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Licensing | Press Releases | Release Lists
Wednesday! New comics day! You can read the list of new manga volumes out this week over at my On The Shelf article at Otaku USA.
There’s a bunch of new Digital Manga titles shipping this week, and Viz Media has released their new original-orientation, newly translated and highly spiffy looking omnibus edition of X. CLAMP really owns the omnibus market here don’t they? Their works are definitely setting a standard!
Seven Seas released a PR confirming their license of Kaoru Shintani’s Christie: High Tension series, titled for English release as Young Miss Holmes.
“Christie Holmes is a prodigy. At ten years old, she’s as familiar with the sciences and classics as any older student at Cambridge or Oxford. And her facility with logic is reminiscent of her uncle, the eminent Sherlock Holmes himself. So, what’s a brilliant young girl to do when her parents are away in India, leaving her behind in the care of maids and servants? Solve mysteries, of course.”
The series is labelled All Ages and will be released as two-in-one omnibus books. Young Miss Holmes is currently seven volumes in Japan and still on-going. Along with cameos from Christie’s famous uncle Sherlock and his crime-solving partner, Watson, Seven Seas also notes that the first book will include an arc about characters appearing in another of their currently running series, Dance in the Vampire Bund. On an amusing note, the PR specifically states the release date of March 2012 for this volume was chosen to coincide with the theatrical release of the new Sherlock Holmes movie starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law.
The first omnibus book for Young Miss Holmes originally appeared on Amazon.ca in early October. It’s full price is listed as $18.99/CAN for a page count of 384 pages. It isn’t mentioned in the PR if a digital edition will be made available as with their recent omnibus release of My Boyfriend is a Vampire.
Yaoi-Con may only have been a week ago but Digital Manga’s newest e-mail newsletter has two new for-print manga licenses. They’ve also since posted about titles on their blog.
Samejima-kun and Sasahara-kun – Koshino
Castle Mango (Vol. 01) – Muku Ogura & Narise Konohara
Just looking at the cover artwork you can see a big difference in the mood of each one. Samejima-kun and Sasahara-kun looks really fun and Digital Manga lists it as a “HILARIOUS comedy”. Their plot synopsis of Castle Mango definitely piques my curiousity though, roughly as it may be written: “A 30yr old gay Adult Video producer (seme) x A college kid, straight, inherited & owns a love hotel (uke).”
While I love we get licensing news so quick and directly from the publisher, it would be nice if they could provide a tad bit of substance when sharing. Titles, artists and cover thumbnails are all good but I’m disappointed to see no real synopsises for the stories. Sure we BL fangirls are known for adoring some titles for shiny artwork and man-on-man action alone, but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy something called a plot the majority of the time.
There are no release dates yet for the books’ publication from Digital Manga either (though these are likely little more than hopes and estimations this early on anyway) but based on past licenses, we’ll likely see these books available mid-2012. Titles released recently by Digital Manga (such as About Love last week) were originally announced just this past April.
It’s a week of especially amazing works coming out! Don’t waste a manga-buying moment and stop by this week’s On The Shelf article to see the titles being released tomorrow.
A Bride’s Story (Vol.02), Yotsuba&! (Vol.10), Drops of God (Vol.01)… and then you have the fangirl button pressing Black Butler (Vol. 07) and a guilty pleasure like Air Gear (Vol.20) sprinkled on top. But those are just my absolute must-haves – still lots more on the list where those came from.
Writing On The Shelf for Otaku USA, I continue to be impressed week after week about just how much manga is released in North America. Stacks of new books every week. And by stand nearly every book at 150+ pages and all this ‘after’ the manga bubble ‘burst’. Sure we can always want more and more but you know what? We’re so darn lucky and I love it! Thank you, publishers :)
It’s Yaoi Con this weekend and that means good stuff for boys’ love fans! The big anticipated news of the con is Viz Media expanding their manga offerings into BL territory. Credit for the titles below goes to @debaoki who attended their panel.
