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Posts Tagged Conventions

Kingdom Hearts Galore, Wolf Children and More With Yen Press at Sakura Con

By Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, March 31, 2013

Convention season is preparing to go into full swing, and Yen Press hit the ground running at this weekend’s Sakura Con. Credit for all the juicy details goes to the fine news folks at Anime News Network.

First up were a few new manga licenses, including one with a very, very long name:

Inu × Boku Secret Service – Cocoa Fujiwara
No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular! – Nico Tanigawa
Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki – Mamoru Hosoda & Yū

Inu x Boku Secret Service is a series I’ve heard about via its anime, but I’m not familiar with it beyond that. The story is a romantic comedy about a young girl who is partnered with a special bodyguard after she goes to a building shrouded in mystery with the hopes of getting better at interacting with other people. Yen Press will begin releasing the manga in October 2013.

Yen Press’s next title is very likely to go unrivaled for the longest title licensed in English this year – No Matter How I Look at It, It’s You Guys’ Fault I’m Not Popular!. This one is a comedy series following a girl whose video game-spawned illusions of high school are dashed when she actually attends it. She has my sympathies – high school was nothing like Breaker High or the Power Rangers prepared me for either! The first volume of this title is currently scheduled for October 2013 as well.

And last up for the new titles is my most anticipated of the batch – Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki. This is a manga adaptation of Mamoru Hosoda’s new movie of the same name. I haven’t seen it yet but my love for Summer Wars, and the very cute trailers, has me excited to watch it someday. Naturally I then must read the manga as well. Yen Press will begin releasing this series in omnibus format starting in 2014, but hopefully I won’t need to wait that long to see the movie.

And continuing the licenses, Yen Press also announced that they’ve acquired the rights to the manga adaptations of the popular Kingdom Hearts games:

Kingdom Hearts Final Mix – Shiro Amano
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories – Shiro Amano
Kingdom Hearts II – Shiro Amano
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days – Shiro Amano

The original Kingdom Hearts manga series was released in its entirety by Tokyopop. Yen Press will be releasing a newer version, titled Final Mix, as two omnibus volumes, the first of which is due out in May 2013. Chain of Memories was also released by Tokyopop as single editions, while Yen Press will publish the title as a single omnibus in June 2014. Kingdom Hearts II was only partially released by Tokyopop before the company shutdown, and while Yen Press confirmed they have this license, they haven’t announced plans for it’s release yet. Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days, however, has never been released in English before and the series will start with volume one in November 2013.

That is a lot of Kingdom Hearts! For those unfamiliar with the franchise, it begins with a boy named Sora who travels between different worlds to retrieve the stolen and transmuted hearts of their inhabitants, with his new friends, Donald and Goofy to help him. As a collaboration between Disney and Square Enix, the games (and manga) are full of characters from both their companies as well as a steadily growing cast of characters exclusive to the Kingdom Hearts story.

I really enjoyed the manga adaptation of these games – and the games considerably before that – so I’m really excited to see Yen Press has picked them up. I’m confident they’ll do well. I’ll also keep my fingers crossed that they extend their licensing hands to the absolutely adorable Kilala Princess, which is like a little sister to Kingdom Hearts. Tokyopop released the first four volumes. A girl can dream, right?

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Categories: Licensing, News
Tags: Conventions, Inu × Boku Secret Service, Kingdom Hearts, Manga, No Matter How I Look at It..., Sakura Con, Tokyopop, Video Games, Wolf Children, Yen Press

TCAF 2013 To Host Manga Creators Gengoroh Tagame and Taiyo Matsumoto

By Lissa Pattillo on Friday, January 18, 2013

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One of my favourite events of the year is the Toronto Comics Art Festival, and much to my joy they’re back again this year with an already exciting assortment of guests. Plus they’re not on Free Comic Day this year which means I get to enjoy one of the coolest days of the year at my local Strange Adventures and still make it to Toronto for the amazingness that is TCAF. I’m already checking airline ticket prices as my eyes scan over this year’s Exhibitor List. You can bet I’ll be there!

