SuBLime Manga sent a corner of the internet screeching in collective joy this past June, announcing they’d licensed fan-favourite title, Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi:
The World’s Greatest First Love – Shungiku Nakamura
The complete English title is The World’s Greatest First Love: The Case of Ritsu Onodera and included all eight volumes of the boys’ love series.
This is a title so well known in the boys’ love community that I did a double-take when I read the news. Hadn’t this been licensed already? Hadn’t I seen this already? Nope, but I had watched the anime adaptation on Crunchyroll and the originating series published by BLU Manga, Junjo Romantica (from which this series spins-off from). So, while this is the first time The World’s Greatest First Love has been licensed in English, it certainly had some big stepping stones leading it here! Hopefully that matched with its existing already-read-it fanbase will lead to some good sales.
“Tired of accusations that family connections got him his current position, Ritsu Onodera quits his job as an editor at his father’s company and transfers to Marukawa Publishing. Once there, he is assigned to the shojo manga editorial department—something he has no interest in and no experience with! Having sworn he’d never fall in love again, the last thing he wants to do is work on love stories. To make matters worse, it turns out that his overbearing boss, Masamune Takano, is actually his first love from high school!”
The first volume of The World’s Greatest First Love will be released in print February 2015, with future volumes coming out every two months after that.
SuBLime can count me in for an order of this title. I’m confident I’ll enjoy it based on the anime (even though the Junjo manga was not a winner for me), and I always love a manga about making manga, so this series hits a double-chord. Huzzah!
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I am overjoyed that this title has been licensed. But a little correction, “So, while this is the first time The World’s Greatest First Love has been licensed in English”. Actually this title was licensed by Tokyopop’s Blu in 2011, but Tokyopop stopped its publishing efforts in May before its July 2011 release. So technically this is a rescue license. Either way, I’m so excited for the release.