In the latest issue of Kodansha’s Bessatsu Friend magazine, it was revealed that Hatsuharu’s manga A Girl & Her Guard Dog (aka Ojō to Banken-kun) will, unfortunately, be extending its hiatus.
The original A Girl & Her Guard Dog hiatus was announced in December due to mangaka Hatsuharu’s poor health.
But, it appears, four months later and the author’s health hasn’t improved enough to want to return to the punishing schedule of creating an ongoing manga series.
According to Bessatsu Friend, it was decided to extend the manga’s hiatus longer, as it has a ‘second year arc’ coming up, and the author wants to prepare for that.
The magazine did, however, publish a mini-chapter so we aren’t without a Isaku and Keiya recharge completely. Yay!
A Girl and Her Guard Dog manga series on sale
Meanwhile, if you haven’t yet been reading A Girl and Her Guard Dog (and you should, as it’s a sweet read), Kodansha USA is currently publishing the manga in English.
They have all nine volumes of the romantic comedy manga now out in English (the latest was published in February) Although, unfortunately for physical copy fans (me!), it is only available digitally.
Fortunately though, it’s currently on sale down from $7.99 a volume to $5.99, with Volume 1 available for just 99 cents, so you may want to grab it now before its price goes back up.
Kodansha explains the A Girl and Her Guard Dog plot like this:
Isaku never asked to be the daughter of a yakuza boss, but when her parents died in a car accident when she was 5, her gangster grandfather took her in and raised her as part of the clan. After years of being avoided by her schoolmates because of her family ties, Isaku is finally ready to make her high-school debut, live a normal life, and maybe even find love.
Until loyal family servant and Isaku’s dedicated guardian, 26-year-old Keiya, enters high school right alongside her and vows to protect her from all of the above!
Now she’s got a chain-smoking, pistol-wielding knight-in-shining(?)-armor to deal with, and navigating high school besides? What’s a young lady to do?!
And, if you like your rom-coms in anime form, Crunchyroll is currently streaming all 13 episodes of the first season of the A Girl and Her Guard Dog anime.
Honestly, the animation from animation studio Project No. 9 is a little janky, but the voice acting is excellent and the story is sweet, so it is still a very fun watch.
Watch the official teaser trailer below, and you’ll see.