Viz Media’s new boys’ love imprint is called SuBLime. Viz currently has a placeholder website up at SublimeManga.com, as well as Twitter and Facebook acounts. The line-up is in partnership with Animate (Japan’s largest anime/manga retailer) and Libre (Japan’s largest publisher of BL) but Viz Media noted that the partnership isn’t exclusive. This means they can license from other publishers which means ‘license rescues’ from other groups is not out of the picture for fan-favourite titles.
Speaking of which, their first license announcement was a rescue indeed – Tarako Kotobuki’s Love Pistols. The title was originally published by Tokyopop’s BL imprint, BLU.
The full list of titles are:
Love Pistols** – Tarako Kotobuki
Husband & Honeymoon** – Minami Haruka (December 2011)
Ousama no Bed** – Sakae Kusama (January 2012)
Sweet Pool** – Nitro_CHiRAL (February 2012)
Shizuku Hanabira Ringo no Kaori** (Vol.01-02) by Toko Kawai (April 2012)
Devil’s Honey** by Isaku Natsume (May 2012)
The Night Before the Wedding** – Kou Fujisaki (May 2012)
Do You Like an Adult Teacher?** – Kiu Aion (June 2012)
Droplets of Desire** – You Higashino (August 2012)
Three Wolves Mountain – Naono Bohra (August 2012)
Honey Darling – Norikazu Akira
Punch Up – Shiuko Kano
Aitsu no Daihonmei – Suzuki Tanaka
Now that is an impressive (and lengthy) launch line-up of titles!
In December 2011, SuBLime will begin putting up their digital-only releases (**), all of which will be available worldwide. This in contrast with their recent Shonen Jump Alpha news which was restricted to those residing in North America only. Interestingly, these digital releases will be sold as downloadable PDFs that readers can then load onto their various eReader systems and not require the internet to read. This is a big step forward for people feeling they ‘own’ digital manga they purchase, though there are no details yet how they plan to prevent piracy of the material. They are aware of the potential issue though and will “re-evaluate the model” should buyers start illegally spreading the downloads. The cost for each release will be $5.99.
In June 2012, SuBLime will begin releasing select titles in both digital and print. The first confirmed is also coincidentally my absolute favourite and most-anticipated in the list, Three Wolves Mountain. Other confirmed print titles will be Honey Darling, Punch Up, and Aitsu no Daihonmei. They’ll be released at $12.99 each.
News of the largest English manga publisher releasing boys’ love comes as exciting news, especially since their widespread distribution should make it easier for fans to get access to the niche material. Digital-only titles still make me sad as a print-lover but SuBLime is starting strong with promising publishing methods and titles for all BL fans. It’s fantastic to hear some titles will still make it to print at all; I was worried this was going to be a digital-only imprint when I first heard of it.
The prices of SuBLime books look really good compared to what we’ve seen for similar material as well. From a digital perspective, it’s also great seeing Viz Media marketing more adult-targeted material to a platform that’s still most accessible to the 18+ demographic who have the most access to things such as credit cards and eReaders/tablets.
Overall, I’m really impressed by this launch. Titles ranging from softer to hardcore, a bunch of fan-favourite creators and a good balance of digital and print releases. Nice work, Viz Media! I’m eager to see the first releases this December.
Viz Media’s BL line was originally ‘revealed’ back in June when Viz Media put up a lising for a BL/Yaoi Editor. They’ve since hired The Yaoi Review‘s Jennifer LeBlanc for the position. In more recent hints, artist Kano Miyamoto posted on her Twitter account that some of her books would soon be published online by Viz this past Thursday (though she was not one of the artists mentioned in this opening launch). Viz Media’s recent reveal they licensed the remaining volumes of Yun Kouga’s Loveless also served as a good stepping stone to their BL announcement two weeks later.
Every publisher can’t make it to every convention but Seven Seas still made their presence known in the manga world with two manga licenses during New York Comic Con this past weekend. It was a bit of a shame that the timing of their news meant it got buried in the convention shuffle. That said though, you can certainly see a good reason why they chose to do it then.
