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Sales of a new survival horror manga from Earth Star Entertainment have been postponed due to an unfortunate case of horrible timing.

The manga, which debuted last November in Monthly Comic Earth Star, features a group of teenaged school girls struggling to survive on a deserted island. The cause for the delay is probably obvious, but click before more information.

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Life, as they say, imitates art. Though this usually have an ambiguous meaning at best, sometimes it is starkly accurate. In the case of Holy Holy, the accuracy is decidedly unfortunate.

The first volume of the schoolgirl horror comic features scenes of a high-class cruise ship sinking, which is, sadly, exactly what happened in South Korea earlier this month. And in both fiction and reality, the cruise ships were filled with high school students.

Though Holy Holy debuted last year in the monthly shonen manga magazine, the first collection had been expected to go on sale on May 12, and Earth Start Entertainment had posted previews of the first two collections on their website. In addition to delaying the release of the collection, the preview for the first comic has been pulled from the website–though curious readers can still check out the several pages from the second collection.

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If you’re desperate to check out some of the pages from the first volume, one Japanese 2Channel poster uploaded several pages here. The similarities are immediately evident, though obviously not intentional.

We have to say that we applaud Earth Star for being sensitive to current events, especially since Japan-Korea relations are far from good at the best of times, though we are a bit bummed that we won’t get to pick up the collection for a while. Who can say no to a manga about Japanese Catholic school girls fighting malevolent spirits  to survive on a desert island in the middle of the ocean? It’s like Battle Royale meets Ju-on!

Sources: Earth Star Entertainment, ITMedia, Ajajashita
Images: Earth Star Entertainment, Ajajashita