Star Wars Comics First Appearances and Key Events: Mandalorian Manga (Big Gangan Vol 6 May 2022)

Welcome back to another new comic book day, EveryWookiee!! This post is a little different. On May 25, 2022, Big Gangan Vol. 6 was published in Japan. Flying a bit under the radar, late-breaking news made Star Wars comic collectors outside of Japan aware that this issue would begin the Manga adaptation of Season 1 of the Mandalorian, plus an adaptation of the Visions Anime episode, “The Elder.” I got my hands on a couple copies and I’ve gone through analyzing first appearances and key events here.

You can find all this information and tons more on WookyWiki.com, our sister site and Star Wars Comics First Appearance and Key Issue Database!

Format

Now, first off, this is a monthly Manga publication from a subsidiary of Square Enix called “Big Gangan Monthly” and the name is not a cure ironic name. This book is fat and features upwards of 20 ongoing manga serializations. Here are some comparison pictures:

Depending on the collector, many only consider character appearances in monthly 20-some-odd page comic book format to be “firsts”. For them, collecting is very easy. They will obviously be looking to Marvel’s Mandalorian #1 and later issues for the first comic appearances of those fan favorite characters. For completists, the task becomes much more of a journey, an exciting quest!

Now, Big Gangan Vol. 6 was preceded by The Mandalorian Graphic Novel released May 18, 2022 in the UK which adapted the entire Season 1.

Then, of course, the Screen Comix book preceded both of these on March 24, 2021. The fact that the Screen Comix book was composed of still screen shots from the live-action show was a disqualifying factor for many collectors who did not consider it a comic.

So, the point is that many of these appearances have happened before in different formats and so will not be the first appearance in any format, but the first appearance in manga format.

Then, as the Marvel adaptation begins to come out monthly starting on July 6, 2022, the later serializations from Big Gangan may or may not precede the appearances in those Marvel Mandalorian issues.

Mandalorian Comic Release Timeline:

Here are the table of contents/copyright pages for the first edition of this manga volume:

Big Gangan Vol 6 May 2022 Table of Contents for Star Wars The Mandalorian and The Elder Adaptations

As you can see, Vol. 7 will contain the “Lop and Ocho” Visions adaptation, Vol. 8, will contain “The Ninth Jedi” adaptation, and Vol. 9 will contain “The Twins” adaptation.

The Elder

Big Gangan Vol. 6 contains a manga adaptation of the Star Wars Visions Anime episode, “The Elder”. This issue contains the adaptation of the entire “The Elder” episode and includes the first appearance of Jedi Padawan Dan G’Vash and his master, Tajin Crosser. Plus, their antagonist “The Elder.” This is the first appearance of these three characters in any comic format.

The Mandalorian

To reiterate, each of the appearances I discuss here, is the first Manga format appearance of these characters. Each character has appeared in some version of a comic in the past, even if it is just Screen Comix or the Panini UK Graphic Novel.

Din Djarin (“The Mandalorian”) and Grogu (“Baby Yoda”) appear in on the cover page of the serialization. Din also appears in the interios story pages. Grogu, however only appears on the “cover” and the last page preview of the next issue. So, I would consider Grogu’s pages non-story pages. Seeing as he already appeared on the cover of Darth Vader 20 (Sprouse Variant), this amounts to first Manga Grogu preview (if that’s even considered a key collectible to the market.