The November issue of Kodansha‘s Nakayoshi has announced that in summer 2024 a sequel to Peach-Pit’s award-winning shoujo manga Shugo Chara! will begin serialization in the magazine. Kodansha will also release new merchandise for the series with illustrations by the author duo in the intervening period.
Also known for DearS, Rozen Maiden, Zombie Loan, and currently for Sei Shounagon to Moushimasu, childhood friends Sendou Banri and Ebara Shibuko got their start as doujinshi artists, changing their circle name twice before landing on Peach-Pit. In 2001 they were scouted by Dengeki Comic Gao!, for which they produced a manga adaptation of the ero-game Prism Palette and their first series, DearS. Shugo Chara! ran on Nakayoshi from December 2005 to September 2010, later collected into eleven volumes, plus an extra one titled Shugo Chara! Encore!; from March 2008 to December 2010 a four-volume spin-off with the title Shugo Chara-chan! was also serialized. The series went on to receive the Kodansha Manga Award for the children’s manga category in 2008. Del Rey licensed the series in English.
Three animated seasons, produced by Satelight and directed by Yasuda Kenji, with the titles, Shugo Chara!, Shugo Chara! Doki- and Shugo Chara! Party!, was aired from October 2007 to March 2010 on TV Tokyo for a total of 127 episodes. Crunchyroll licensed the anime in English in November 2008.
In this world, young people’s budding personalities take physical shape in the form of normally invisible eggs, and by nurturing them they can achieve their true selves. But they are also fragile things, and traumas and external forces can taint or even destroy them. Sixth-grader Hinamori Amu has a particularly conflicted personality: she’s terribly shy and has trouble socializing, but her quietness was mistaken for aloofness and other people built a “tough girl” image around her. One evening, as she fervently wishes she could be more true to herself, three such eggs appear before her, and out of them hatch three “Chara”, small manifestations of her potential self. This later attracts the attention of her school’s student council members, who reveal to be a secret team with the goal of protecting other people’s eggs and rescuing tainted ones and offer to make her a member. Meanwhile, a corporation called Easter is secretly extracting eggs in search of one that is rumoured to grant any wish, leaving a trail of tainted eggs in their wake…
