Kumiko Suekane Launches New Isekai Manga Starting an RPG with the Demon King

Overlap’s Comic Gardo website has launched a new manga from Kumiko Suekane titled Maō to Hajimeru RPG, with the English title Starting an RPG with the Demon King. The series debuted on September 27.

The story is set against a backdrop of mysterious human disappearances. Society has begun to suspect that the missing people are being reincarnated in another world. When high school student Yoshimichi Itoi’s childhood friend Yūma Amamiya suddenly vanishes, Yoshimichi finds himself drawn into the mystery. A classmate named Otogi reveals she too wants to reach that other world, and she wastes no time pushing Yoshimichi off a building to make it happen. He disappears midair and wakes up in an unfamiliar world, setting the isekai premise in motion.

Suekane is best known outside Japan for the RWBY: Ice Queendom manga adaptation, which ran in Kadokawa’s Monthly Comic Dengeki Daioh from June 2022 through 2023 and was collected in three volumes. A number of Suekane’s earlier works have been published in English as well. Viz Media released Afterschool Charisma, Dark Horse Comics published the two-volume Blood+ Adagio, ADV Manga put out Once Upon a Glashma, and Seven Seas Entertainment published Versailles of the Dead in 2016.

My take: The setup here is playful in a slightly absurd way, which feels like a good fit for the isekai genre. Suekane brings a distinctive visual style to everything they work on, and Maō to Hajimeru RPG looks like a fun showcase for it.