Shangri-La Frontier[a] is a Japanese web novel series written by Katarina [ja]. Its serialization began on the novel publishing website Shōsetsuka ni Narō in May 2017. A manga adaptation, illustrated by Ryosuke Fuji, has been serialized in Kodansha's shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine since July 2020, with its chapters collected in 20 tankōbon volumes as of November 2024.
The series follows Rakuro Hizutome, a teenager who enjoys playing "trash games"—old-fashioned and faulty video games that only appeal to a certain audience. After having mastered these games, in spite of their difficulty due to their glitches, Rakuro decides to change things up and play the acclaimed best-selling virtual reality game "Shangri-La Frontier"—a full-dive VR game with 30 million registered players. Rakuro enters the game as Sunraku, his bird-masked player character, and all the skills and experience that he acquired playing trash games will serve him in this new game.
An anime television series adaptation produced by C2C aired from October 2023 to March 2024. A second season premiered in October 2024.
By September 2024, the manga had over 10 million copies in circulation. It won the 47th Kodansha Manga Award in the shōnen category in 2023.
Plot
The story is set in the near future, where games that use old-fashioned display screens are classified as retro games, while full-dive VR games have become commonplace. As a result of these games becoming mainstream, there exist many so-called "trash games": rushed, full of glitches, faulty games, the systems of which have not kept up with the improved visual technology. Rakuro Hizutome is a "trash game hunter", a great admirer of these usually shameful games, which he plays with the nickname Sunraku, until he is able to master them regardless of the difficulty due to their glitches. Rakuro has cleared the oversized "Faeria Chronicle Online" trash game, and is suffering a sort of burnout syndrome. At the suggestion of the owner of his favorite game store, "RockRoll", he buys the best-selling and excellent "Shangri-La Frontier", a full-dive VR game with 30 million registered players. He enters the world of Shangri-La Frontier as Sunraku, his bird-masked player character, where all the skills he has attained as an expert trash game hunter will come in handy as he progresses in the game.
The protagonist, Rakuro is a major enthusiast for trash games, to the point that he has built up a collection of them. His performance is affected by his mood. His gaming alias Sunraku is partly derived from his real name, with "Sun" substituting for "Hizu", which means sun.
The author Katarina [ja] read The Irregular at Magic High School on the Shōsetsuka ni Narō website while living overseas. He found the novel interesting and therefore started to think of writing novels. At that time, reincarnation-type stories were popular in said website, and there was a period that he only read fantasy stories, but he was impressed by the virtual reality-type stories that he discovered on the site, and by the "unique strength" of VR games, which eventually inspired him to write Shangri-La Frontier.[16] For the series' title, Katarina stated that he decided to include the word "frontier", which evokes the pioneers, but hesitated about the rest. As he thought about it, he came up with the idea of including a term for "Garden of Eden" or "Earthly Paradise"—because he considered the Shangri-La Frontier's game world to be such a world—so "Shangri-La" became a possibility. He also considered to use "Eldorado". To decide, Katarina looked up their respective origins on Wikipedia, where he learned that "Shangri-La" was taken from a novel by James Hilton, and referred to a lamasery—a Buddhist monastery where all the world's wisdom was concentrated. He stated that in the world of his series, there once existed a glorious scientific civilization, and players can rediscover its wisdom in this vast universe, and that is why he chose "Shangri-La" for the title.[17]
Katarina commented that the worldbuilding of the series was the first thing that came to mind, adding that he wondered about what kind of culture and towns would it include, and then, after that, he asked himself what kind of player would play the story.[18] He stated that he does not always remember the details regarding storytelling, characters, and events, so he commented that when he has memory lapses, he consults a Wikipedia-like website created by fans dedicated to the series.[19] Katarina said that he already had ideas for the major events of the story from early stages of writing, including the ending, but added that he makes up minor adventures between two major arcs as he goes along.[20]
