If you’ve been following Splatoon outside the games, here’s the latest update: Sankichi Hinodeya’s Splatoon 3: Splatlands manga is going on break.
The news came from the May issue of Shogakukan’s Monthly Coro Coro Comics magazine, which announced on Wednesday that the series will enter a hiatus. Right now, there’s no reason given for the break, and the magazine also did not say when the manga will return.
So yes, for fans who have been keeping up with the chaotic ink-splattering world in manga form, this is a bit of a waiting game now.
This isn’t the manga’s first pause
The Splatoon manga line has already gone through a major transition before. The series temporarily ended in November 2021, but at the time it teased that new material tied to Splatoon 3 was coming soon. That next phase arrived in September 2022, when the manga resumed under its current title, Splatoon Bankara! , also known in English reporting as Splatoon 3: Splatlands.
That means this new hiatus is happening after the series had already successfully retooled itself around Nintendo’s latest mainline Splatoon game.
A long-running part of the Splatoon franchise
Hinodeya has been with the franchise for a long time. He first published a Splatoon one-shot manga in Shogakukan’s Coro Coro Comics magazine in May 2015. After that, the full series began in Bessatsu Coro Coro Comic Special in February 2016, and it also launched in Coro Coro Comics in May 2017.
Over the years, the manga has grown into a proper side pillar of the franchise. It has inspired both a voiced motion comic and a full-color version, which shows this isn’t just a small tie-in that came and went.
On the publishing side, Shogakukan released the first collected volume of Splatoon 3: Splatlands in January 2023. The eighth volume then came out on March 27. For English-language readers, Viz Media also just released the manga’s sixth volume on Tuesday, so the series is still moving forward internationally even as the Japanese serialization pauses.
Why this matters for Malaysia and SEA fans
For readers in Malaysia and the wider SEA region, this is the kind of update that matters if you follow Nintendo franchises beyond just gameplay clips and patch notes. Splatoon has never been only about ranked matches and weapon comps, it’s also built a strong identity through characters, style, humour, and side media like manga.
A hiatus does not mean the franchise is slowing down completely, but it does pause one of the easier ways for fans to stay connected to that world between major game beats. That especially applies to English-speaking readers here who rely on Viz’s release schedule rather than Japanese magazine issues.
The bigger franchise is still very much alive, too. Splatoon 3 launched in September 2022 and sold 3.45 million copies in Japan within its first three days, which is massive. Nintendo later said in September 2024 that the game would stop getting regular updates, although it still revealed an update in June 2025.
On top of that, Nintendo announced Splatoon Raiders in June 2025 for Nintendo Switch 2. The spinoff puts players in the role of a mechanic travelling to the mysterious Spirhalite Islands with Deep Cut. So even with the manga going quiet for now, the Splatoon brand clearly isn’t disappearing anytime soon.
There’s also another manga still in the mix, with Viz Media releasing Hideki Gotō’s Splatoon: Squid Kids Comedy Show. That series originally launched in the April 2017 issue of Bessatsu Coro Coro Comic Special.
For now, though, Splatoon 3: Splatlands fans will just have to tunggu and see when Hinodeya’s series makes its comeback.
Source: Anime News Network