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Archive for the Licensing Category

Viz Media Serves Up Two New Shoujos For Fall 2014

Viz Media Serves Up Two New Shoujos For Fall 2014

Viz Media e-mailed out a press release today, announcing two new shoujo titles debuting this coming Fall:

Honey Blood – Miko Mitsuki
Kiss of the Rose Princess – Aya Shouoto

Both titles are rated Teen – kisses and hugs, but hold the sexy-times – and will be released for $12.99/CAN, $9.99/US. as single volume books.

Honey Blood is three volumes long and with it Shojo Beat adds another tale of vampiric romance to their library. In this series, high-schooler Hinata Sorazono is skeptical when a fellow student is supposedly attacked by a vampire. She starts to reconsider when her new neighbour turns out to be a famous author of vampire romances, but shares a lot in common with his undead leads.

Kiss of the Rose Princess has a plot that’s a little harder to grasp but let’s give it a go! One day a young woman named Anis Yamamoto is hit by a bat-like creature that falls out of the sky. It causes her to lose an important choker her Father gave her, but also grants her possession of four magical cards. Kissing each of said cards summons a knight at her command, but though she now has a mini army of pretty boys at her beck and call, what is she supposed to do with them? Kiss of the Rose Princess is nine volumes long.

As much as Shojo Beats license don’t sound that interesting to me at first, I tend to always end up enjoying most of them. They can be some darn good entertainment. Kiss of the Rose Princess actually does pique my interest though, sounding silly and fun and full of eye-candy. We’ll see how it reads when volume one is released in November. Honey Blood‘s first volume hits store shelves a month earlier in October.


Vertical Casts a Spell With Three Katsucon Licenses

Vertical Casts a Spell With Three Katsucon Licenses
Almost missed this one! I shame myself, Kuriousity readers.

Earlier in the month, Vertical Inc announced three new licenses during their attendance at Katsucon:

Demi-Human – Gamon Sakurai
Garden of Words – Makoto Shinkai / Midori Motohashi
Witchcraft Works – Ryū Mizunagi

Demi-Human takes place in our modern world after the sudden appearance of immortal beings, with their immortal traits soon showing in random humans. The story follows a Japanese student who is killed in an accident and, after finding himself revived as one of the demi-humans, is now on the run from those who were once his own kind.

The first volume of Demi-Human is scheduled for October 2014, with pre-orders available now on Amazon.ca | Amazon.com.

Garden of Words is a manga adaptation of an anime film of the same name. It tells the story of a young shoemaker who spends his days in a park sketching footwear. There he meets a young woman and we follow the evolution of their relationship. Sentai Filmworks has released the Garden of Words film in English and it is gorgeous.

Garden of WordsVertical Inc’s manga edition of Garden of Words is scheduled for October 2014 as a one-shot release. Pre-orders are available on Amazon.ca | Amazon.com.

Last but not least, Witchcraft Works follows a young man who in class sits next to his school’s most popular student, Kagari Ayaka. One day his life is in danger and who should come to his rescue but Kagari, except she’s dressed as a witch, is part of a group called the Workshop Witches, and proclaims from that day on she’ll protect him from anything.

An anime adaptation of Witchcraft Works has been streaming this season with Crunchyroll providing the English simulcast. The first volume of Witchcraft Works is scheduled for September 2014. Pre-orders are available via Amazon.ca | Amazon.com.


Kodansha Comics Tackles Fantasy and Reality with Two New Licenses

Kodansha Comics Tackles Fantasy and Reality with Two New Licenses

Kodansha Comics took to social media yesterday to announce a trio of titles. While one was familiar to us – their Colossal edition of Attack on Titan – they also had two new series we’ll see later in the year:

Manga Dogs – Ema Toyama
Noragami – Adachitoka

Manga Dogs – originally called GDGD Dogs – is about a young woman named Kanna Tezuka who is already a professional manga artist at the age of fifteen. When her school starts a manga-creating club, she’s excited at the prospects. However, Kanna’s met with disappointment at finding a useless teacher and three club members with delusions about the life of creating comics. When she’s pressed into the role of their mentor, Kanna has to try and make the most of the situation by turning the boys around.