For the creation of Sunraku, Katarina wanted to create a character who enjoys the unexpectedness and the difficult challenge of playing "trash games", whose difficulty is due to unexpected reasons instead of being well-designed games that are meant to be difficult. For the concept of Sunraku just wearing a bird mask with nothing underneath, Katarina commented that in video games like Dark Souls and Monster Hunter there are players who are simply equipped with a headgear and no equipment underneath, mentioning as well a player of Elden Ring he saw later on as an example, who fought the game's boss in this way, and expressed, "the idea of a strong, good player with something on top and nothing underneath struck a chord with me, and that's how I came up with that character."[18] Regarding the fact that Sunraku is not confined to the game, and even goes back and forth between the game and reality, allowing both dimensions to be dealt with, Katarina commented that, unlike death games works like Sword Art Online and .hack, people in real life playing video games on YouTube, for example, are having fun, so he thought that it was entirely possible to write a story about a player who repeats a stage of the adventure over and over again in order to succeed, emphasizing, "[t]here is no need to be in this protection of the protagonist's life to create an interesting story." In contrast to other works that tend to directly convey a lot of information to the readers, Katarina declared that he takes particular care to ensure that readers can identify themselves with Sunraku, elaborating that he is new to the game, and he would act just like any other novice player. For that reason, he considered important to tell the story through the eyes of the protagonist and not from the author's point of view.[20]
Katarina commented that the interactions between Sunraku, Arthur, and Oikatzo were inspired by Hollywood movies and the banter from the characters, explaining that, instead of saying hello to each other, they would say something like "What's wrong with your face?", noting, however, that this is based on friendship, and that the characters know each other's boundaries and know how to hit the other back, either with their words or their fists physically, expressing that this is the kind of relationship he wanted the three of them to have.[18]
Manga
For the manga series adaptation, Katarina was approached by his editor who proposed it through a private message on Twitter. Ryosuke Fuji, who illustrated the Attack on Titan: Lost Girls manga adaptation, and previously worked as an assistant for various manga artists, was offered to illustrate the adaptation. Fuji was not familiarized with the novel before the offer. He started reading it due to his interest in the subject, expressing, "I'm a gamer myself, I thought I could take on this manga."[20] At first, the manga was planned to be published on the Magazine Pocket website; however, the editor in charge later called Katarina to tell him that the manga would be serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine.[16]
For the world design in the manga adaptation, Fuji commented that, due to the detailed nature of the novel, he makes drafts based on what Katarina originally wrote, Fuji then sends them to him, and Katarina gives feedback and supervises things from there—including storyboards, character designs, and the look of the overall setting.[18] For drawing and the visual universe, Fuji declared that he was influenced by the European Middle Ages.[1] For the action scenes in the manga, Fuji commented that he tries to make his drawings easy to understand, using techniques like inserting a view from afar to help the reader understand the action, mentioning that he was inspired by Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball, which features a similar technique to make battle scenes easier to read.[19] Fuji also stated that the video game Horizon Zero Dawn influenced the series' creatures and world designs.[18] Fuji pointed out that he does a lot of research for the series, especially when he is drawing something he is not familiar with; for example, he mentioned that to draw a sky he goes to look at archive photos instead of relying on manga, due to its difference from a real one. Fuji also stated that he has been inspired by Katarina's vision of the story, and that he also watches streamer videos to get ideas for Sunraku's actions in order to make the story exciting.[20]
For the visual design of Sunraku, Katarina commented that the bird mask corresponds to a very specific breed, of which it was easy to get information from real images;[20] the aspect of Sunraku's mask corresponds to that of the shoebill.[21][22] Fuji made some sketches that Katarina approved. Katarina noted that, in the original novel, Sunraku wears sandals, but given that the manga is much more visual, they decided to make him barefoot. Before that, Fuji attempted to draw Sunraku without sandals to see what he would look like barefoot. He had to abide by Katarina's decision, but Katarina happened to approve his sketch without sandals.[20] Fuji commented that he had fun making Sunraku's character design, and the wide range of expressions he was able to give him despite having a bird head. Fuji commented that there was "a very firm, solid imagery" from Katarina about the looks of Sunraku, but that there was no information about the other characters' visual looks, so his personal preferences were involved in their designs, but emphasized that Katarina was very accepting of his creativity.[18] Fuji noted that, at the beginning of the story, Sunraku is alone and talks to himself, which resulted in too much text in the original novel, so he had to adjust this aspect in the manga. Later on, Sunraku makes friends, which leads to real conversations; Fuji considered that through these, as the story goes into more detail about the specifics of the game, the manga was easier to convey.[20]
