Publishing giant Shogakukan’s Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine’s former editor-in-chief, Takenori Ichihara, announced on his Twitter that he will debut as a manga story-writer. Ichihara left the magazine on Friday, April 15, 2022.

本日4月15日付けで小学館を退社いたしました。在職中にお世話になりました全ての皆様と僕を育ててくれた小学館に心より感謝申し上げます＜(_ _)＞これからは漫画原作者として新たな形で愛する漫画に恩返しをしていきたいと思っております＜(_ _)＞ pic.twitter.com/SpD9c3FYFZ

— 市原武法 (@editor_ichihara) April 15, 2022

After leaving as an editor, Ichihara explained that he still wanted to be on the front lines of Shonen Sunday’s manga-making process. So, he decided to get involved in the business seriously.

“After leaving the scene, I thought about how I could contribute to Shonen Sunday and my beloved manga for a long time. After a lot of thinking, I thought I am a manga fanatic, thus I decided to face it seriously, ” wrote the former editor in a note.

He further added that after being free from the editor-in-chief’s responsibility, he was bursting with lots of bottled-up dreams and visions that he found hard to control. Thus, he decided to give back to manga as a writer as much as he can in the future.

“I have a lot of things I want to draw and do now,” wrote Ichihara. “After 13 years of editor-in-chief life, my shoulders are unloaded, and at the same time, my dreams and visions come up one after another. It’s hard to control (laughs). Right now, I’m just happy to be involved in the “story” that I love so much. I’ll continue to do my best to give back to manga as much as possible. Thank you.”

After six years and three months on the job, Ichihara stepped down as editor-in-chief of Weekly Shonen Sunday on Oct 13, 2021. He became editor-in-chief in 2015. The current editor-in-chief is Kazunori Ohshima.

Out of all of the magazine’s editors-in-chief, Ichihara has the second-longest tenure. Kazuki Tanaka is the editor-in-chief of the magazine with the longest tenure. Tanaka held the position from 1976 to 1984.

Source: Oricon, Comic Natalie