It’s another round of manga license time! With this many new licenses prior to the thick of convention season I hope it means good for the summer months. This time it’s Kodansha Comics who sent out a press release, which in itself came as a surprise considering the silence that usually comes from them outside of book releases.

Battle Angel Alita: Last Order – Yukito Kishiro
Danza – Natsume Ono
Missions of Love (Watashi ni xx Shinasai) – Ema Toyama

Battle Angel Alita: Last Order is a relicense, having been originally published by Viz Media. Viz released the fifteenth volume back in October 2011 and Kodansha Comics will continue from there with volume sixteen in December of this year. The series is currently in tournament mode as its character duke it out to win the Zenith of Things Tournament.

Danza is a title I was surprised to see on the list, if only because Viz Media pretty much has a monopoly on Natsume Ono’s work. It’s great to see more of her work published in English and I’ve always enjoyed her short story collections the most. Danza is a one book release with six different stories. You can read a synopsis of them in Kodansha’s PR if you’re curious for more details on the story specifics. The title is scheduled to be released in December 2012 as well, with an Amazon.ca listing already up.

Last up from Kodansha today was their confirmation of Watashi ni xx Shinasai – or Missions of Love, as it’s now been renamed. At last! I contacted Kodansha Comics about this over a month ago when the listing popped up on Amazon. Alas, I got no response, which is pretty standard from them (busy, understaffed bees over there I’m left to assume). Ema Toyama has had two other series published in English already – I Am Here! (Del Rey) and Pixie Pop (Tokyopop). Missions of Love is about a secret phone novel author who blackmails a popular classmate into performing  “daring missions of love” to gain live-inspiration for her work. The first volume is currently scheduled for November 2012.

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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.