Paru Itagaki fans, we’re getting another bite-sized return to the world of Beast Complex.
The official X account for Itagaki’s works announced that the manga will receive a new one-shot story this summer. No exact release date, chapter title, or plot details have been shared yet, so for now this is more of a heads-up than a full reveal — but for readers who still have a soft spot for Itagaki’s animal-society storytelling, it’s definitely worth watching.
For Malaysian and SEA fans, this matters because Itagaki’s name carries serious weight now. BEASTARS became one of those anime that found a big second life through Netflix, especially among viewers who might not normally pick up a manga about anthropomorphic animals dealing with society, class, instinct, and messy relationships. Once you get past the “animal people” surface, Itagaki’s work is usually sharper and weirder than expected — in a good way.
Beast Complex is also important because it came before and around the wider popularity of BEASTARS. Itagaki first published the manga in Akita Shoten’s Weekly Shōnen Champion in 2016, with Akita Shoten releasing a collected volume. Viz Media licensed the manga in English, which makes it more approachable for regional readers who follow manga through English releases rather than Japanese magazines.
The series has popped back up a few times over the years. It received a new mini-series run in Weekly Shōnen Champion from January to March 2021, and its third collected volume shipped in May 2021. A fourth volume later shipped in December 2024. Before this newly announced summer one-shot, Beast Complex also got a new chapter in Weekly Shōnen Champion back in December 2022.
So yeah, this is not a full reboot or a big new serialisation announcement — at least not based on what has been revealed. But a fresh one-shot is still a cool signal that Itagaki has not fully closed the door on Beast Complex.
The timing is interesting too. Itagaki has stayed busy beyond this series. Her newer manga Witching Hour — also known as Ushimitsu Gao — launched on Akita Publishing’s Champion Cross platform in October 2024 and ended on May 13. Its second compiled volume shipped in Japan on December 8.
On the anime side, Itagaki’s profile is still strong. BEASTARS first aired in Japan in October 2019 on Netflix Japan, Fuji TV’s +Ultra block, and TV Nishinippon, before Netflix released it outside Japan in March 2020. The second part of the final season premiered on March 7. Her other manga, SANDA, has also made the jump to anime, with its TV adaptation premiering last October in the Animeism block on TBS, MBS, and BS-TBS.
For SEA anime fans, especially those who discovered BEASTARS during the Netflix boom, this new Beast Complex one-shot is probably the kind of release to keep on your radar rather than panic-refresh for. If you like Itagaki’s style — strange social setups, emotional tension, and characters who feel one bad decision away from disaster — this should be a nice short return.
No cap, one-shots can sometimes hit harder than long arcs because the author has no room to waste. Let’s see what Itagaki cooks this summer.
Source: Anime News Network