‘Back to the Future’ Manga Cancelled

One of the coolest sounding projects was a new Back to the Future manga overseen by One Punch Man and Eyeshield 21 illustrator Yusuke Murata that followed up the story told in the original films, but the project has unfortunately been canceled.

Murata took to Twitter to announce for the unfortunate news that his Back to the Future project has been shelved due to the inability to settle the rights issues for many of the original film’s elements.

Announced earlier this year during a Ready Player One celebration event in Japan, Murata’s Back to the Future manga was going to pick up where the 1985 film left off and would have been supervised by Back to the Future screenwriter Bob Gale as it would have had many elements not seen in the original film.

The plan was to publish the manga for Japanese website Kono Manga ga Sugoi!, but the site’s editors (despite doing all they could to resolve them) could not settle the rights issues for any of the copyrighted works that would have appeared in Murata’s work. This certainly comes as a huge blow to those who love Murata’s work and the Back to the Future series, and it’s especially hurting knowing what Murata would have brought to the table.

Murata unveiled some of the drafts and works he had for the manga so far, and fans can see what his take on Lorraine McFly, the clock tower, and Marty’s original journey into the past after being chased by terrorists. Previous released drafts for the manga featured characters from the sequel films, and even a monster truck take on the classic DeLorean time machine.

Kono Manga ga Sugoi! had originally planned to release the first volume on April 20, but this explains why no new news about the project had been released since its announcement back in February. You can currently find more of Yusuke Murata’s work in the Weekly Young Jump release of One Punch Man, for which he works as an illustrator.

Yusuke Murata also regularly shares art that sets the Internet on fire like his sketches of famous Dragon Ball characters. Murata’s art is so great, he has also contributed to Marvel projects, even going so far as to draw an official poster for Spider-Man: Homecoming to commemorate its Japanese box set release.