Among their featured guests for the 2013 event – taking place the weekend of May 11-12 – are two manga artists: Gengoroh Tagame and Taiyo Matsumoto.

Gengoroh Tagame is a well-known artist in the bara community, which is a genre of stories about gay men that are targeted towards gay men (as opposed to boys’ love, which is predominantly created by women for women). This will be his first event in North America and it coincides with the release of his English translated book, The Passions of Gengoroh Tagame.

Taiyo Matsumoto is best known for his manga, Tekkon Kinkreet, which was published by Viz Media. His series Blue Spring and Go Go Monster have also been released in English. Taiyo Matsumoto’s newest series, Sunny, will debut at TCAF, also published by Viz Media.

Last year TCAF’s manga guest was Konami Kanata, creator of Chi’s Sweet Home. More guest and event news will be announced for TCAF in the next few months leading up to the festival. Currently there already announced plans for a display of Taiyo Matsumoto’s work including a special screening of the animated adaptation of Tekkon Kinkreet.

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Tags: Canada, Conventions, Manga, Picture Box Inc., TCAF, TCAF 2013

Yaoi Con 2012: Digital Manga Deals Out New BL, Pups and eManga News

By Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, October 28, 2012

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Along with being the host for this year’s Yaoi Con, Digital Manga Publishing was also present still as publisher with licenses to announce and word of big changes coming to their online digital manga store, eManga.

Digital Manga’s new for-print license announcements were:

As Many as There Are Stars – Matsumo Miecohouse
Does the Flower Bloom? – Shoko Hidaka
Kinoko Inu, the Mushroom Pup – Kimama Aoboshi
(A) New Season of Young Leaves – Venio Tachibana & Akeno Kitahata

Admittedly I was surprised by how little Digital Manga Publishing how to announce, especially at what is now pretty much their convention. It wasn’t even all boys’ love they announced either, and while that’s not in itself a bad thing, this was Yaoi Con after all. And then there’s the fact that what is likely their biggest announcement – Shimotsuki Kari’s Brave 10 (pictured above on the left) – will be digital only and published via their quality-inconsistent, Digital Manga Guild.

As Many as There Are Stars is a boys’ love one-shot by an artist being published for the first time in English. I can’t say much about it except for a really cute cover staring a very androgynous looking lead (Amazon.jp). A New Season of Young Leaves is another one-shot boys’ love book (Amazon.jp), which I can’t say anything about concretely past there’s likely students, one has glasses and they very, very likely will be romantically involved. Yep!

Does The Flower Bloom is a multi-volume boys’ love series by Shoko Hidaka, who has had two books released by DMP in the past (Restart & Not Enough Time). Currently the series is three volumes long and stars a budding relationship between a college student and older salary man who bond over a magazine they both read.

The two series DMP announced that aren’t boys’ love are Kinoko Inu and Brave 10. Granted, Brave 10 does seem ripe with boys’ love subtext and is also by the same creator of BLU’s Madness. I would be most interested in this one if not published via DMG, which combines two of my very few pet-peeves about manga publishing – digital only and poor quality control. Kinoko Inu is a one-shot title (though it does look to have a follow-up volume) starring a chubby little dog with a mushroom head decoration. And it’s… pink? Said ‘mushroom pup’ pictured in this post’s header image and that’s all I’ve got on it (DMP – please start including synopsis with all your licensing announcements, please and thank you!). Cute though, definitely looks cute.

DMP also announced new volumes of titles they’re currently publishing – Depression of the Antiromanticist (Vol. 02), Hey, Class President (Vol. 05), ZE (Vol. 08-11) and Itazura na Kiss (Vol. 12).

Digital Manga also announced that eManga will be going through a big transformation that will include being able to download their manga after you purchase it, giving readers a lot more control over how and where they read it. I don’t purchase digital manga often, but when I have purchased manga volumes it’s only been via DRM-free files that I can read freely on my iPad without internet dependence . Plus, no more point system! I’m a lot more likely to explore DMP’s digital-only library when they relaunch eManga this way, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they roll out in November.

