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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