Fans of the beloved children’s comic series Captain Underpants can re-experience the series’ first adventure under a new lens. Scholastic and Pilkey Planet announced Captain Underpants: The First Epic Manga will be released on April 7th, 2026. Fans can already pre-order the manga on the official Scholastic Website. The manga adapts the first original chapter book of the Captain Underpants series, The Adventures of Captain Underpants, which was released in 1997. Series author and illustrator Dav Pilkey handles the writing and adaptation of the manga, while Japanese artist Motojiro handles the artwork. Although the book is labeled as a manga, it’s actually formatted in Western style, meaning readers will be able to read it from left to right, rather than right to left like other manga.
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Making Captain Underpants: The First Epic Manga in Western style was likely done to avoid confusion among younger readers, who are the target audience for the Captain Underpants franchise. The only thing that qualifies Captain Underpants: The First Epic Manga as a manga is that its art style is heavily anime-based. Scholastic has shared the cover artwork for the manga, featuring the three main characters, Captain Underpants and kids George Beard and Harold Hutchins, in the new manga art style. A ten-second teaser trailer was also released by Pilkey’s official company, Planet Pilkey, showcasing a new image of George and Harold riding skateboards.
What Will Captain Underpants: The First Epic Manga Be About?
The Captain Underpants follows the exploits of George and Harold, who accidentally hypnotized their principal into believing he is Captain Underpants, a superhero the duo created together. The books feature illustrations drawn by Pilkey and comic-style panels known as Flip-O-Ramas. The first book in the series, The Adventures of Captain Underpants, is about the trio facing robots and the supervillain Dr. Diaper. The original novels continued to be published until 2015, but led to multiple spin-offs, including The Adventures of Super Diaper Baby, The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future, and Dog Man.
Captain Underpants‘ popularity led to a theatrical animated film in 2017, Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie, which adapted elements of the first novel. The motion picture was followed by an animated series on Netflix called The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants. An animated movie based on Dog Man was then released in 2025.
Manga or anime adaptations of Western media have been a common practice for decades. Japanese company Takeshobo released a manga adaptation of the X-Men animated series in 1994, which recently received a re-release by Viz Media. Marvel and DC have collaborated with Japanese creators to deliver manga based on iconic superheroes, including Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, and Deadpool. With anime becoming one of the most dominant sources of entertainment in the United States and other countries, many companies are attempting to cater to anime fans to draw in a larger audience. Scholastic has always been a major supplier of popular manga to school children, so a manga based on one of the company’s biggest franchises was a smart move.
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Image Courtesy of TOHO