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Categories: Licensing, News
Tags: Boys' Love/Yaoi, Conventions, Digital, DM Guild, DMP, June, Manga, Yaoi Con 2012

YaoiCon 2012: SuBLimeManga Embraces BL Love With New Titles

By Lissa Pattillo on Wednesday, October 17, 2012

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NYCC was the spotlight show this past weekend but on the other side of the US, another convention was also taking place – Yaoi-Con! For those who aren’t familiar with it, Yaoi Con is an annual convention dedicated to the boys’ love genre and all it’s colourful fandoms.

SuBLimeManga – Viz Media’s BL publishing partner – was at the show, marking the one-year anniversary of their original start-up announcement and greeting fans with a nice list of new titles:

Blue Morning – Shoko Hidaka (May 2013)
Embracing Love (Omnibus Editions) – Youka Nitta (April 2013)
False Memories – Isaku Natsume (July 2013)
Hide and Seek – Yaya Sakuragi (July 2013)
Sleeping Moon – Kano Miyamoto (June 2013)
Spiritual Police – Youka Nitta (October 2013)

The most notable title on the list would be Youka Nitta’s Embracing Love which was originally licensed, and partially released, by the now done-and-gone BeBeautiful back in 2005. SuBLime is going to be releasing the series in a set of 2-in-1 omnibus volumes. I was surprised to see this title licensed. I didn’t know there was much interest in this title, which doesn’t seem to have nearly as much feverish fan-begging as other yet-to-be-licensed titles, plus the tracing scandal that surrounded Youka Nitta a few years ago that led many to think her work would no longer be licensed because of potential copyright issues. Yet here it is, so a big yay for the fans. Though I own the first five volumes that BB put out, I don’t actually recall anything about the series. I’ll need to do a revisit to see if these omnibus editions will end up on my bookshelf.

Having previously enjoyed titles by Isaku Natsume and Yaya Sakuragi quite a bit, their newly announced books will be must-buys for me when they’re released next summer.

SuBLimeManga also licensed a number of titles for digital-only. Ah, digital-only, one of the banes of my manga reading existence It’s better than no legal license, of course, but I cry a little every time they’re announced.

Boys, Be Ambitious! – Saburō Nagai
Egoistic Blue – Mio Tennohji
The Match Seller – Sakae Kusama
The Ravishing of the Crown Prince – Wang Yi & Feng Nong
Sword and Mist – Hayate Kuku

Titles like these make me keep my fingers crossed for a viable print on demand offer someday as of all the titles SuBLime announced at the convention, a new book from Hayate Kuku (creator of Love Sickness) and The Ravishing of the Crown Prince are easily the two I’d most look forward to. I may have to wipe the dust off my iPad in the New Year! Digital isn’t my preferred reading method but SuBLime definitely offers it with the most convenience, allowing PDF downloads that you can read on just about any device.

You can see cover images for all the new titles over at ANN’s write-up of the licensing announcements.

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Tags: Boys' Love/Yaoi, Conventions, Manga, Omnibus, Sleeping Moon, SuBLime, Yaoi Con 2012

NYCC 2012: Viz Media Announces Tiger & Bunny, Pepita and Alpha Prints

By Lissa Pattillo on Monday, October 15, 2012

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The last big manga panel of NYCC 2012 was Viz Media‘s who had a couple exciting titles to cap-off one of the year’s biggest conventions.

Pepita: Takehiko Inoue Meets Antonio – Takehiko Inoue
Sunny – Taiyo Matsumoto
Tiger & Bunny – Mizuki Sukikobara
Tiger & Bunny (Anthology) – Multiple Artists

Along with these titles, they’ve confirmed that two series currently running in Shonen Jump Alpha will be brought to collected print editions as well:

Barrage – Kōhei Horikoshi
Rurouni Kenshin: Restoration – Nobuhiro Watsuki

Easy pick for the titles I’m most eager for are the Tiger & Bunny books. I still haven’t even seen the original anime series – not available to stream in Canada – but I’ve heard so many good things about it that I’m immensely curious to experience it in any form. I also purchased a volume of the Tiger & Bunny anthology series for a friend so I’ve first hand how fun that is. The first of the two T&B licenses is a manga adaptation of the series, while the anthology collection is a series of books collecting an assortment of short stories from a variety of creators.

