Uncivilized Books to publish long-awaited English edition of Hideko Mizuno's landmark shōjo manga FIRE!

One of manga's most historically significant works is finally getting its English debut.

The Minneapolis-based independent publisher Uncivilized Books has launched its new manga imprint, Mangalith, with an English-language edition of Fire! by Hideko Mizuno. The compiled softcover omnibus is a massive 896-pages and collects the landmark 1969–1971 shōjo manga and is due out October 14, 2026.

Fire!, which famously became one of the first shōjo series to feature a male protagonist, follows Aaron Browning, a troubled Ohio teenager, whose passion for music is awakened when he meets a charismatic rebel, Fire Wolf, while in juvenile detention. The story traces Aaron’s rise from Detroit’s underground factory scene to full-blown rock stardom, set against the turbulent backdrop of late-’60s America. Inspired by real-life pop-art transformer Scott Walker, Aaron is less a conventional shōjo hero and more a flawed, hedonistic anti-hero blazing through a world on the verge of burning itself down. A bonus short comic on Pink Floyd is also included.

Mizuno launched the manga in Shueisha's Seventeen fashion magazine, and it has been largely unavailable to US readers. The series earned the 1970 Shogakukan Manga Award and broke significant ground at the time of its publication: not only was it among the first shōjo works to feature a male protagonist, but it's also has frank depictions of sex and desire that were genuinely transgressive in post-WWII Japan.

Mizuno — the only woman to live at the legendary Tokiwa-sō creative commune, where she was mentored by none other than Osamu Tezuka — is widely recognized as the forerunner of the Year 24 Group, the constellation of legendary female mangakas, including Moto Hagio, Keiko Takemiya, and Riyoko Ikeda, who revolutionized shōjo manga in the 1970s. A towering figure whose influence on manga is difficult to overstate, Mizuno received the Literary Giant Award at the 39th Japan Cartoonists Association Awards in 2010.

For English-language readers, the book’s absence has been a glaring gap. Classic shōjo has been almost entirely overlooked in the English localization wave of the past two decades, leaving Western fans without access to the foundational works that shaped the genre. Uncivilized Books is positioning the publication of Fire! as a corrective, essential text, not just a curiosity.

Fire! by Hideko Mizuno is available for preorder now at $42.50 (regularly $49.99). The first 100 preorders receive an additional 15% off and free shipping with code FIRE100.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​