Manga Xanadu

Seven Seas Entertainment has truly embrace social media, as it seems to have become its primary place to announce new licenses, as opposed to the tradition of making announcements at conventions. They did it again, this time on Leap Day, with the announcement of Re:Monster.

Before (or possibly while) the holidays were swamping everyone, Dark Horse Comics announced that they had picked up a new manga license.

Yen Press recently announced through their Twitter account that they had licensed the fourth manga adaptation of Durarara!! known as the “Re; Dollars Arc” with new artist Aogiri.

On their Twitter feed this last Friday, Seven Seas teased they had more licenses to announce before the end of the year, and threw a bone to fans with their announcement of Monster Musume:  I ♥ Monster Girls Anthology.

Seven Seas Entertainment is a publisher that doesn’t go to a lot of cons, but they still make sure you remember them during con season. A few days after the hoopla of SDCC was over they made another new license announcement. The Other Side of Secret is from Kadokawa’s Comic Alive manga magazine. Several of Seven Seas’ titles have come from there, such as Haganai: I Don’t Have Many Friends, Girls und Panzer, and Non Non Biyori. This senien series follows Yuto, a boy, who seven years earlier watched his sister disappear through a strange portal. When he said the door appear again, and two girls go through it, he follows them, intent on finding his sister. He is transported to a strange and dangerous world, where he does find his sister, but at a price. He causes a terrible tragedy that costs the lives of many of the world’s inhabitants. It’s up to Yuto to find a way to atone for his actions and bring his sister back home. The series just stated last September, and there are three volumes out so far. Seven Seas has announced a release date in a little under a year; July 7, 2016. This is…

Seven Seas wasn’t at Anime Expo, but it still managed to announce a new license during the con. Through their Twitter and Tumblr, they announced that they had licensed the manga Angel Beats!: Heaven’s Door on Friday, the second day of the con. Angel Beats!: Heaven’s Door is a manga adaptation of the light novel Angel Beats! Track 0, which is a prequel to the original anime Angel Beats! There is a world between the living and heaven known as limbo. It is where spirits go to learn to let go of any lingering attachments they may have to world of the living. The story takes place in a high school in this afterlife for students sent there where they can still feel pain and can die again, only to awaken without their injuries. Not everyone is happy about being there, or even how they got there. Yuri is the leader of the Afterlife Battlefront who leads the battles with the powers-that-be represented by Angel, the Student Council President who uses her supernatural powers against the Battlefront’s mass-produced conventional weapons. The manga follows the formation of the Afterlife Battlefront and its actions before the start of the anime. There are 8…

Persona is a video game franchise that has built quite a following here in the west. It has also received quite a few manga adaptations, most notably for Persona 3 and Persona 4. Kodansha recently licensed the manga adaptation of the 3DS game adaptations Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth P3/4 which crosses over the two incarnations. But there are also adaptations of the original games. This is what Udon Entertainment announced picking up. Persona 4 follows a group of high school students in the rural town of Inaba who start out forming a group to investigate a series of grisly murders. As they work to uncover the truth and stop any more murders from happening, they discover they might be connected to an urban legend of about a paranormal television phenomenon called the “Midnight Channel.” Their simple investigation turns dangerous, as they go on an action-packed journey of self discovery that crosses two worlds, and dark truths will shake our heroes to the very core, while helping them discover an inner strength they never had. My daughter was really into Persona for a while, and told me most of the video game’s plot. If the manga is a faithful adaptation,…

Publisher Seven Seas Entertainment recently made another license announcement on their Twitter feed and Tumblr blog. They have picked up another title that fits into their “dark and violent take on kid’s franchises” line. Tomodachi x Monster is a recent series by Yoshihiko Inui and is published in Futabasha’s seinen magazine Manga Action. The story follows middle school student Wataru, who hears a mysterious voice after wandering away from school in his mountainous village in rural Japan. He discovers a new “friend”, a monster from the mountain, and one of many that want to befriend young kids like Wataru. This new friendship may transform Wataru’s life, or it may shorten it, as he is needed for his “friend” to participate in a horrifying death match. If you’ve ever dreamed of being able to kill the Pokemon, or trainers in the video game, then this is probably the series for you. Tomodachi x Monster is described as an “ultra-violent, dark parody” of the Pokemon series, as if the blood-splattered cover wasn’t enough of a clue. It fits in with Magical Girl Apocalypse, taking on the kids-with-monsters genre in a smiliar fashion. Kids with no conscience get a hold of monsters. What could…

