They’re coming fast and furious, folks. Let’s start with Viz, which has two new shoujo titles and one big seinen one, as well as a new shonen license that surprises me.

Honey Blood is from racy shoujo manga Sho-Comi, and as you might guess by the word blood in the title, it features vampires. Normal girl is worried about the recent vampire attacks… could her neighbor be a vampire? Judging by that cover, I’m guessing this is in the ‘if you like Black Bird’ vein…

Kiss of the Rose Princess is from Kadokawa’s Asuka manga, and promises a fantasy reverse harem story. Our heroine is told bad things will happen to her if she ever takes off the rose choker her father gave her. Now it’s gone… and she’s surrounded by hot knights! This is truly terrible. This looks like a lot of fun.

The big news is another Naoki Urasawa series has been licensed. No, not Billy Bat, that’s still only in Japan. No, we aren’t getting any fashionable judo girls yet either. Instead we get Master Keaton, which Urasawa co-created (and there’s a bit of controversy behind that, apparently) and features an archaeologist/ex-Armed forces member who travels the world investigating claims for Lloyd’s. This ran in Big Comic Original for 6 years, and Viz will be doing it as a fancy signature title, with color pages and everything. The anime was also released over here about 15 years ago (so in the ancient age of North American anime).

If this does well, who knows? We might get Yawara after all! Or Happy!, Urasawa’s incredibly angsty and depressing tennis manga. Or Pineapple Army, which Viz put out one volume of waaaaaaay back in the day. The sky’s the limit!

And editing my own post, because Jump has some new announcements as well! In addition to the expected Jaco graphic novel, as it’s by the Dragon Ball creator so DUH, we have the long-awaited release of Assassination Classroom! I had assumed the basic plot of “kill your teacher” made this unlicensable, so it’s great to see Viz picking it up, particularly as I hear an anime is due soon. It’s great fun and heartwarming, GTO with an alien smiley face. Definitely highly recommended!

I swear companies check my blog to make sure I’ve posted, then do announcements.

So yes, 2 new titles from Kodansha today (well, technically 3, they’re putting out Attack on Titan 1-5 in a giant 1000-page omnibus). Let’s investigate.

First, we have another Ema Toyama title. Despite hitting high above its supposed age bracket, Missions of Love has been doing pretty well for the company, and they already did an omnibus of I Am Here!. Now we get a series that cries out for a translated title, GDGD-DOGS (Kodansha will release it as Manga Dogs). Running for 3 volumes in Aria magazine, this series about a teenage manga artist and her pretty boy wannabe students seems to be light and fluffy, and I wonder if Kodansha will do it as one big omnibus or 3 separate volumes.

As for Noragami, that’s 10 volumes and counting, and may be the next big thing to come over here from Monthly Shonen Magazine. This one has an anime currently airing, which is likely a big reason they’re taking a chance on the series. The author is best known over here for Alive, the post-apocalyptic manga that Del Rey put out 8 volumes of before it became part of the Giant Del Rey Title Purge. The plot sounds oddly a bit like Kamisama Kiss. Looking forward to see where it goes.

Also, although I’m not sure Yen has officially announced this, but the 3rd Durarara!! arc, subtitled Yellow Flag Orchestra (that sound you hear is Baccano! light novel fans crying), will be beginning this fall. Like Umineko, Durarara!! seems to be a series that Yen enjoys, but is only licensing in chunks. Makes sense, given it’s pretty much caught up with Japan. This arc focuses more on Kida’s troubled past and wavering loyalties.

I’ve been away the last few days, as you can tell by the lack of content. Naturally, whenever I go away, tons of news and announcements happen. Yen and Vertical are our culprits this time, so let’s see what’s new with them.

Yen had already announced the Accel World light novels last August, so it’s no big surprise that the manga will be coming to our shores as well. It runs in ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Bunko, and is 4+ volumes. In case you missed the novel license, think ‘protagonist falls into RPG world’ plot.

The biggest license of the week in terms of total volumes is Übel Blatt, a 14+ volume fantasy title from Square Enix’s Big Gangan. It seems to be a dark fantasy sword-and-sorcery type story, and has some fanservice judging from that cover. The author, Etorouji Shiono, is best known over here for Brocken Blood, a JManga license that got 3 volumes out.

And from SE’s Gangan Online site we have Barakamon, a slice-of-life comedy by Yoshino Satsuki. This seems to be a fish-out-of-water type plot, as a city boy has to move to an island and finds life is totally different around these parts. It’s 8+ volumes so far, and has an anime coming soon.

As for Vertical, I’ll start with Witch Craft Works, which Random House sort of spoiled by throwing it on their site a couple of weeks ago. This is a Kodansha title from good! Afternoon, a spinoff of the main Afternoon magazine, and is 7+ volumes. The description seems to indicate ‘average boy, exceptional girl’, and as you’d guess from the title, also has a fantasy aspect to it. The anime is currently running.

Also from good! Afternoon is Ajin, which seems to be a horror/thriller title, 3+ volumes. The co-author, Tsuina Miura, is currently writing High-Rise Invasion from Mangabox. Hopefully this series will have a bit less survival game to it.

Lastly, from regular old Afternoon comes The Garden of Words, an adaptation of the anime film which is complete in one volume. The author also wrote 5 Centimeters Per Second, which did better for Vertical than they expected, I believe, so this new license makes sense. I hope for a happy ending, but given the author’s prior works (he also did Voices of a Distant Star), suspect ‘deeply bittersweet’ will be what I get.

Which of these are you most looking forward to?