After Cherry Magic: Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard becoming so successful that the Yuu Toyota manga inspired both an anime and live-action adaptation, it makes you want to pay attention and see what the mangaka will do next. In this case, it turns out that’s something quite different. Square Enix picked up Toyota’s newest series for a worldwide release, and it is quite different in terms of tone and genre. While the manga A Starlit Darkness also focuses on what looks like it will become an intense relationship between two leads, it’s darker and more thrilling than Toyota’s last romanic comedy.
Editor’s Note: There will be some light spoilers for the first volume of the A Starlit Darkness manga below.
A Starlit Darkness is set in Taisho era Japan and begins with a struggling, deeply in debt writer named Subaru Karasuma heading to his neighbors to get back the coal brazier he lent them. He learns the five are also a group of writers collaborating on a self-published magazine alongside well-known and successful author Geppo Yagira. Geppo immediately clocks that Subaru is considering using the burner to commit suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning and, instead, offers to pay him to contribute to the group’s next issue to replace someone who dropped out and give him some money. In so doing, he basically goads and bullies him into contributing.
What follows is fascinating, as we’re seeing how Subaru is dealing with his depression while interacting with a man who is essentially exactly the kind of person he wanted to be. Geppo is the same age as him. They were published in the same magazines when they were both in school. But while Subaru essentially crashed, burned, and dropped out, Geppo is financially and socially successful. We see the envy.
Especially since it seems like Geppo is doing things throughout the first volume of A Starlit Darkness that seems like he’s trying to help Subaru and set him up for success. He prevents him from committing suicide. He presents him with a possible place in the collective and money for a story. Specific spoilers aside, he does things to help Subaru get out of debt and attempt to reignite his passion for writing. But as he does, we see the approach and obligation do the opposite for Subaru. It puts more weight on him. From the reader’s perspective, Geppo is coming across as benevolent and helpful. But from what we’re seeing, there’s an edge to how Subaru is taking it and it is like a deal with a devil to him.
While this manga involves to be fascinating insights into a complicated relationship developing between a character and someone set up as a rival, A Starlit Darkness really gets great in its third and fourth chapters. Prior to that point, we’re only seeing things from Subaru’s perspective. But once we get to the end, we see more of Geppo’s life and his mindset. This adds an additional twist to the whole storyline and dynamic between the two of them, as well as sets up what the future could look like in the next volume.
In the first volume of A Starlit Darkness, we see the start of a complex relationship between two writers. While mainly focused on lead character Subaru, there are hints as to how both affected each other. And, given the end seems to promise more insight from Geppo’s side of things, it feels like a series with a lot of potential for new revelations and changes between the two authors.
The first volume of A Starlit Darkness is available now, and Square Enix will release volume 2 of the manga on September 15, 2026. The company also handled the localization of Yuu Toyota’s previous series Cherry Magic: Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard.
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