Bloodline Manga Returns After 8-Year Hiatus — Creator Fought 8-Year Legal Battle to Reclaim Copyright from Publisher

A beloved manga that's been dead for 8 years suddenly drops a revival announcement, and the kids who used to read it in middle school can now whale on it — hands down the most tear-jerking otaku news of late 2023. According to NGA forum users, the manga Bloodline (血族Bloodline) officially announced its return to serialization, and the story behind this comeback is nothing short of an IP copyright horror show.

As community members pieced together, the manga's creator Aio (爱欧) hit hard times during the manga industry downturn and decided to license the IP rights to a mobile game company for some income — only to allegedly get tricked into selling the copyright outright. To make things worse, when Aio originally joined publisher Manyou Culture (漫友文化), he reportedly signed a brutally exploitative contract where 'the creator only had attribution rights, while ownership and copyright belonged to Manyou' — essentially a slave contract (卖身契).

The copyright dispute turned out to be an absolute nightmare. Community members allege that after the manga industry went downhill and Aio clashed with Manyou, the publisher weaponized lawsuits to harass him — including suing him for 'art style infringement' when he tried to start a new serialization, which they knew they couldn't win but used to drain him through endless legal proceedings. On the mobile game side, there were similar alleged scams where the IP was 'sold at a low price and the payment never came through,' further muddying the copyright waters. It took a full 8 years of legal battles before Aio finally reclaimed his publishing rights.

When the revival news dropped, fans put their money where their mouth is. According to community reports, over 8,000 people paid to support the creator on the first night alone — at 7 yuan each, that's already 56,000+ yuan. Comments sections erupted with 'I'm crying' (泪目), 'It's alive!', and 'After all these years, I can finally see Bloodline update again.' One longtime fan noted: 'Stopped updating in 2015 — eight years later, the middle schoolers who read Manyou back then now have jobs and can actually whale.' Some did critique the latest chapter's art quality, calling the line work 'messy,' though others pushed back: 'Compared to what was implied during the lawsuit drama about him being a "hands-off" artist, this already exceeds expectations.'

Bloodline is now officially back in serialization, and Aio's copyright battle appears to have reached a resolution. From getting scammed to getting roasted online and now making a triumphant comeback — this 8-year-long saga of fighting for one's own IP has finally landed on a (mostly) happy ending. At the very least, fans are voting with their wallets, and that says everything.