Big surprise news of the day – Kodansha (Japan’s largest manga publisher) and Dai Nippon (Japanese printing company) have both purchased North American publisher, Vertical Inc. AnimeNewsNetwork broke the news first before folks on Twitter were quick to spread the word and speculate on the announcement.

Vertical’s marketing manager, Ed Chavez, utilized his Twitter account to respond to questions and concerns. He clarified that Kodansha and Dai Nippon were investors only and this meant “no major changes, just financial stability.” The purchase would likely lead to more prose releases and more childrens’ books, plus will not cause any change in regards to what manga licenses they currently have or will be releasing. Vertical Inc. will continue licensing and releasing both Kodansha and non-Kodansha properties. Ed also reminded speculators that he worked for Kodansha before moving to Vertical and that this acquisition has been in the works since then.

So no big changes to their current method or material and some nice financial backing – on those grounds, sounds like a great deal for Vertical Inc. My highest hopes this is the case and thus congrats to them!

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About the Author: Lissa Pattillo

Lissa Pattillo is the owner and editor of Kuriousity.ca. Residing in Halifax, Nova Scotia she takes great joy in collecting all manners of manga genres, regretting that there's never enough time in the day to review or share them all. Along with reviews, Lissa is responsible for all the news postings to the website and works full time as a web and graphic designer.