Pepita sounds like a very potentially worthwhile read as well, described by Viz Media as such: “Antoni Gaudi was the world leader of Catalan modernist movement in architecture. Takehiko Inoue is one of the premier manga artists in the world. Inoue’s journey to Spain and to the world of Gaudi is half travel memoir, half art book, and all beauty.” Meanwhile Sunny is a new title from Taiyo Matsumoto, the creator of Tekkonkinkreet, so that in itself makes me intrigued.

Viz Media also announced they’ll be releasing 3-in-1 omnibus volumes of Dragonball and D.Grayman starting June of next year. I’m not sure what the difference will be with these new Dragonball omnibus compared to their previously released VizBIG versions, but we shall see. I’m pleased to see D.Grayman getting the omnibus treatment; it’s a series I’ve been meaning to start. Each volume of these omnibus edition will be priced at $14.99/US, $16.99/CAN.

You can read all the nitty-gritty details and extra tidbits at ANN’s write-up of Viz Media’s panel.

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Tags: Conventions, Manga, NYCC, NYCC 2012, Omnibus, Rurouni Kenshin, Viz Media

NYCC 2012: Yen Press Announces New Madoka, Alice and Artbooks

By Lissa Pattillo on Monday, October 15, 2012

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Yen Press took the stage – quite literally it sounds – this past week at NYCC to announce a handful of new manga licenses and upcoming releases. For new titles, behold the following:

Are You Alice? – Ai Ninomiya & Ikumi Katagiri
K-ON! highschool – kakifly
K-ON! college – kakifly
Puella Magi Kazumi Magica ~The innocent malice~ – Takashi Tensugi
Puella Magi Oriko Magica – Chloe Mura

The two K-ON books are sequels to the original K-ON manga, which Yen Press is currently publishing, while the two Puella Magi series are spin-offs of their origin story, Puella Magi Madoka Magica. As two of Yen Press’s most popular titles, it’s no surprise to see their franchises get further title exploration. Good news for the fans!

The solo entirely-new series in this batch is Are You Alice?, a story based on Alice in Wonderland but that sees a young man don the name of Alice and become embroiled in a sinister, non-nonsensical game of kill-the-white-rabbit. The story sounds neat though not especially gripping by synopsis alone. The art though really caught my eye when I was looking it up. I see some eye-candy on the horizon at the very least.

Other neat news of the panel was word that Yen Press will be releasing a Soul Eater art book next year including colour pages from the original manga and a bunch of character illustrations. Down the road they also plan to release an art book based on Highschool of the Dead. It likely goes without saying that you can expect plenty of blood, boobs and butts from that one.

I was hoping for a little more from Yen Press at NYCC, but spin-offs or not, five new titles is still something to be appreciative for and I’ll very likely be picking up Are You Alice? when it’s released next year. Of the announcements, I’m actually most excited to see them delving into art book territory. I love manga art books!

For more coverage on Yen Press’s panel, including news about their digital ventures, I recommend ANN’s full write up of the show.

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Tags: Conventions, Manga, NYCC, NYCC 2012, Yen Press

NYCC 2012: Kodansha Comics Licenses No. 6, Sailor Moon Artbook…

By Lissa Pattillo on Sunday, October 14, 2012

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It was Kodansha Comics‘ turn to impress today at NYCC with a handful of new licenses:

No. 6 – Atsuko Asano & Hinoki Kino
Sankarea: Undying Love – Mitsuru Hattori
Tokyo Mew Mew a la Mode – Mia Ikumi
Vinland Saga – Makoto Yukimura

Kodansha Comics is bound to have made many readers really happy today with these titles. I have no experience with any of them myself but I’ve seen rallying cries for No. 6 and Vinland Saga, in particular, for quite a while. These are the two I’m most excited to read by reputation alone (and all the adorable No. 6 fanart that continues to litter art sites doesn’t hurt either). Sankarea sounds bizarre enough to potentially give a try and Tokyo Mew Mew a la Mode I’ll likely pick up out of affection for its predecessor, Tokyo Mew Mew.

