Continue

Continue
Information
Released	July 19, 2003 [note]
Magazine	Weekly Shonen Jump (Issue 34, 2003)
Pages	49
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Continue (Continue(コンティニュー), Kontinyū) is a one-shot manga written and illustrated by Katsura Hoshino in 2003, a year after her first one-shot Zone. The story presents several elements which would later be reused in D.Gray-man. The one-shot was later included in the official fanbook Gray Log in 2017.

Summary

Taiyo Yamamoto is a 13-year-old boy who loves danger. He'd do dangerous things like: racing with the school bus, bungee jumping from the school building, and even boxing with a gorilla. The gorilla won and sent Taiyo to the hospital. While at the hospital, Taiyo's friend Koji is asked by his parents to take care of Taiyo in the future.

Koji is later kidnapped by some delinquents, and Taiyo comes to rescue him. They tell him that Koji is inside the old building, which rumors say is haunted. As Taiyo defeats the delinquents, a humanoid monster crawls into the room Koji is in. Taiyo notices how red the moon is, then hears Koji scream. Taiyo breaks into the room to find the monster biting Koji's head, but manages to free Koji and tells him to run. The monster rips off Taiyo's right arm, but with the last of his strength Taiyo punches the monster then passes out.

Inside his mind, a creature named Shiropin appears and tells Taiyo that he's dead, but offers to revive him as a zombie as long as he agrees to help him defeat his enemy the Millennium Earl. The Earl is also the one who killed Taiyo, but Shiropin says that defeating the Earl will give Taiyo immortality.

Taiyo wakes up and an array with multiple kanji appears around his stump, then reconnects his arm. In his excitement, Taiyo tests his abilities and leaps out of a window.

The next day at school, Taiyo runs around realizing he forgot Koji, but runs into him in the hallway. Taiyo tells him about becoming a zombie. Shiropin then explains to both that he and the Earl are from other planets, and that the Earl's people attacked Shiropin's planet. Shiropin sealed away the attackers and their technology, and then threw them into a black hole. The sealed sphere became the moon. Taiyo gets too loud and is told to stand in the hallway. While Taiyo's out, Koji receives a message from the Earl. Koji tries to delete it, but receives more messages anyway.

While wandering around on rooftops, Taiyo receives a message from Koji then heads out to the haunted building to fight the Earl. As they fight, Shiropin notices the Earl has a new body, which is revealed to be Koji. Taiyo loses the will to fight, which causes his body to begin to rot because his synchronization with Shiropin depends on the host's fighting spirit. The Earl calls down a giant servant from the moon which pummels Taiyo. But after a talk with Shiropin, Taiyo regains his his will to fight, and defeats the servant. Taiyo then pushes Koji's body out of the Earl, and breaks the link between the Earl and the moon. With his connection fading, the Earl warns Taiyo that the moon has already predicted that the Earth will die because of humanity's pollution, then leaves Koji's body in a cloud of blood and escapes.

Afterwards, Koji's sent to the hospital for a blood tranfusion. As he looks at Taiyo's drawings, he recognizes that that was the last time he would see Taiyo, but smiles knowing his friend is out there fighting for this world.

Comparisons

• The Millennium Earl of the Moon has the same design as the Millennium Earl in D.Gray-man, but less round. The outer form of the Moon's Earl also forms in hexagons.
• The array that forms around Taiyo's arm resembles the stamps formed by Lavi's Iron Hammer.
  • Taiyo's version has the kanji for "arm" (腕) in the center, which connects like spokes in a wheel to seven other encircled kanji: "heaven" (天), "six" (六), "fire" (火), "star" (星), "metal" (金), "air" (気), and "blood" (血).
• Taiyo's power depends on his synchronization with Shiropin, in a similar way to Accommodators with their Innocence.

Trivia

• Taiyo means "sun" in Japanese.
• Shiropin resembles the avatar that Hoshino uses to represent herself in magazine comments and in autobiographical comics in the manga volumes.
• Weekly Shonen Jump issues usually go on sale on Mondays, but this issue was sold on a Saturday because of a national holiday on Monday, July 21, 2003.
  • Marine Day was previously observed on July 20th, but legistlation passed in 2002 changed it to the third Monday in July.
• The message sent by the Millennium Earl of the Moon might be a reference to the Japanese internet urban legend the Red Room.

References

• Additional source (Japanese) - Photos of the magazine cover showing the issue number (lower right) and promo for Continue (upper right); photo of Hoshino's TOC comment (image 8).