Sword Art Online Director’s New Manga Wonder X is Very Reminiscent of Stranger Things

Sword Art Online anime director Tomohiko Ito is starting his first manga titled Wonder X, which is very reminiscent to the setting of the hit Netflix show, Stranger Things. The mystery manga is set in the 1990s and is about a group of high school-aged friends coming across a “mysterious creature”.

Tomohiko Ito is known for directing the first two seasons of Sword Art Online, Erased, Occult Academy, and the first season of Silver Spoon. He also directed the 2019 film Hello World and most recently the 2020 anime The Millionaire Detective Balance: Unlimited.

Along with Ito, duo manga artist Mekky Kuroyama is illustrating Wonder X. The manga debuted on Comic Newtype, Kadokawa’s online manga platform on September 16.

【新連載】『ワンダーX』

コミックNewtypeで始まりました！
https://t.co/XaWGZGwGLd

第1話80P公開です。
よろしくお願いしま〜す！ pic.twitter.com/GMXgbPbGfX

— 黒山メッキ????️ (@mekky_) September 16, 2022

Here is the official introduction of Wonder X from Newtype (machine translated):

“The first manga by Tomohiko Ito, the director of the TV anime Sword Art Online and Erased! A summer adventure between girls and boys begins now!! In the early 1990s, an unprecedented economic boom called the “bubble economy” burst, and while the heat of the world had subsided, the remaining fires were still smouldering in society. The end of the century, when Nostradamus predicted the end of the world, was a little far away, and no one knew that a major disaster would hit Japan. The adventure story of a summer that unfolds from the encounter with a certain “man” by Tom, Noah, Honda, and other children was not just fun…?!”