The Orphen Manga, Series by Series

Four manga across twenty-five years, and the English shelf still has a hole in the middle of the best one.

Orphen has been a manga four separate times. The first version ran alongside the novels' prime: written by Akita and drawn by Hajime Sawada, serialized from December 1997 to February 2003, six volumes of the main story plus the two-volume side story Orphen MAX, eight books in all. ADV Manga published it in English from March 2005, which made the manga, for years, the deepest Orphen a Western reader could buy.

The modern version is Muraji's remake, which retells the novels in arcs named after their subtitles and ran from 2017 to November 2018 in five volumes. Seven Seas licensed only its first arc, Heed My Call, Beast!, and released it in 2019; the Doll and Ghost arcs that complete the set were never licensed in English. The shelf's comic relief arrived digitally instead: Yu Yagami's Reckless Journey manga (six volumes, 2018 to 2021) and Kirouran's Youthful Journey (two volumes), both from J-Novel Club. The gallery of the novels themselves, covers and all, sits in the novel gallery.

THE FOUR LINES

What exists, and where it stopped

Sawada · 1997 to 2003

The original manga: six volumes of the main journey plus MAX, a two-volume side story, all in Dragon Magazine's orbit. ADV Manga's English edition began in March 2005.

Special Parody

A doujinshi collection issued under the series' own banner, the era's reminder that Orphen fandom was large enough to sustain an official parody book.

Muraji · 2017 to 2018

The remake, five volumes across three named arcs: Heed My Call, Beast!, Obey My Command, Doll!, and Rest Within My Heart, Ghost! Kadokawa published all five; English readers officially received the first arc only.

Yagami and Kirouran · 2018 to 2021

The spinoff manga: Yu Yagami, of Those Who Hunt Elves, drawing the Reckless Journey's comedy in six volumes, and Kirouran's two-volume Youthful Journey, Orphen's childhood at the Tower. Both are J-Novel Club digital releases in English.

The Orphen Manga, Series by Series

THE FOUR LINES

THE FIRST WORD