To my extreme delight, Akiko Higashimura will be bringing back the excellent Josei comic Tokyo Tarareba Girls back to Kiss magazine in April. Announced in the most recent issue of the magazine, a sequel titled Tokyo Tarareba Girls Season 2 will start publishing April 25. The original work centers around three unmarried women in their early 30s who've found themselves unsatisfied with their lives. The new season will center around a woman who works part-time at a library. Further information isn't yet available, but I imagine the new work will center around similar themes of dissatisfaction and uncertainty.

If you don't know Akiko Higashimura, she's the genius behind Princess Jellyfish; One of the most prolific and successful “girls” comic creators of the last fifteen years. Jellyfish remains her biggest hit, with its anime becoming widely known worldwide. However, most of her works manage to sell volumes and usually rate highly critically as well. Tokyo Tarareba Girls even had a live-action television adaption run a couple of years ago around the time the first manga was ending. Higashimura expertly blurs the Shoujo and Josei lines with an illustration style that's uniquely hers. She's a master of script and drawing.

The original Tokyo Tarareba Girls and Princess Jellyfish are available in the states via Kodansha Comics. Seven Seas will soon release an English edition of her autobiographical manga of when she was an art student titled Blank Canvas. Which, secretly, is my personal favorite Higashimura manga, not that Tokyo Tarareba Girls and Princess Jellyfish aren't great. Tarareba Girls was published digitally first by Kodansha Comics, and it's print releases are still coming out in the states; if we're lucky Season 2 might follow soon after. Akiko Higashimura certainly has the following and has proved that shoujo manga can be way more than just another high school romance story.

Tokyo Tarareba Girls Season 2 hits Kiss Magazine in late April. Keep up to date on the Kiss official website.