Manchuria Opium Squad is getting an anime, just as the original manga returns with a new team following the untimely death of its first artist.
The latest issue of Young Magazine revealed that Tsurushima (Gokuaku Tensei, Shikyuuji) would be taking over from the late Shikako, who passed away in 2025 due to choroidal melanoma. Both artists used to work as assistants on Tetsuo Hara's Kingdom and quickly became close friends, to the point where they spent more time together then with their own families. Despite initially being "perplexed" when the editorial department first asked him about continuing the series, he came to see it as a way to process his own grief and feelings of loss.
For author Tsukusa Monma's part, Shikako actually told him face to face the last time that they met to continue the series if anything were to happen to him. Such a request seemed impossible at first, but Monma remembered that the theme of the story was one of "weaving": both literally in the sense that the story revolves around opium and the fact that many different characters are connected together. The late artist's family also remarked that continuing Manchuria Opium Squad would be a way to prove that their son once lived.
