Sithty Review - Edge of Balance Vol. 4

Alright, so for this week's Around the Galaxy, of course, we've got just the hard facts of this final volume.

And we are now in a point where the series is definitely kind of wrapping up.

The release date for Volume 4 was April 22nd of 2025.

You'll note from the previous review that Premonition came out in early April.

I want to say that first week.

of april and now volume four is coming basically at the end of april 2025 so we've gone from a bit of a delay in phase three stuff uh from the beginning uh with volume three to now this like one two punch of premonition and volume four happening at the same time I think I made a comment in the past episode about how this could also be a reason why you have different artists working on the premonition precedents versus the main volumes.

And it seems like that is the case because with these release dates being so close to each other, I imagine that meant that...

For logistics, printers, distribution, all of that fun stuff, they would have needed to have both of the arts for both Premonition and Volume 4 turned in functionally at the same time.

Maybe there's a week or two.

Uh, in when that art needed to be turned in because premonition came out before volume four, but considering that we're talking about, uh, like two weeks worth of time, uh, that's really not that much when you think about the logistics and everything.

getting the printing done.

These mangas have all been distributed by Viz Media.

So, you know, they have their timelines of when they can get out different books and what needs to be turned in when.

So since it's even going through the same distributor or the same kind of like printing slash publishing group, I imagine there just wasn't that much time in between.

So that does feed some kind of credence to that theory.

But yeah, we won't know that unless someone comes out on the record and says it.

In terms of the artists, we do get back to a kind of... main crew again.

So Shima Shinya and Daniel Jose Older are the main writers for volume four.

Shima Shinya, I went and looked through with volume four being the end of the manga series.

They have written all of the volumes.

So Justina Ireland started with Volume 1, then it's shifted over to Daniel José Older, but Shima Shinya has been writing every single one of the volume-numbered Edge of Balance mangas.

Mizuki Sakakibara also comes back as both the penciler and the cover art, as well as the art within the manga.

And similar to Shima Shinya, Sakakibara has been doing all of the art for, again, all of the numbered mangas.

main volume.

So volumes one through four, it is the art of Sakakibara that has been handling that.