Crimson Hero Manga Volumes: Full List & English Gap

Crimson Hero Manga Volumes: 20 in Japanese, Only 14 in English

Here’s the short version: Crimson Hero is a completed manga with 20 volumes in Japanese. The series was published by Shueisha (one of Japan’s largest manga publishers) under their Margaret Comics label, with the first volume releasing on June 30, 2003, and the final volume arriving in June 2011. It’s done — no cliffhanger limbo, no hiatus. The story is finished.

The catch? The English edition only covers volumes 1 through 14. The last six volumes (15–20) were never translated into English. That’s a significant chunk of story missing, and it’s the single biggest thing any prospective reader or collector needs to know going in.

Crimson Hero (紅色HERO) was written and illustrated by Mitsuba Takanashi (高梨みつば). It follows Nobara Sumiyoshi, a girl from a traditional family who’s expected to take over the family business — but all she wants to do is play volleyball. The manga tracks her fight to build a competitive girls’ volleyball team at Crimson Field High School, dealing with everything from family pressure to fierce rivals on the court. It’s a shojo sports manga — meaning it’s published in a magazine aimed at teenage girls — through and through: character-driven drama with genuine athletic stakes.

For a girls’ volleyball series published in the mid-2000s, Crimson Hero carved out a loyal readership. There’s real tension in the matches, the team dynamics feel earned, and Nobara’s stubbornness makes her an easy character to root for. If you’re into sports manga and don’t mind romance and emotional drama woven into the competition, this one’s worth your time — with the caveat that the English edition won’t get you to the finish line.

Complete Volume List

Here’s the full breakdown of all 20 Crimson Hero manga volumes and their English availability. The key thing to watch is that hard cutoff after volume 14.

Volume	JP Release Year	English Available?
1	2003	Yes
2	2003	Yes
3	2004	Yes
4	2004	Yes
5	2004	Yes
6	2005	Yes
7	2006	Yes
8	2006	Yes
9	2006	Yes
10	2007	Yes
11	2007	Yes
12	2007	Yes
13	2008	Yes
14	2008	Yes
15	2009	No
16	2009	No
17	2010	No
18	2010	No
19	2011	No
20	2011	No

Note: Japanese release years are sourced from the mediaarts-db database (confirmed release dates).

Key Volumes Worth Knowing About

Without going into heavy spoilers, here are a few volumes that mark important moments in the series:

• Volume 1 — The setup. You meet Nobara, learn about her family situation, and watch her take her first steps toward building the volleyball team. This volume does a great job establishing why she cares so much and what she’s up against. If the first volume hooks you, the rest will too.

• Volume 5 — By this point the team is taking shape and the competitive volleyball really starts heating up. The matches get more detailed and the rival teams become more fleshed out.

• Volume 9 — The midpoint of the English run. Relationships between team members are deepening, and the stakes on the court feel higher. This is where a lot of readers say the series really finds its groove.

• Volume 14 — The final English volume. This is where English-only readers hit the wall. The story doesn’t wrap up here — it simply stops. There’s no resolution, no convenient stopping point where one storyline ends before the next begins. You’re left mid-story, which is genuinely frustrating.

• Volume 20 — The actual finale, available only in Japanese. The story reaches its conclusion here with a definitive ending. If you can read Japanese or find fan-written plot summaries online, this is where the full emotional payoff lives.

A Note on the Untranslated Gap

Volumes 15 through 20 represent roughly 30% of the total series. That’s not a minor epilogue or bonus content — it’s the final act. Important matches, character resolutions, and the story’s climax all happen in these six volumes. Going in, you should know that the English edition will leave you wanting more. Whether that’s a dealbreaker is up to you.

What Happened to the English Release

Viz Media published the English edition of Crimson Hero, releasing volumes 1 through 14 before discontinuing the series. That left six volumes — nearly a third of the manga — untranslated and unavailable in English.

Why Did It Stop?

While the specific business reasons haven’t been publicly detailed, this pattern was actually pretty common for shojo sports manga during the mid-to-late 2000s. The English-language manga market was expanding rapidly in that era, and publishers picked up a lot of titles. But not every series sold well enough to justify continued translation and printing costs, especially for niche genres.

Girls’ volleyball manga sits at the intersection of two categories — shojo (stories aimed at teen girls) and sports — that each have dedicated audiences but don’t always overlap in the Western market. A shonen sports manga (aimed at teen boys) like Haikyuu!!, a massively popular volleyball series that came later, would eventually prove volleyball could be huge internationally, but the market conditions in the mid-2000s were different. Many shojo sports titles from this era share the same fate: partial English releases that were quietly discontinued.