Regarding the monster designs, Fuji commented that he thinks about what kind of battle scenes he wants or needs to draw, adding that the character designs and the visual aspect of the battles go hand in hand. Fuji also commented that he first thinks about the highlight of the battle scene, and then about how to make that scenario happen with the monster's design. Fuji commented that the bunny rabbits were the most fun characters to draw—not just individually, but as a tribe. On the other hand, he commented that the most challenging character to draw was Wethermon the Tombguard, expressing that it took him a lot of time and energy, but at the same time, he commented that the character was fun and rewarding to draw.[18]
Anime
The anime project was proposed in February 2020, which was before the serialization of the manga series.[23] A promotional video that combines animated footage and panels from the manga, narrated by Azumi Waki and featuring Yuma Uchida as Sunraku, was posted on July 7, 2021, to commemorate the first anniversary of the manga's announcement;[24] Uchida would later voice Sunraku in the anime television series adaptation.[25]
For the anime series, Katarina commented that he often took part in production meetings. The teams would ask him questions, allowing him to supervise the project, and if needed, he would give them further developments on the universe. On the other hand, Fuji declared that he trusted in the teams in charge of the anime, so he did not get involved very much. He added that he also answered questions regarding the color of an element or landscape or environment. In such cases, he would provide the archive visuals that he used for his own drawings in the manga.[20]
Media
Web novel
The web novel series written by Katarina [ja] started on May 19, 2017, on the user-generated novel publishing website Shōsetsuka ni Narō.[26] No printed version of the novel series has been released, despite several requests to do so.[20]
A manga adaptation illustrated by Ryosuke Fuji has been serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine since July 15, 2020.[27][28] Kodansha has collected its chapters into individual tankōbon volumes. The first volume was released on October 16, 2020.[29] As of November 15, 2024, 20 volumes have been released.[30]
In North America, Kodansha USA announced the English language digital release of the manga in November 2020.[31] In November 2021, Kodansha USA announced that it would begin releasing the series in print,[32] with the first volume released on September 6, 2022.[33]
In July 2022, an anime television series adaptation produced by C2C was announced.[3] The series is directed by Toshiyuki Kubooka, with Hiroki Ikeshita serving as assistant director, Kazuyuki Fudeyasu supervising and writing the series' scripts, Ayumi Kurashima designing the characters, and Monaca composers Ryūichi Takada, Kuniyuki Takahashi, and Keiichi Hirokawa composing the music.[3][34] The first 25-episode season aired from October 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024,[7][35] on the Nichi-5 [ja] programming block on all JNN affiliates, including MBS and TBS.[36][37][38] The first opening theme song is "Broken Games", performed by FZMZ, while the first ending theme song is "Ace", performed by Chico [ja].[7] The second opening theme song is "Danger Danger", performed by FZMZ feat. Icy, while the second ending theme song is "Gajumaru: Heaven in the Rain" (ガジュマル ～Heaven in the Rain～), performed by Reona.[39]Aniplex collected the episodes on two DVD and Blu-ray Disc sets, released on March 27 and June 26, 2024.[40]
A second season premiered on October 13, 2024, on the same programming block.[41][42][43] For the second season, the first opening theme song is "Queen", performed by Lisa, while the first ending theme song is "Anya no Dancer: Dancer in the Dark Night" (闇夜のダンサー -Dancer in the Dark Night), performed by Otoha [ja].[44] The second opening theme song is "Frontiers", performed by Awich, while the second ending theme is "RealitYhurts", performed by Cvlte.[45]
On July 7, 2022, a video game of the same name developed by Netmarble Nexus and published by Netmarble was announced.[3][50]
Reception
By April 2024, the manga had over 8 million copies in circulation;[51] by September of the same year, it had over 10 million copies in circulation.[52] The manga ranked eleventh on the "Nationwide Bookstore Employees' Recommended Comics of 2021" by the Honya Club website.[53][54] It placed fifth in the 2021 Next Manga Award in the print category.[55] The manga was nominated for the 46th Kodansha Manga Award in the shōnen category in 2022;[56] it won the 47th edition in the same category in 2023.[57][58]
Notes
^Japanese: シャングリラ・フロンティア～クソゲーハンター、神ゲーに挑まんとす～, Hepburn: Shangurira Furontia Kusogē Hantā, Kamigē ni Idoman to Su, lit.'Shangri-La Frontier: Crappy Game Hunter Challenges God-Tier Game'
^Katarina [@BOSH_JP060] (August 22, 2023). サイガ-100の読み (Tweet) (in Japanese). Archived from the original on September 23, 2024. Retrieved September 8, 2023 – via Twitter.
