Champion Red
The first images of the manga appeared in the "Champion Red" magazine issue of January 2003, published on November 19, 2002, along with posters by and an interview with Masami Kurumada. The first chapter was then released on the following February issue of this monthly magazine, published on December 19, 2002, and the first volume ("tankōbon") published on June 19, 2003, under Akita Shoten's Champion Red Comics imprint. Releases arrested in 2009, as author Megumu Okada put the manga on hiatus to dedicate himself to other projects following an unspecified dispute with the publisher, and resumed in "Champion Red Ichigo"'s April 2011 issue, with the release of a new chapter, as well as a compilation of past chapters that had not been grouped in volume format yet (chapters 74–76) called "Volume 17.5". The manga entered a second hiatus after chapter 83 was published in the October 2011 issue of "Champion Red Ichigo" and, after the publisher announced that the manga would end at volume 20, resumed in the May 2013 issue. The final chapter was released on June 19, 2013; the final volume was published on August 8, 2013.