Iori Asaga Launches New Dark Romance Manga in October

Manga creator Iori Asaga is launching a new series titled Kimi wa Itsushika Doku ni Naru, which translates roughly as You Will Become Poison Before You Know It. The series begins in the December issue of Ichijinsha’s Comic Zero Sum magazine, which goes on sale October 28.

The story centers on a dark romance between an ordinary university student and a charming but troublesome young man. The pairing sounds like familiar territory for Asaga, who has built a following with emotionally charged relationship stories.

Asaga previously launched the Inu to Kuzu manga, known in English as Dog and Scum, in Kodansha’s Young Magazine in June 2021. The series ran until May 2022 and was collected into five volumes. A live-action television adaptation followed in 2023. Before that, Asaga ran Dear Sa-chan in Shueisha’s Shonen Jump+ from July 2019 through October 2020, collecting it in four volumes. That series was also available in English through Shueisha’s digital platform, and received a live-action adaptation in June 2024.

My take: Asaga has a real talent for writing romances with a messy edge to them, and this new series sounds like it leans right into that. Looking forward to seeing what Kimi wa Itsushika Doku ni Naru turns into.