Star Wars Leia, Princess of Alderaan will be on hiatus "for a little while," LINE Manga has announced.
As reported by Anime News Network, the Star Wars prequel manga has been put on hiatus for an unspecified amount of time. LINE Manga, the app through which the series receives its digital distribution, says it will regularly publish new illustrations and art from the series while it is on break. Leia, Princess of Alderaan is a manga adaptation of Claudia Gray's 2017 novel of the same name, and is drawn an artist known as Haruichi. This hiatus is the second break for the series this year; publication of the series was previously paused from January until the beginning of May, due to unspecified health issues that Haruichi was experiencing. LINE Manga did not give an explanation for why the manga is going on hiatus this time.
Haruichi is not the only manga creator to take a break recently: The popular My Hero Academia shonen manga recently announced that it was taking a week off from its usual publication schedule, a delay which prompted an apology from the series' creator, Kohei Horikoshi.
While health issues weren't specifically cited as the reason for this particular delay, the manga industry has frequently been criticized for requiring manga artists and their teams to work grueling schedules in order to meet strict deadlines. Concerns over manga creators' health were renewed in May when Berserk creator Kentarou Miura, who was only 54 at the time, suddenly passed away from an acute aortic dissection. Following that tragedy, Jujutsu Kaisen took a month long break earlier this year after concerns were raised over the health of its creator, Gege Akutami. The manga has since resumed publication.
Star Wars Leia, Princess of Alderaan takes place before the events of A New Hope and tells the story of a young Leia Organa as she discovers her adoptive parents' connections of the newly forming Rebel Alliance and her own growing desire to stand up against the tyranny of the Empire.
Fans looking for more Star Wars with some anime and manga flavor can still check out Star Wars Visions, the recently released anthology series that features nine non-canon shorts from some of Japan's top animation studios, including Ghost in the Shell's Production IG, Promare's Studio Trigger and The Night Is Short, Walk on Girl's Science SARU.
Collected volumes of Star Wars Leia, Princess of Alderaan are available in English from Yen Press.
Source: LINE, via Anime News Network
