What is All You Need Is Kill, the manga behind Edge of Tomorrow?

All You Need Is Kill began as a 2004 light novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, published by Shueisha's Super Dash Bunko with illustrations by yoshitoshi ABe, the designer of Serial Experiments Lain. A rookie soldier, Keiji Kiriya, is killed in humanity's war against alien Mimics and wakes up inside a time loop, fighting the same battle until he and the legendary Rita Vrataski can break it.

The manga version ran in Weekly Young Jump from January 9 to May 29, 2014. Ryosuke Takeuchi built the adaptation's storyboards, Obata drew the finished art, and the character designs follow ABe's originals from the novel. It also ran in English at the same time in Viz Media's Weekly Shonen Jump, a rare simultaneous release. The two collected volumes both landed on June 19, 2014, the same day Shueisha reissued the novel itself with new cover and interior art by Obata; Viz gathered the manga into a single English omnibus that November.

The timing was the point. Doug Liman's film of the same novel, Edge of Tomorrow, opened in American theaters on June 6, 2014, which makes Obata's 17 chapters the third official telling of the story to reach the public within a single season.