At the beginning of March, Yen Press announced three new manga via their Twitter feed. They had teased the announcements in February and finally ended the suspense with the official announcement on March 1. The first title they whipped out was Rose Gun Days Season One. This is another series by Ryukishi07, the creator of the visual novel games Higurashi When They Cry and Umineko When They Cry, both of which Yen Press has licensed and published the manga adaptations. Rose Gun Days is another visual novel game adaptation. This time, the story takes place just after the end of World War II. Devastated and defeated, the Japanese government accepts the allies’ reconstruction plan. Japan begins to recover, but the United States and China taken control through the local governments. Chinese and American immigrants flood in, making the Japanese a minority in their own country. Rose Haibara works at Club Primavera, helping out her countrymen. Leo Shishigami is an repatriated soldier with a reputation with the ladies. Everything begins to change when Rose and Leo meet in the spring of 1947. This series is different from Ryukishi07’s other works, as it is more of an action romance. The first season is…

Vertical Comics is a publisher that likes to appeal to the more adult manga reader, and their newest license, announced at Genericon a few weeks ago, will do not just that, but will also appeal to the alt comics/manga reader. A Girl On the Shore is by alt manga creator Inio Asano. Previous works by him have been released by Viz Media (Solanin, What A Wonderful World) and Fantagraphics (Nijigahara Holograph). This two-volume series looks at the themes of love and sex as it follows two teenagers, Koume Sato and Kosuke Isoba. Koume was used and dumped by her crush, and now wants to start a purely sexual relationship with Kosuke. Their attempt at sex with no strings attached leads to unexpected complications  not just between them, but with the people around them. Vertical will be publishing this series as a single volume omnibus. Because the content is very adult, it will come shrink-wrapped and will be shipping early in 2016. While the title comes from an alt magazine, older fans of Flowers of Evil and Vertical’s josei titles should check it out as well. While I know Vertical always picks excellent titles, they are not always easy reading. With this…

On their Twitter account this week, Seven Seas Entertainment announced a new manga license after dropping some hints for followers to try to guess. A Certain Scientific Accelerator is another spin-off manga of the light novel series A Certain Magical Index. It follows Accelerator, the most power esper in Academy City. He starts out as an antagonist in both the main series and the spin-off manga A Certain Scientific Railgun, until he is defeated by Touma Kamijou, the protagonist in Magical Index. Accelerator’s story starts after this defeat and at the beginning of his journey to be more “heroic” in the story. The series is currently at 3 volumes and is ongoing. The first volume is set to be released in October of 2015, with volume 2 following up in January 2016. Seven Seas already publishes A Certain Scientific Railgun, so adding another Scientific title makes perfect sense. Yen Press holds the license to the main series A Certain Magical Index, both the manga and the light novel. I liked the first two volumes of Railgun that I’ve read, so I may consider this series as well. Stories with redemption arcs are popular right now so this could do well…

Vertical Comics, the comics imprint of Vertical, Inc., announced through their Tumblr that they had acquired a new manga license, Tokyo ESP.  Vertical had the title confirmed since just after New York Comic Con, but retailers were starting to put solicitations out for the first volume, so there was little reason to sit on it any longer. The story follows Rinka Urushiba, a high school student who works a part-time job to help her father make ends meet. One day she sees a penguin chasing some glowing fish flying through the sky. She is touched by one of the fish and loses conscious. When she wakes up, she has a supernatural power; she can walk through inanimate objects. She is not the only one to gain powers, and she joins up with another high school student, Kyotaro Azuma who can teleport. They take on other powered people who have decided to use their powers for evil. The series is published by Kadokawa Shoten in their magazine Shonen Ace and is currently 11 volumes. There is an anime adaptation that ran last summer that Crunchyroll streamed and Funimation licensed. This title was also one of the debut titles in Kadokawa Shoten’s Comic…