The popular manga "Hatsu x Kon" by Minori Kurosaki will be wrapping up its 5 and a half year run with the final chapter in the March issue of the magazine "Ribon" (Shueisha) released on February 3rd. The series began serialization in May 2019 and became a hot topic for depicting the diverse values surrounding happiness set in a "school that aims to become the world's best marriage partner." As a bound-in supplement, it will come with a separate volume "Hatsu x Kon Memorial Fan Book" that looks back on the history of the series.
"Hatsu x Kon" is a school manga about a pair of potential lovers, chosen by an AI matching system, who live together in a dormitory and aim to have the "world's best marriage." While it has attracted attention for its bold premise of "high school students aiming to get married," it has also drawn popularity among a wide range of readers by depicting "various types of love that are not limited to the formality of marriage." In 2023, it won the 68th Shogakukan Manga Award in the children's category. The final episode depicted the outcome of the final challenge to decide the "golden couple's egg."
Author Kurosaki commented, "It was a very unusual setting, and I had to finish it by the time the third-year students graduated, so I started the series thinking, 'I don't want it to be canceled!' I never imagined it would continue for five and a half years. I agonized over the ending until the very end, and decided on it while I was writing the storyboard for the final chapter. I hope you'll read on to find out how it ends!"
The final 17th volume of the comic will be released on March 25th. There will be a regular edition and a special edition with a full-color 32-page booklet containing a long interview with Kurosaki and over 30 popular illustrations from the series.
In this issue, an omnibus series of manga adaptations of songs by singer-songwriter Yuika and a new series by Ume Yuzuki, "Aishi no Kiteretsu," started. The appendix is a pouch with the motif of Mayu Murata's "Honey Lemon Soda," called "Hidden Lemon Quilted Pouch."