You can read a synopsis for all Kodansha Comics’ newest titles on their website. Huzzah for new license announcements that include titles, creator credits, release dates and synopsis’s! Volume one of No. 6 and Sankarea are scheduled for a June 2013 release, while Tokyo Mew Mew a la Mode and Vinland Saga will be released that following winter.

Along with their new titles, Kodansha Comics also announced they’d be speeding up the print copies of Fairy Tail to one a month in order to catch up with Japan. This will begin in March 2013 with volume twenty-four. The series itself is currently over thirty volumes in Japan.

Air Gear – which Kodansha Comics has released up to volume twenty-six so far – is due to be released in omnibus format from the beginning. The first volume of this new edition will be released in May 2013.

A bonus treat announced today was that Kodansha Comics would be handling the English publication of an upcoming Sailor Moon art book that’s due to be published worldwide in 2013. All editions released globally will have the same paperback trim size, plus dust jacket, and art content including some of the most popular Sailor Moon drawings along with new artwork by the series creator, Naoki Takeuchi. Kodansha Comics also confirmed that after they finish publishing the original manga series, they will be releasing the series of Sailor Moon short stories as well. (Src: A Case Suitable For Treatment)

And last, but not least – though I don’t believe this was announced during their Saturday panel – Kodansha Comics has relaunched their website with a new layout. It doesn’t offer any new content but does load a lot more nicely than their previous site. There is a blog section currently marked as Coming Soon that could offer some interesting new info and insight in the future, much like Vertical Inc’s newly relaunched on-site blog. (Note: Lack of link to Vertical’s blog is due to numerous virus warnings on Vertical’s site in recent weeks; better safe than sorry!)

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Tags: Air Gear, Conventions, Kodansha Comics, Manga, No.6, NYCC, NYCC 2012, Omnibus, Sailor Moon, Sankarea

NYCC 2012: Vertical Nabs Tezuka’s Twin Knights, Okazaki’s Helter Skelter

By Lissa Pattillo on Saturday, October 13, 2012

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It begins! New York Comic Con 2012 is this weekend and there’s been a lot of anticipation that this would be the big news event of the year for comics and manga. It’s a great show, having an audience big enough to be an important promotional opportunity but without all the same Hollywood-suffocation of SDCC. This is the first time in a few years I haven’t attended, but fortunately there’s no shortage of Twitter tweets and news posts to keep us all informed of the news as it breaks.

Vertical Inc. was one of the first to provide us eager readers with manga news. They’ve licensed two new series both due out next year:

Twin Knights – Osamu Tezuka
Helter Skelter – Kyoko Okazaki

Of the two, Twin Knights is definitely the big news for me. It’s a sequel series to Tezuka’s Princess Knight which Vertical released in two omnibus volumes last year. This follow-up story takes place years in the future with the birth of Princess Sapphire’s twin children – Prince Daisy and Princess Violetta. When the two grow older, the son is kidnapped and his sister juggles her own identity while pretending to be him in order to go out and make a rescue. Sounds great to me!

The other series really piques my interest as well. I haven’t heard of Helter Skelter in detail until now but it sounds like a story that fits well in Vertical’s library of books which includes titles like Lychee Light Club, Black Jack and 7 Billion Needles.

“Helter Skelter revolves around Ririko, a model who underwent extensive plastic surgery to attain her beauty. The clinic who performed Ririko’s surgeries goes under investigation for questionable business practices, and Ririko’s body starts to deteriorate. As the model’s prominence in the entertainment industry begins to falter, so does her sanity.” – AnimeNewsNetwork

The first volume of Twin Knights will be released in July 2013 for $12.95/US, $13.95/CAN. Volume one of Helter Skelter will premiere in July 2013 as well for $16.95/US, $18.95/CAN.

ANN has a full write-up of the event, including this interesting tidbit “…gauging interest in starting a subscription model so that series will stay in print.”. Fantagraphics recently offered a subscription-like service for their series, Wandering Son. Omnibus volumes were a big trend-shift for print manga in North America – could subscription models be next? If it’ll keep printed books in my hands, then sign me up! My only real issue with subscriptions directly with publishers is cutting out the comic-store middle man, but it’s all test-and-see now.

Back to the manga goods in closing – two awesome licenses! Excellent choices, Vertical. I’m eagerly awaiting them both next summer.

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Tags: 7 Billion Needles, Conventions, Helter Skelter, Manga, NYCC, NYCC 2012, Osamu Tezuka, Vertical Inc

AWA 2012: Dark Horse Expands Franchises With New Trigun and EVA

By Lissa Pattillo on Tuesday, October 2, 2012

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Dark Horse was the second publisher to share some good news at this year’s Anime Weekend Atlanta, announcing that they had licensed two new spin-offs of their popular franchises.

NGE: Shinji Ikari Detective Diary – Takumi Yoshimura
Trigun: Multiple Bullets – Multi-Author Anthology

Shinji Ikari Detective Diary is a Neon Genesis Evangelion spin-off that takes place in an alternate universe where Kaworu and Kaiji are detectives who the lead, Shinji, seeks out for help. Like the other NGE spin-offs, several of which Dark Horse has published already, this series likely won’t have a plot at all similar to its source material but instead utilize the same characters to offer fans the cast in a new setting. I’m not a big Evangelion fan to begin with, but I’ll admit the detective story does pique my interest somewhat.

Trigun: Multiple Bullets is an anthology of short stories all done by different artists, including the series’ creator, Yasuhiro Nightow. You can read more information about the creators involved at AnimeNewsNetwork’s post about the acquisition. Dark Horse announced a similar book, Evangelion: Comic Tribute, back in the Spring.

Dark Horse also stated that they’ll be releasing the original Trigun series in omnibus editions, and will be doing the same for Lone Wolf and Cub. Lone Wolf and Cub has been published by Dark Horse for over a decade (while first being published in English back in the eighties by a now defunct company) in small mini volumes. These new omnibus editions will be more the standard manga volume size, which is a great development to see. I always thought the artwork in the series would be better served with a larger trim cut.

No information was given as to when and for how much these new books will be released.

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Tags: Conventions, Dark Horse, Evangelion, Manga, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Omnibus, Trigun

AWA 2012: Vertical Inc Announces Omnibus Release of Utsubora

By Lissa Pattillo on Monday, October 1, 2012

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Anime Weekend Atlanta took place this weekend and the first manga licensing announcements of the event came from Vertical Inc as they revealed their license for Asumiko Nakamura’s Utsubora.

This is Asumiko Nakamura’s first time having a series licensed for print in English (she had a one-shot published in Tokyopop’s Gothic & Lolita Bible), but she’s got some popularity as a manga artist for all sorts of different genres including boys’ love, supernatural and comedy. Utsubora is a mystery series that seems ripe with the dark psychological twists that are a good fit in Vertical Inc’s library.

A synopsis from AnimeNewsNetwork:

“The story begins when Aki Fujino, a beautiful girl who the novelist Mizorogi knew, dies under mysterious circumstances. Then a girl appears before Mizorogi, and although she introduces herself as Aki’s twin sister Sakura, her true identity is a complete mystery. As Mizorogi’s past ties with Aki come to light, people begin to suspect him of plagiarism. Mizorogi’s life spirals deeper into darkness as his editor and the police probe further into Aki’s death and Mizorogi’s connection with her.”

While originally two volumes long, Vertical will be releasing the series in one omnibus volume in June 2013.

It feels like it’s been forever since I first pondered if omnibus editions were going to become a manga-industry normality in North America. I think it’s safe to say that’s now the case. A lot of new manga licenses are being announced in this format, not to mention all the re-releases of older series. No complaints from me! Aside from a few bookshelf discrepancies, the money saved and lots-of-manga-one-go aspect of the omnibus editions makes me happy indeed.

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Tags: AWA 2012, Conventions, Manga, Vertical Inc