Manga Dogs is by Ema Toyama, whose had a couple series published in English previously – Missions of Love and I Am Here!. Neither of her series before have caught my interest but I’m always eager to read a comic about people making comics, so I’m eager to try out this new one.

Noragami is about a young man named Yato, who also happens to a God. However, he’s a God without a shrine or worshippers. Yato’s goal is to change all that though, but first he needs the money to get his own shrine built. He becomes a god-for-hire, doing all sorts of odd jobs to get one step closer to his dream and help some people along the way.

This is the second series out in English by Adachitoka, who provided the art for Alive!, published by Del Rey. I thought the art in Alive! was fantastic, so I’m really excited to see Adachitoka tackle another fantasy story with Noragami. Noragami also has an anime adaption that Funimation is currently streaming.

Volume one of both series are scheduled to be released sometime this Fall.


Seven Seas Licenses First Yuri of 2014, Citrus

Citrus

Seven Seas is a licensing force that feels like it can’t be stopped! And I’m certainly not going to get in their way (though I am having a little difficulty keeping up!). At the end of January, they announced what we can only hope is their first yuri license of the year:

Citrus – Saburouta

The plot of Citrus sounds like one of those anime-stereotype sis-cest stories ,only with two girls. While I usually avoid those kinds of series, it looks like I’ll be making an exception for this one. It’s a yuri – I must!

Citrus follows a young woman who’s never been in love, yet finds herself both annoyed and enthralled by the student council president at her new school. However, it turns out said-president is her new step-sister and, to top it off, the two are now living together.

The first volume of Citrus is scheduled for December 2014 and will retail at $15.99/CAN, $13.99/US.


Good Things Come In Threes With New Yen Press Licenses

Übel Blatt

Yen Press managed to do the nearly-impossible yesterday by announcing three new manga licenses… via their own website! It was a triple Valentine’s Day treat:

Accel World – Reki Kawahara & Hiroyuki Aigamo
Barakamon – Satsuki Yoshino
Übel Blatt – Etorouji Shiono

We’re so used to finding out licenses via social media or retail listings, that reading the news first from a company’s RSS feed felt like a foreign experience. It’s also been a while since we’ve heard licensing news from Yen Press in general. I’ve no complaints of course, and all these licenses look great. It’s also the first time any of these creators have been published in English.

Accel World is a repeat title for Yen Press. They announced that they had licensed the original light novels last summer. The story follows students who can log into their school network to participate, and compete, in a virtual world where winning imbues the players with powers in the real world.

Baramamon – which has some adorable looking cover artwork – is about a young calligrapher who must move to a small island. There his city habits are tested as he befriends the locals and gets accustomed to his new life there. This series looks really charming – I hope the covers don’t steer me wrong!

And then there’s Übel Blatt, a series I’ve already seen compared to Berserk repeatedly. As a fan of that series, I’m certainly not adverse to another violent, fantasy epic full of elves and magic. The story follows a young swordsmen with a dark past out on a quest for revenge! Good stories can come from small plot packages. Yen Press will be releasing Übel Blatt in omnibus editions collecting two in one.

All three titles are scheduled to start in Fall of this year.


Daring Doujinshi As Seven Seas Announces Dance in Vampire Bund Anthologies

Daring Doujinshi As Seven Seas Announces Dance in Vampire Bund Anthologies

Seven Seas is joining Yen Press at bringing doujinshi to North America. While doujinshi is a word for self-published comics, the term is used primarily by English-speaking audiences for fan-works based on preexisting properties. Seven Seas simultaneously pleases fans of one of their most popular series with this week’s doujinshi license:

Dance in the Vampire Bund: Forgotten Tales – Various
Dance in the Vampire Bund: Secret Chronicles – Various

These  two collections of short stories are primarily contributed to by fans of Dance in the Vampire Bund. They’ve been compiled by Seven Seas from a variety of smaller publications previously sold in Japanese comic markets.

The series original creator, Nozomu Tamaki, also contributed new stories to these books as well. Secret Chronicles is especially notable for fans of the original series as Nozomu Tamaki oversaw all the short stories within it, giving them official capacity. They’re canon, folks!

Forgotten Tales is scheduled to be released in June 2014, while Secret Chronicles will follow behind in October.

