New to Sunday: Atsu Benino's "Hokago vocaken de!" by Strict Algorithm LLC / Anime Blog Tracker

New to Sunday: Atsu Benino's "Hokago vocaken de!"

2026 Sunday serials come fast, like life itself. Every time I finish writing about a new set, another one is announced, which is great for the magazine (and readers like us!) but hard on me, as things are only ramping up in my personal and professional life. Still, I proudly wield the banner of venerating Shonen Sunday manga. This article's artist is unique even in the pages of Sunday so let's get in there.The AuthorAtsu BeninoThe manga world sees artists come from all kinds of origins. The typical path to mangadom is to create a one-shot, and depending on the reception, that one-shot (or another story) is then developed into a serial, which is then run in a magazine or online, which is then once again serialized based on its reception and/or, in many cases, on the needs of the magazine. In some cases, an artist may be recruited to draw a manga version of a popular franchise or a tie-in for a new franchise and get their start there before moving on to an original story, or the reverse happens, where they start with original stories and then go on to do adaptations, sometimes going back and forth between the two. That there are artists who only do original stories implies there are the opposite: authors who only do tie-in manga. This is how Benino-sensei was developed, as my research shows only their name attached to anime franchises rather than to an original story of their own. Of course, there's no shame in this game; work is work, and even drawing adaptations for already existing stories still takes creativity and finesse. Though at least in the pages of this site, I think Benino-sensei is the only artist who has exclusively illustrated tie-in manga. Even the series that's the subject of this article is a tie-in to a hugely successful franchise. From D4DJ - The Starting of Photon Maiden ©Bushroad First up is D4DJ—The Starting of Photon Maiden. Based on a franchise created by the Japanese entertainment company Bushiroad, with an original story by Ko Nakamura. It is essentially a DJ-based franchise that has smartphone rhythm games, anime, and more. In 2024, the ownership of the series moved over to a company named Donuts. As for this series in particular, some sources I've seen say it ran in Monthly Bushiroad in November 2020 and had three volumes total, but the Amazon page for the series says it ran in Kodansha's Magazine Pocket. From what I found, this seems to be the origin story of one of the bands in the series. Series description aside, I couldn't find earlier examples of Benino's manga, so I can't determine whether they were selected to draw this manga based on earlier one-shot work. However, their artwork is reminiscent of artists who are comfortable drawing digitally and have profiles on sites such as Pixiv, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were scouted there. On that subject, Benino's artwork can be summed up in one word: "cute." That's not a dig at them, because cute is what makes the world turn, and having the ability to harness the power of cute is a talent to be admired, not scorned. From A Misanthrope Teaches a Class For Demi-Humans©Natsume Kurusu/Sai Izumi/Media Factory/KadokawaThe next work I can find from Benino-sensei is an adaptation of the A Misanthrope Teaches a Class For Demi-Humans light novel series, which is available in English from Yen Press. This had a particularly quick turnaround, as the LN started in February 2022, and Benino's manga began in August of the same year. It was serialized in Kadokawa's Shonen Ace from August 2022 to July 2025 for a total of four volumes. (So it hasn't even been a year since this work ended!) This also suggests that Benino is a fairly new artist, since ostensibly they started in 2020 and are on an LN series that currently has an airing anime adaptation. Not bad for someone who's been in the biz for less than five years.Kodansha and Kadokawa are big publishers, of course, but we're all about Shogakukan here. It'd be a shame to conclude this section without anything for Shoggy, and luckily for us, Benino agreed. I managed to dig up a short oneshot by them that's currently on Sunday Webry entitled Gachatto Battle! Judging from the length of this manga (8 pages), I'm assuming it ran in Sunday Super's supplement Sunday Battle 8, where veteran manga and newbies alike are assigned a theme and have only eight pages to tell a story based on it. The oneshot was uploaded to Webry May of last year, so it's likely it ran in Super around the same time. At eight pages, there isn't much of a story to speak of, but it's again, cute . In it, a girl named Kaina is coerced into trying out gacha games by the gacha-obsessed Toi Gachano (her name sounding suspiciously similar to "Gacha Toy" is surely a coincidence.) Reading this far, it's clear what Benino's works have in common—cute girls. I wouldn't go as far as saying they're doing cute things (though there is an element of that), but it's clear why Benino was the artist they chose for these two franchises, and it informs what to expect with their first foray into a weekly magazine.The SerialHokago Vocaken de! Starting in issue #6 (2026) of Weekly Shonen Sunday is Atsu Benino's third overall serialization (and first in a weekly shonen magazine) Hokago Vocaken De! The title translates to "After School in the Vocalab!"The PremiseMira Sasaki is a girl with dreams. She's just started high school and wants the experiences that come along with it, and that means joining a club. As she's the musical sort, she immediately wants to join a music club but finds that her new school doesn't have anything of