The official website of Shueisha 's Jump SQ. magazine announced on Monday that Nobuhiro Watsuki 's Rurouni Kenshin : Hokkaido Arc manga will resume in the magazine's July issue on June 4. The manga went on hiatus last December following Watsuki being charged for possession of child pornography. Watsuki was later fined 200,000 yen (about US$1,900) in February.

The announcement noted that Watsuki is living a life of reflection and atonement, but that Shueisha and Watsuki decided that continuing the manga to answer the desires of fans was a matter of duty.

At the time of the manga's hiatus, Shueisha commented that it is taking this news seriously, and that Watsuki expresses deep regret.

Watsuki and his novelist wife/story collaborator Kaoru Kurosaki launched the Rurouni Kenshin : Hokkaido Arc ( Rurouni Kenshin, Meiji Kenkaku Romantan : Hokkaido-hen ) manga in Shueisha 's Jump SQ. magazine last September. Viz Media was simultaneously publishing it in English before the manga went on hiatus.

Watsuki first launched his 28-volume Rurouni Kenshin manga in Shueisha 's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine in 1994. The manga has more than 60 million copies in print. The manga centers around Kenshin Himura, once a deadly assassin during the Meiji Restoration, who is trying to find a new life beyond violence. The manga has since been adapted into a 95-episode TV anime series, an anime film, three original video anime projects, three live-action films, and a stage musical by the all-female musical theater troupe Takarazuka Revue. The Daily Sports newspaper reported last year that a new live-action film in the works.

[Via Otakomu]