#natsuki sumeragi

I admit because the anime overtook the manga a long time ago we no longer have the thrill of seeing many new character reveals. Nevertheless it's still a joy to finally see characters make their manga appearance because everyone has at least 10x more nuance and is 10x more attractive than their anime equivalent.

But there is one person who was not even alluded to in the anime.

I can't read the novel, but if the 90's manga by Chisato Nakamura (centre) is anything to go by, we will get Daryun staring at the moon very SOON.

Arakawa, please give us a face, clothes, hair... I need to see her. I need to see Shinrian.

Can’t get over how pretty Natsuki Sumeragi’s Narsus is. I’m grateful she decided to draw him in the Serica side story, she didn’t have to, he could have just been mentioned by Daryun in dialogue, but no, she drew a panel of him. Thank you.

scanned from the mook  英雄譚 (光文社ブックス (81) (x)

Let me reveal it then, I don’t want to keep you in such suspense for too long!

You were pretty much correct - the character in the other images I posted is indeed a Serica side story-era Daryun, it’s a 20-page manga that covers part of the side story (not long enough to cover the plot in full and I don’t think there was ever intended to be a continuation, but I was very excited to get my hands on this anyway).

The manga artist is Natsuki Sumeragi, who I hadn’t heard of before, but I looked her up and apparently she’s well-known for her portrayals of Chinese history.

The manga is contained within a mook that features a section on Arslan Senki (other than the manga, it has a poster, character guide and battle logs and probably some other stuff, I haven’t had a chance to look at it in detail). The cover also features a colour illustration of Arslan by Shinobu Tanno: