We’re saying some sad good-byes to a couple things first in today’s mini news round-up, then cap things off with some interesting pieces of digital news to lighten things up at least a little:

 Seven Sea‘s Adam Arnold has responded to a fan’s inquiry to the status of their series, Blood Alone. Because of a publisher switch-up, the title is currently not available for Seven Seas to license past where it’s already released. With Blood Alone now owned by Kodansha, Seven Seas doesn’t see the license availability changing because of Kodansha’s own English branch. The last volume of Blood Alone published in English was volume six in April 2012. (News credit to Conner)

I really liked this series, so it’s sad we’ll likely never see volume seven published in English. I’ll keep my fingers crossed though! Series look so lonely sitting unfinished on the shelf…

 Erica Friedman of ALC Publishing has published a post  announcing her decision to cease future publications. ALC Publishing has published several yuri books and, up until JManga’s recent shutdown, was collaborating with the website to release several yuri series digitally. Erica cites reasons including a poor buying market, fans lack of interest in digital titles and a lack of support from North America’s largest publisher of yuri, Seven Seas.

It’s a real shame when any publisher is forced to pull the plug for reasons beyond their control, and Erica’s worked very hard to cater to a niche market over the years. As a reader and collector of yuri, I’ve enjoyed ALC’s previous titles and I’m grateful that Erica will still be promoting the genre and sharing her thoughts via her website, Okazu (which has recently gotten an address change, so update those links folks!).

 SuBLime announced a new project in late February – a joint manga and light novel release that will be simultaneously released in Japan and in English. The title is Into Illusion, written by Reiko Yoshihara, the author best known for Ai no Kusabi. The artist for the manga is Ryo Tateishi, whose work on the cover provided by SuBLime is enough to make any boys’ love fan interested! You can check out their post for the eye-candy and more information. This series is scheduled to start at the end of April.

 And lastly, keeping on the digital train, Vertical Inc. will be releasing a number of their series for digital purchase starting this Spring. The current planned titles are Twin Spica, The Drops of God, and 7 Billion Needles with availability to be made on Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBookstore and the NOOK. This is good news for those who prefer their collections condensed digitally, plus Vertical has previously said that their Twin Spica series is already going out of print so this offers it a second lease at readership life. (Credit for the news goes to AnimeNewsNetwork)

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