Kodama Tales licenses A Mandala in Flames, Baki Hanma and Neo Cat
Kodama Tales will publish A Mandala in Flames, Baki Hanma and Neo Cat in 2027, with the three manga arriving across June and July.
Kodama Tales has licensed three manga for English-language publication in 2027: A Mandala in Flames, Baki Hanma and Neo Cat. The publisher announced the trio through its official account, with A Mandala in Flames and Baki Hanma scheduled for July 2027 and Neo Cat due in June 2027. 123
The announcement gives A Mandala in Flames a historical focus. Chie Shinomoto's complete, one-volume drama follows painter Hasegawa Tohaku in sixteenth-century Japan, as he fights to establish himself after being rejected as an apprentice by the celebrated Kano Eitoku. Kodama Tales describes the story as a fictionalised account of an artist confronting ambition, loss and the upheaval of the Warring States era. 1
Baki Hanma is the third arc of Keisuke Itagaki's long-running martial-arts saga. Kodama Tales' summary centres on Baki's pursuit of a fight with his father, Yujiro Hanma, while highlighting the opponents he faces on the way, including Biscuit Oliva and Pickle. The publisher has not announced a more specific July release date. 2
The most unexpected of the three is Neo Cat, an eight-story collection by Aoka. Its setting imagines cats that have evolved into bipedal members of human society: they hold jobs, work in host clubs and navigate friendships and conflict alongside people. The publisher has scheduled it for June 2027. 3
Anime News Network independently reported the three licences and the same release months, while also identifying the creators and reproducing the announcement artwork. 4 Kodama Tales' posts describe manga publications; there is no announcement here of an anime adaptation, so this is a publishing story rather than an anime-production update.
Our opinion
This is a strong three-book announcement because the licences cover three sharply different propositions: historical drama, maximalist martial arts and surreal cat comedy. Baki Hanma has the clearest built-in audience, but A Mandala in Flames is the most intriguing new discovery on the information available so far. The June and July 2027 windows are useful, though readers will need exact dates and format details before they can plan a purchase. For now, Kodama Tales has put three very different manga on the radar without pretending they are connected beyond arriving from the same publisher.