Can You Finish the Story?

This is the tough part. Your options are limited, but they exist:

• Japanese volumes (15–20) — If you read Japanese, these are the straightforward solution. The original Japanese editions are still findable through import retailers and secondhand sellers.
• Fan summaries online — Some English-speaking fans have written detailed plot summaries of the untranslated volumes and posted them on blogs, forums, and fan wikis. These won’t give you the full reading experience of seeing Takanashi’s art and pacing, but they can tell you how the story ends and how character relationships resolve.

No digital-only English completion has been announced. No official translation of volumes 15–20 exists in any English format as of the information available. The chances of a new publisher picking up the remaining volumes (sometimes called a “rescue license” in the manga industry) seem slim given the series completed back in 2011, but stranger things have happened in manga publishing.

Is Crimson Hero Finished?

Yes — completely finished. The manga concluded at 20 volumes in June 2011. Mitsuba Takanashi brought Nobara’s story to a definitive ending. There is no ongoing magazine serialization (the chapter-by-chapter publication that precedes collected volumes), no sequel, no spin-off continuation, and no plans for one that have been announced.

There is also no anime adaptation of Crimson Hero. Despite the series having a solid fan following, it never received a TV anime, OVA (original video animation — a direct-to-video anime release), or film. This is worth mentioning because for many sports manga, an anime adaptation is what drives renewed interest and often prompts publishers to revisit incomplete English releases. Without that boost, Crimson Hero has remained somewhat under the radar compared to other sports manga from the same era.

The story is self-contained. Volume 20 wraps things up. If you can get to the end — whether in Japanese or through summaries — you’ll get a real conclusion rather than an open-ended non-ending.

Where to Buy Crimson Hero Manga Volumes in English

Collecting Crimson Hero in English requires a bit more effort than picking up a currently-in-print series. Here’s what to expect.

Format and Editions

Crimson Hero was released in single-volume format only. There are no omnibus editions (multi-volume collections that bundle several volumes into one thicker book), no deluxe or hardcover reprints. Each of the 14 English volumes is a standard manga-sized paperback. What you see is what you get — no special editions to hunt for or wait on.

Availability

Since the English volumes are out of print — meaning no new copies are being produced — you won’t find them sitting on the shelf at most bookstores. Your main options are:

• Online retailers and marketplaces — Sites like Amazon, eBay, and AbeBooks sometimes have new-old-stock copies (unsold inventory from the original print run) or third-party sellers listing used copies. Volume 1 is generally the easiest to find since it had the largest print run (the number of copies produced).
• Secondhand bookstores — Both online used-book platforms and physical used bookstores can turn up copies. Manga-focused secondhand sellers are especially worth checking.
• Manga trading communities — Online communities where collectors buy, sell, and trade manga — places like r/mangaswap on Reddit — can be a good source, especially for tracking down specific volumes you’re missing.

Pricing Expectations

Because the series is out of print, pricing can vary quite a bit. Early volumes (especially volume 1) tend to be more affordable since more copies were printed and sold. Later volumes — particularly those closer to the cutoff at volume 14 — can carry higher prices due to scarcity and higher demand from collectors who want to complete their English sets.

Don’t be surprised if some volumes cost noticeably more than a typical new manga paperback at retail price. This is normal for out-of-print series. Patience helps — prices fluctuate as copies enter and leave the market, so if a particular volume seems overpriced, checking back periodically can sometimes turn up a better deal.

Is It Worth Collecting?

That depends on how you feel about the incomplete English run. If you’re comfortable reading 14 of 20 volumes and finding another way to experience the ending, Crimson Hero is a genuinely enjoyable volleyball manga with strong characters and satisfying match sequences. The 14 available English volumes cover the setup, the team-building phase, and a substantial portion of the competitive volleyball storylines — enough to get deeply invested in Nobara and her teammates.

To be straightforward about the stopping point: volume 14 does not land on a natural break in the story. You won’t feel like you’ve reached the end of a complete section. You’ll feel like someone pulled the book out of your hands mid-chapter. For some readers, that’s tolerable because the journey up to that point is genuinely good. For others, it’s a dealbreaker. Both reactions are reasonable.

If the idea of an incomplete set bothers you, consider checking whether you can access fan summaries of volumes 15–20 before committing to collecting. That way you’ll at least know you can get the full story one way or another.

For sports manga fans, though, Crimson Hero fills a niche that very few other English-translated titles occupy. Girls’ volleyball manga with this level of quality and length is genuinely rare in English. Even at 14 volumes, there’s a lot of story to enjoy here.