the sort due to the chorus club and the band club having one hell of a fight, leading to an explosion that caused both clubs to be dissolved. (The word "exploded" was in the Japanese text seen above, and it's just as vague as I phrased it, so I'm not sure if the clubs actually exploded or if that's just a unique turn of phrase.) Either way Mira's itching to make some music and joins the only club that's tangentially related to tunes...the Vocaloid club. It's there that she meets a host of very unique club members and her unforgettable high school days begin. So to address the Vocaloid in the room... I feel like I'd have to write an entirely different article. I don't want to be reductive either, but I figure (like me, I know, for shame) some people don't know much about Vocaloids outside of the ever-popular Hatsune Miku. I did some preliminary research on Vocaloids, and Miku's origin is an entirely different thing (almost) from the actual software, which became commercially available in 2004. Essentially, it's a voice synthesizer program at first that then had a cute anime girl (cute being powerful has become the theme of this article, huh) designed to sell it. The said anime girl was Miku, and well, here we are. I know this is quick and dirty, but I don't feel qualified to talk more about Vocaloids since I know very little about them myself. Thankfully, Benino mostly uses Vocaloids as a window dressing for the antics of the girls Mira meets in the club, which is a smart move as Shonen Sunday is, as it states on the tin, a shonen magazine. I don't doubt there's crossover between Vocaloid fans and shonen manga fans; I'd imagine that's more of an exception than a rule. The first chapter is a combination of short four-koma comics (for those who don't know what those are, think of newspaper comic strips) and full-on ordinary manga pages as seen above. It combines what is essentially the first three chapters in one go, which introduces Mira to the other girls, Tsumugu, Riona, and Uta (who chooses not to speak and is always wearing a horse head mask thing). Each of them represents a different part of Vocaloids, with Tsumugu being a lyricist, Riona being an illustrator with a huge social media following and reach, and Uta as a video editor. Mira quickly fits in since she has aims to be an actual singer and thus the girls quickly accept her as both their lead singer and unofficial straight man to their weirdness. Due to being mostly composed of four komas, the manga is dictated by the speed of punchlines, though a "chapter" made up of these four koma strips does tend to tell a story in short, interconnected bursts. One's mileage may vary on how funny they find this, but I got a sensible chuckle out of many of their antics due to Benino's use of parodies and outlandish reactions from the characters. Does that panel on the left look familiar?While the fast-paced humor may not be for everyone, Benino's zeal is addictive. Their panel composition isn't innovative, but what it lacks in uniqueness it makes up for in simply being appealing to look at. The girls are cute, the pacing is snappy, and the overall vibe is fun and inviting. Like a recent chapter where Mira's first love is a subject of conversation, the punchline of the girls jumping right to her wedding (and Uta still wearing the horse mask except it looks more regal due to the event??) got a smile out of me due to its sheer ridiculousness. The Japanese Connection.I was most curious about how a Vocaloid manga would fare to fans of Sunday, and for the most part? It's positive-ish. "-ish" because many impressions are "Huh, why is this sort of manga here of all places?". While others are happy to see a manga about Vocaloids in a shonen magazine, others just find the girls cute. So the vibe is somewhere between positivity and bewilderment, hah. There are also quite a few people who wonder if this should have been in another magazine entirely. One commenter straight up says that if this were in a Kodansha magazine, it'd probably get an anime right away, which, yeah, is true. Others comment that they like that Sunday has a manga with a more moe art style that you'd see in other publishers. Oh, and Uta has a growing fan base.... I get it, though, as the mystery of the unknown has its appeal. I do hope we get to see what she looks like before the series ends! The Verdict This is the epitome of light reading, and Benino knows that and plays to that as a strength. Their artwork is appealing, and they have a good sense of humor. Now, the downside is that even if Benino is playing to a strength with the series being a breezy read, it doesn't change that Hokago Vocaken de is a series that will only stay with readers as long as they're reading it and perhaps not long after. That being said, I don't think there's anything wrong with a series that appeals only for the moment it's read. There's a stigma I feel like in the entertainment world that a work is only good if it can do anything or be anything without failing, and not only is that setting oneself up for disappointment, but it is also impossible. I think what is healthier is having a balanced entertainment diet. It's okay to consume different things based on what you're feeling or need in the moment, and this manga is perfect for a cute read to just turn one's brain off and enjoy. It's an almost perfect fit for a manga magazine whose name is meant to evoke enjoying manga on a sunny Sunday afternoon. The Vocaloid club welcomed Mira in with open arms, and I think if readers just want to hang out with and laugh along with friends, they too will be welcomed in for some fast, fun, and most importantly, cute times.

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