A Mostly Yen License Roundup

Yen Press had a lot of license announcements today, and this post is mostly going to talk about those. But first.

Amazon blew a couple of Viz licenses the other day, though they were quickly taken down. One was not commented on, so I won’t either. The other, which Viz was forced to admit “Yes, we have it, wait till AX for details”, was the first arc of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. This legendary Shonen Jump manga has long been known over here in the States for its ridiculous powerups and battles, its sheer weirdness, the musical name jokes, and a truly ridiculous amount of not-quite-BL, to the point where the female fandom is huge, and it may even have been more influential than Slam Dunk or Saint Seiya in bringing in those fans to Jump. Viz had published the 3rd arc of the series (considered to be the most accessible) a while back, but it didn’t really sell well. But recent anime adaptations have brought it back into the limelight, and Viz is now going back to release the “Phantom Blood” arc, the first JoJo’s adventure. I suspect it will be the 3-volume re-release from the early 2000s, but we’ll wait for more details. In the meantime, get hyped. JoJo’s is addictive, fun, tragic, and ridiculous.

Now, let’s talk Yen Press and Yen On. First off, in already released news, I was pleased to see that the 2nd Magical Index light novel is scheduled for February 2015. This would point to the series being on a quarterly release, as opposed to SAO’s three times or Book Girl’s twice a year. Given the sheer SIZE of Index, this is likely necessary to keep fandom invested.

There are some more volumes of the Kingdom Hearts franchise that Yen is putting out! I’ve never really kept up with this series, but I know it was huge when Tokyopop put out the manga, and my guess is it’s still huge. Secret was also officially announced; it’s been coming out digitally in chapter format recently. it’s the latest from the author of Judge and Doubt, so my guess is it has a lot of dead teens.

Akame ga Kill! hails from Gangan Joker, a favorite target of Yen Press. Featuring an idealistic young man getting caught up in a hideous international conspiracy, it apparently has a very high body count, lots of assassins and psychopaths, and is filled with shonen GUTS. Sounds like it will fit right in alongside Higurashi and company.

Sword Art Online is just getting started, with its 3rd light novel, the first part of Fairy Dance, coming out this December. But Yen On has also just announced their license of the Progressive series, which began to come out 10 years after the original. This apparently retells the events of the first two books from Asuna’s perspective, showing a lot more of how she developed into the badass we bet at the start of the first SAO novel. They’ve also licensed the manga adaptation, which runs in Mediaworks’ Dengeki G’s magazine.

Kagerou Days is selling like hotcakes, which is less surprising when you realize it’s a spinoff of the insanely popular Vocaloid franchise. Based on a series of songs, it’s been adapted into a light novel and a manga (which runs in Media Factory’s Comic Gene), its plot is about a shut-in who is forced to leave his apparently after getting sent a cyber-girl though an email. It is apparently far more interesting than it sounds, and an anime based off of it aired this spring.

Lastly, Yen have already licensed Sword Art Online (and Progressive) and Accel World, now we her they’re getting a new series of novels by the same author, which is not even out in Japan yet. It’s called Absolute Solitude, and will no doubt be exciting, whatever it is.

No, there’s no Baccano! license here, but lots of exciting stuff. Anything you plan to pick up?