Credit for the news goes to ICv2


Seven Seas Switches It Up With Body Swapping Manga Kokoro Connects

Kokoro Connects

One of the most entertaining manga I’ve read recently has been Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, published digitally by Crunchyroll. It begins with a young man discovering he has the ability to switch bodies with others thanks to a kiss. Naturally, plenty of body-switching hilarity ensues! But, though this post serves as a convenient chance to promote such a fun series, it’s actually about another story where there’s body-switching afoot in school:

Kokoro Connects – Sadanatsu Anda & CuteG

Seven Seas announced they’d acquired the license to Kokoro Connects on their Twitter account earlier this week. The series is scheduled to start in August 2014 with volume one, while it remains on-going in Japan with five currently compiled books so far.

“Five members of the school culture club – Taichi Yaegashi, Iori Nagase, Himeko Inaba, Yui Kiriyama, and Yoshifumi Aoki – encounter a bizarre phenomenon one day when Aoki and Yui switch personalities without warning. The same begins to happen to the other club members, throwing their daily lives into chaos. At first the five students find some amusement among the confusion, but this connection also exposes the painful scars hidden within their hearts… When their calm lives are shattered, the relationships between the five students also begin to change!” – Crunchyroll

Kokoro Connects has also been adapted into an anime, which was streamed by Crunchyroll in 2012.


Seven Seas Licenses Magical Girl Apocalypse

Magical Girl Apocalypse

Seven Seas‘ has announced its first new title of 2014, starting off the year with a creepy, creepy cover (with added blood for effect!):

Magical Girl Apocalypse – Satou Kentaro

As the image implies, Magical Girl Apocalypse is not another tale of brightly coloured frilled skirts and cute compacts. The story follows two students whose lives are thrown into chaos when a magical girl appears at their school and begins murdering their classmates.

Volume one is scheduled to come out in October 2014. The series is currently four volumes long in Japan.


Vertical Inc Helps Us Creatively Kill Time with My Neighbor Seki License

My Neighbor Seki

Now we’re really ringing in the new year – it’s new manga acquisition time! Today it was Vertical Inc, who has their first official license of 2014:

My Neighbor Seki – Takuma Morishige

Vertical’s marketing director and friend to manga-kind, Ed Chavez, announced the license during his recent appearance on the ANNCast. The timing coincides nicely with the My Neighbor Seki anime adaptation which has just started streaming on Crunchyroll, though Ed describes plans to publish the title have actually be on-going for a couple years.

“Seki is the quite type. Smart and pretty cool-headed Seki is generally your average everyday student. But when he is at his desk way at the back his homeroom, he reveals a creative side that few people get to experience. Hidden from the eyes of his teachers, Seki is often found tinkering on and around his desk, creating the most complicated of projects often stretching the imagination…mainly cause he’s got nothing better to do.”

My Neighbor Seki is scheduled to start late 2014, with a new volume out every 2-3 months. Currently the series is five volumes long in Japan.


Seven Seas Dreams Bigger With New Alice in the Country of… Trilogy

Alice in the Country of Clover: Nightmare Trilogy

Seven Seas delivered some holiday cheer when they confirmed via their Twitter account that they’d licensed a new Alice in the Country of… series:

Alice in the Country of Joker: Nightmare Trilogy – QuinRose & Yobu

As the name indicates, the series will be three volumes long and star Nightmare as Alice’s romantic inclination. The first volume is scheduled for release in August 2014. Pre-orders are already available via Amazon.ca | Amazon.com.

This is the second series Seven Seas has licensed that’s dedicated to the character, Nightmare. The first was Alice in the Country of Clover: Nightmare, which will be released a few months prior in April. In all of the Alice in the Country Of… stories, Nightmare is an enigmatic figure who comes  to Alice in her dreams. While he has offered helpful hints about her time in Wonderland, he most often speaks in vagueness to confuse her and makes clear in Alice’s absence that he knows much more than he tells her.

It was already a pleasant surprise to me that Nightmare had a one-shot, so I’m especially thrilled to see he gets a trilogy as well. I’ve been crossing my fingers that a focus on him might finally reveal a few more truths about the series hanging plot threads.

Both Nightmare titles are drawn by the same artist, Yobu. Their cover artwork for Nightmare looks great but I’ll need a bit more optimism for the eye-candy after seeing how they drew Alice on volume one’s cover. Hmm…

Alice


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