Series debuted in June 2023
Cover not finalImage courtesy of Manga Mavericks
© 2024 Qta Minami/MAGAZINE HOUSE Co., Ltd
The fifth compiled book volume of Q-ta Minami’s Ball and Chain announced on Tuesday the series will end in the next volume.
Manga Mavericks is publishing the series in English and describes the story:
“Maybe I could have chosen something different…”
Keito is a late-20s company employee who’s planning to get married as a “woman,” despite not feeling cemented into a specific gender or sexuality.
Meanwhile, Aya is a married woman in her 50s who continues playing out the role of “wife” despite being in a marriage that’s long since gone cold.
They both struggle with a gender that was decided upon birth and the “wife” role that became nothing more than a pantomime at some point.
This is a story of two queer people who harbor doubts about how they’ve been treated and shoved into a “normalized” box, and try to take back their true selves.
Manga Mavericks will release the manga in 2-in-1 omnibus format at A5 size. Manga Mavericks stated in its announcement that manga creator Minami Q-ta is non-binary.
The manga was nominated for the 30th Annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in February, and also ranked at #3 on the 2025 Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list of manga for female readers. The manga runs on the SHURO website, and Magazine House has so far published three volumes.
Star Fruit Books previously licensed Minami Q-ta’s Yurayura, Below the Ceiling, Pop Life, The Blood Red Boy, Birds of Passage, and Not All Girls Are Stupid manga.
Source: Ball and Chain volume 5
