Hiroya Oku, the creator behind Gantz, Inuyashiki, and GIGANT, has confirmed that he was working under the pen name Yuki Ikeda while creating the science-fiction manga Thunder 3. The revelation arrives just after the manga’s conclusion and while its anime adaptation is streaming worldwide on Netflix, giving fans a new reason to revisit one of 2026’s most unusual manga-to-anime projects.
Oku explained that he used a different name to protect a major surprise in the opening chapter. Readers who saw “Hiroya Oku” attached to the series might have approached its early developments differently, potentially weakening the impact of the story’s first reveal.
A Small-Scale Adventure With a Massive Sci-Fi Premise
Thunder 3 follows three ordinary middle school boys—Pyontaro, Tsubame, and Hiroshi—who discover a mysterious disc said to connect to a parallel universe. When Pyontaro’s younger sister, Futaba, is pulled through the gateway and captured by aliens, the boys enter the alternate world to rescue her.
The manga’s central visual idea is immediately striking: the protagonists have cartoonish bodies in their own world, but those same bodies become extraordinarily powerful in the hyper-realistic parallel universe. That contrast allows the series to shift between playful comedy and intense science-fiction action without treating either side as a simple genre exercise.
Rather than presenting the boys as conventional superpowered heroes from the beginning, the premise places them in a setting where their apparent weaknesses become advantages. Editorially, that makes Thunder 3 feel less like a standard portal fantasy and more like a collision between different visual and narrative systems.
Why the Hiroya Oku Reveal Matters
Oku’s involvement is more than a piece of trivia. Gantz is known for its stark science-fiction concepts, graphic action, and willingness to place ordinary characters in overwhelming situations. Thunder 3 approaches those ideas through a more playful surface, but the connection helps explain why readers and observers found the anonymous creator’s artwork familiar.
The pen name also made the manga’s identity part of its reading experience. With no famous creator credit guiding expectations, readers encountered Thunder 3 on the strength of its premise, character designs, and unusual art direction. Oku’s decision to preserve that distance suggests that surprise was not limited to a single plot development; it was built into how the series was introduced to the audience.
That strategy is particularly effective for serialized manga, where the first chapter often determines whether readers continue from week to week or month to month. In this case, the creator’s anonymity allowed the series to establish its own personality before being connected to one of Japan’s best-known science-fiction manga artists.
The Manga Has Reached Its Ending
Ikeda launched Thunder 3 in Kodansha’s Monthly Shonen Magazine in May 2022. The series entered its climax in January 2025, later went on hiatus because of Oku’s health, and returned in February before concluding on June 5, 2026.
Kodansha released the Japanese edition’s 10th volume on August 17, 2026. The publisher’s Japanese product page identifies the book as the final stage of the “Small 3” adventure, while Kodansha USA’s English-language series page currently lists eight available volumes and still describes the title as ongoing. That difference appears to reflect the lag between the Japanese publication and the English release schedule rather than a disagreement about the Japanese manga’s conclusion.
For English-language readers, Kodansha USA publishes Thunder 3 in print and digital formats. The series is marketed as a blend of science fiction, action, adventure, isekai elements, and meta-comedy—an appropriate description for a story that moves between ordinary school life, cartoon physics, alien threats, and a highly realistic alternate Earth.
The Anime Expands the Series’ Reach
The anime adaptation premiered in Japan on Fuji TV’s +Ultra programming block on July 8, 2026, at 24:45 JST, effectively July 9 at 12:45 a.m. The series is also available worldwide on Netflix, where it is presented as a science-fiction shonen anime based on the manga.
Netflix’s official synopsis emphasizes the same foundation as the manga: Pyontaro, Hiroshi, and Tsubame are ordinary students whose lives change after Futaba disappears. The anime’s international distribution places Thunder 3 directly in front of viewers who may not have encountered the manga during its original serialization, while the manga’s completed status gives new readers a clear entry point.
For fans of Oku’s earlier work, the reveal changes the way Thunder 3 can be discussed. It is not simply a hidden creator credit attached to a finished manga; it is a rare example of an established artist deliberately stepping away from his public identity to preserve the shock and curiosity of a new series. Now that the secret is out, readers can examine Thunder 3 both as its own eccentric science-fiction adventure and as an unexpected new chapter in Hiroya Oku’s career.
Sources
- animenewsnetwork.com
- kodansha.co.jp
- kodansha.us
- about.netflix.com
- thunder3-anime.com
- netflix.com
