had fun with this manga. Looking forward to seeing how the ending’s adapted.

 

[Squood!]

Ending but rushed is what I expected *shrug*

Emotion is kinda lost from how...well, quick things go here and cuz I couldn't help but chuckle at how Ven and Terra's sad faces look

 

[PikaPal]

There's something that feels so nice seeing Terra, Aqua and Ven in manga form seeing how there was no Birth by Sleep manga adaptation.

Final chapter comes out on Boxing Day. Guessing it'll include the Luxu reveal and the secret ending alongside the regular ending with Sora disappearing and the Destiny Islands beach party.

 

[Squood!]

Doubt. Xigbar didn't even do the death fakeout and Sora didn't do part of what even led to him ending up in Quadratum

 

[KudoTsurugi]

Found the Panini Edition of KH3’s manga in a local comic shop today . Didn’t buy it, but I took a screenshot of the book’s credits, and I can confirm it is indeed the Yen Press translation. Anyone who owns copies of the Yen Press manga should see these names on the last page of their books.

Since Disney owns the translations, they probably figured it’d be better to reuse them rather than have a new team retranslate it. But we’ll see if these names are still working on translating the manga post-Frozen if/when Panini’s release gets that far

 

[Perkilator]

So, question: since BbS, Re:Coded and DDR never got manga adaptations, how do you think they would play out if they did?

 

[KudoTsurugi]

I imagine BBS and DDD’s hypothetical mangas would play out the same way CoM’s did in structure, swapping viewpoints every couple chapters before their points converge and we reach the final conclusion. Probably ending at the same amount of volumes as Days at 5 volumes each.

As for Re:Coded, I could see it lasting as long as 2 or 3 volumes.

 

[Megavoltage]

The manga is usually very concise; I'm curious how the BBS manga would have handled three stories. A lot would have been cut, I'm assuming, with the major focus being on Aqua since she's the last person to visit worlds along with the Final/Secret episodes. And the manga adds a lot of humor and character. Even the morose Realm of Darkness journey had some funny panels in it, like when Aqua was telling Mickey how Riku was only this tall when she last saw him. I would have loved to see what he'd do with BBS. If only...

 

[PikaPal]

Final chapter's date has been changed to January 9, 2025.

 

[KudoTsurugi]

The Kingdom Hearts 3 manga is officially over! The final compiled volume for the manga will be released on March 12th 2025.

Amano-sensei has also left a message on Twitter regarding the manga’s conclusion.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1872127718965534983

The translated message, for those without Twitter:
We are grateful for all the kind comments we received about the final episode.
Despite the long serialization period, there were many postponements to publication, and we were unable to complete the entire story, so we feel rushed, and for that we apologize to everyone who was waiting.
Thank you to all our readers and everyone involved for watching until the end.

I hope this comic will inspire you to enjoy the game.
The game has it all.

 

[Megavoltage]

I recently re-read the KH2 manga. It’s so good. I think Amano does a better job at using the characters and giving them arcs. Even the Gullwings and Pete had an arc together, and it was a lot of fun. But one thing even Amano couldn’t save is the bizarre Tifa scene. Tifa barges in, and to look for an adult human, she looks under bookshelves and kicks a wall. Then Sora gets irritated and asks her to leave. The fuck? All these years later and I still have no idea what Nomura was thinking. It’s so dumb and pointless.

 

[WaltK]

Final chapter's on the website. It adapts the main ending, Sora's portion of the secret ending, and the Luxu and apprentices portion of the post credits scene.

I like the way Sora vanishing on Destiny Island leads directly into him waking up in Quadratum.

The part of the ending with the Wayfinder trio omits Ven and Chirithy's reunion, interestingly.

 

[Dandelion]

I recently re-read the KH2 manga. It’s so good. I think Amano does a better job at using the characters and giving them arcs. Even the Gullwings and Pete had an arc together, and it was a lot of fun. But one thing even Amano couldn’t save is the bizarre Tifa scene. Tifa barges in, and to look for an adult human, she looks under bookshelves and kicks a wall. Then Sora gets irritated and asks her to leave. The fuck? All these years later and I still have no idea what Nomura was thinking. It’s so dumb and pointless.

She's looking for secret passageways and hidden switches in a castle that's known for having contraptions, secret labs, and hidden chambers. She's not far off from finding the panel switch that Leon uses just seconds later.

No one asks her to leave. She gets frustrated and gives up and Sora says it's not a bother.

 

[PikaPal]

Final chapter's on the website. It adapts the main ending, Sora's portion of the secret ending, and the Luxu and apprentices portion of the post credits scene.

I like the way Sora vanishing on Destiny Island leads directly into him waking up in Quadratum.

The part of the ending with the Wayfinder trio omits Ven and Chirithy's reunion, interestingly.

No extra bit at the end either with Young Xehanort and Eraqus hinting at things to come, it ends with the black box and Xigbar telling the Foretellers they're in for a long story.

So that's the KHIII manga over and done with and I'm not gonna lie, I'm a bit disappointed with how it turned out at the end. Things started off pretty well too with a great Olympus Coliseum visit and everything from A Fragmentary Passage being included but it's around the middle half where the pacing starts getting a bit screwy which ended up massively affecting the heavily important Keyblade Graveyard stuff with a lot of short battles (or just cutting away entirely) and a few cut moments (with nothing from ReMind as well which would have been cool to see in manga form but alas the novels by Tomoco Kanemaki are the closest we'll get to seeing that content in print form).

Kind of a shame that it seems like Shiro Amano was forced to finish things off as quickly as possible because if he had been allowed more time (like with KHII) this could have been just as great as the KHII manga was. It's definitely not terrible by any means and it still has those nice little manga flourishes we've come to expect (and Amano's art is as great as ever), it's just not quite up to par with KH manga adaptations of the past.