Seven Seas’ first new manga license is Alice in the Country of Clover. The title is a sequel to Alice in the Country of Hearts, which Yen Press just announced having during their NYCC panel. The story is a take on the classic Alice in Wonderland story but with a pretty-boy harem twist. One series split between two publishers – that’d be bizarre even without the ‘coincidence’ of the same weekend!
It sounds like Seven Seas is going the extra mile with this release too. “Each new volume will be released in oversized editions that feature impressive artwork and color pin ups.” Their press release also states that, despite events continuing after its prequel series, Alice in the Country of Clover can still be read as a standalone. Seven Seas is releasing the title in story-archs with the first book due out in June 2012.
Their second title is Angel Para Bellum, a series by the same artist as the popular but controversial Dance in the Vampire Bund. They describe it as “a new manga series about sexy angels vs. demons”. It’s about a young man, orphaned like so many lead characters are, who finds himself on the run from demons with only two gun-wielding angels to protect him. I have to admit, said angels look pretty snazzy.
If you want more information on the titles, you can read Seven Seas series’ synopsis and the release dates under the cut. Also my congrats to Seven Seas for what looks like another successful step forward into manga publishing again!
A downside to larger cons is that panel rooms can’t always hold everyone who wants to attend. This was the case with me and the Kodansha Comics panel at this year’s New York Anime fest. A wait in a long, long line ended with me being told the room could hold no more – alas! I’d forgotten that Kodansha had brought the creator of Fairy Tale, Hiro Mashima, to the convention and his presence at the panel filled it to standing room only (minus any remaining standing room so I’m told!).
Internet and dedicated bloggers still ensured the news got out to the masses though, as well as two press releases. This means the news for you without the 1500+ words from me! You can read about their new license, upcoming omnibus editions and their digital launch under the cut.
Back from New York with a suitcase full of swag and I was still excited to get home and see what new goodies are out this week! If you’re curious about what new manga titles are out, you can pop over to Otaku USA to read my On The Shelf article for the week.
A big chunk of my excitement for this week’s releases is because the first volume of Gate 7 is finally out. CLAMP are some of my favourite creators and to have a new title from them to read for the first time is really exciting. How many years has it been since that happened? Plus the book looks gorgeous! Dark Horse has a preview of the manga’s first chapter over on their website that you can read to get an early glimpse.
Manga programming was light after Friday at NYCC, but Sunday had Viz Media‘s panel with a big announcement to share and some licenses worth getting giddy for. I’ve included the full write up of the panel in my post here, including the anime-related news instead of just the manga. Since the post is so lengthy, however, here’s a quick summary of the event manga-wise:
New licenses:
Jiu Jiu – Toya Tobino
Loveless – Yun Kouga
Announcement:
Shonen Jump print magazine to be discontinued in March 2012; replaced by digital edition that will come out weekly and feature new chapters of titles from Japan within weeks of their release. Graphic novels of these titles will be released digitally to allow readers to get caught up before the new chapters begin. Viz Media is calling this their ‘digital warp’.
You can read the full details and anime news under the cut!
The second big manga panel of NYCC/NYAF was Vertical Inc‘s which happened Friday night. It was one of the most anticipated manga related events as the company’s marketing director, Ed Chavez, paved the way to it with teasing hints about new titles they’d be revealing. The panel was run by Ed and the company’s editorial director, Yani Mentzas. Their signature Chi plushie was also present, always offering the audience a well worn smile.
A powerpoint presentation was used for the panel to showcase Vertical’s current and upcoming volumes. Ed noted he’d made the same presentation multiple times this convention season so he’d be going through them pretty quick. While that may have been the case, he still had something interesting to add about almost every one. There’s a lot of info here so I’m going to stick with a more list-style format for this panel write-up.
Oct 15 Note: A few cover images will be added to this post after the con ends so check back if curious!
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