What is Young Animal?
A twice-monthly magazine for young men that inherited Berserk in 1992, and has carried it ever since.
Young Animal is Hakusensha’s seinen magazine, published in Tokyo on the second and fourth Fridays of the month. Berserk is older than it. The series began in the magazine’s predecessor and simply moved house when the name changed, which makes Berserk both Young Animal’s founding inheritance and its longest-running tenant.
THE LINEAGE
Three magazines, one series
Young Animal · 1993 No. 1
Berserk on the cover of the magazine’s second year: in the early 1990s the series was not a guest in Young Animal. It was the face of it.
Monthly ComiComi, to 1988
Hakusensha’s earlier comic magazine printed the Berserk prototype in November 1988 as a contest winner. It folded within the year, but its talent pipeline did not.
Monthly Animal House, 1989 to 1992
The successor magazine, launched in March 1989, is Berserk’s birthplace: King of Wolves first, then the Berserk series itself from the October 1989 issue. The first three volumes of the manga are Animal House chapters.
Young Animal, 1992 to now
In 1992 Animal House was relaunched as Young Animal, and Berserk transferred with the eleventh issue of the new magazine, cover and all. Every chapter since, through hiatuses, a memorial, and a change of creative hands, has appeared under this masthead.
THE MAGAZINE AROUND THE SERIES
Labels and coversThe label on the books
The collected editions tell the same story in miniature. Berserk’s tankobon label was Jets Comics, the imprint named for the publisher’s magazine family; in 2016 it was renamed Young Animal Comics outright, and the backlist was reissued under the magazine’s name.
Why the covers are rare
Young Animal’s cover usually goes to photography or to another series in the issue; Berserk leads only on occasions. That is why the verified Berserk covers, gathered on their own page in this archive, number seven across three decades.