Key Takeaways
- Kingdom Hearts 3 manga will end on Nov. 21, 2024, with 39 chapters in total.
- The manga combines content from Kingdom Hearts 3 and Kingdom Hearts 0.2.
- Square Enix typically adapts games into manga, a common marketing strategy.
Kingdom Hearts games have always been followed by manga adaptations in Japan, and the Kingdom Hearts 3 manga is coming to an end. While it ran regularly in Japan, the Kingdom Hearts 3 manga is only partially available in the US — only two volumes were released in English before Yen Press ceased to publish the series due to expiration of the license with Disney in 2023. Yen Press also published the new chapters as they were released up to the end of the contract.
Kingdom Hearts was released in 2002, and the first manga ran from 2003 to 2006 in Japan (and it’s the only one originally read left-to-right because it was serialized in the Famitsu PS2 magazine). It was later re-released as Kingdom Hearts Final Mix. The same happened with Kingdom Hearts 2. The game launched in 2005 and the manga ran from 2006 to 2009. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days were also adapted into manga. So it was expected when Kingdom Hearts 3 manga was announced and started serialization in April 2019, a few months after the game’s release, in January of that same year. Since Square Enix has its own publishing house, and the Kingdom Hearts manga are usually serialized under Gangan Comics imprint in Japan (the first one is the only manga that ran in a magazine by a different publisher).
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The Future of The Kingdom Hearts III Manga
Kingdom Hearts 3 manga will finally end in the next chapter, author Shiro Amano revealed on his X account. The last chapter is scheduled for November 21, 2024, on the Gangan Online website. The series will end with 39 chapters — only the last nine chapters are not slated to be published in English.
The last manga continues the story (the lore can be a bit complicated) of the previous ones, with content not only adapted from Kingdom Hearts 3, but also from Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage- (included in the Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue collection).
Square Enix is not the only company that invests in manga for their games. It is not uncommon for games to be adapted or have extra content in manga or novel formats, as it also serves as a marketing strategy. For example, Nintendo also does that, at least for some franchises, such as The Legend of Zelda, whose most famous manga adaptations are the ones penned by duo Akira Himekawa. It is expected that Kingdom Hearts IV, the “beginning of the end”, will also have a manga adaptation when it launches.
All Kingdom Hearts manga were released in the US by either Tokyopop or Yen Press. Kingdom Hearts 3 is the only one that is not fully available in English yet.
