BOYS IN SKIRTS, GIRLS IN LOVE: SEVEN SEAS ANNOUNCES NEW MANGA LICENSES
The manga publisher Seven Seas Entertainment kicked off the month of July with a flurry of new announcements of manga and light novels in a variety of different genres, including fantasy, comedy, and romance.
Dai Dark, by Dorohedoro creator Q Hayashida, is a darkly humorous story about a teenager whose body has been cursed with great powers; it’s a curse because his bones are said to grant any wish, and therefore all sorts of intergalactic grifters are out to murder him and capture their powers. He fights them off with the help of a skeleton sidekick, and the two of them search the universe to find out who put this curse on him. The first volume is scheduled for April 2021 with an MSRP of $12.99.
Donuts Under a Crescent Moon is a yuri (lesbian) romance about a career woman who tries to seem "normal," i.e. straight, wearing makeup, dressing up, and going out with men, but can never seem to pull it off. Instead, her self-confidence takes a beating but just as she is about to give up on love forever, she finds herself in a relationship with a co-worker that starts out cool but soon gets deeper. The first volume is scheduled for February 2021 with an MSRP of $13.99.
A White Rose in Bloom is another yuri manga, this one by Asumiko Nakamura, the creator of Classmates: Dou kyu sei. It’s set in a posh European boarding school and features two girls who are stuck there over Christmas vacation, one who is the main character and one who is icy and aloof. As the two become better acquainted, though, the relationship warms up. The first volume is scheduled for January 2021 and will have an MSRP of $12.99.
The Demon Girl Next Door is the basis for the new anime of the same name, which is available on the subscription service HiDive. It’s the story of Momo, a girl from a poor family who grows horns and a tail when she is 15 and discovers that she is actually a demon, and her family’s poverty is a curse that only she can break. The catch is that she’s not a very powerful demon and to break the curse, she must defeat a magical girl who goes to her school and is not only more skilled than she is but is also so nice that it’s hard to start a fight with her. Seven Seas will publish the series with a larger than usual trim size; the first volume is scheduled for January 2021 and will have an MSRP of $14.99.
Berserk of Gluttony is a manga and light novel fantasy series about a young man with a grisly magic power, Gluttony. The power causes a strange hunger that cannot be satisfied, except by killing someone and consuming their powers and abilities. When he discovers this he begins his rise from gatekeeper to warrior. The first volume of the light novel will be released in January 2021 with an MSRP of $13.99, and the first volume of the manga is due out in February 2021 with an MSRP of $12.99.
Ride Your Wave is adapted from the anime film of the same name, and Seven Seas has licensed the manga and light novel versions of the story, both of which are complete in a single volume. The story is about a college student who falls in love with a firefighter and is grief-stricken when he drowns, only to learn that she can bring him back in the nearest body of water when she sings a song they used to perform together. The film was released in theaters in North America earlier this year and will be available on Blu-ray in August. Seven Seas plans to release the novel in February 2021 with an MSRP of $13.99 and the manga in May 2021 with an MSRP of $12.99.
Dungeon Toilet is a new entry in the slice-of-fantasy life genre, along the lines of Delicious in Dungeon and Dragon Goes House-Hunting. In this comedy series, the lead character has been reincarnated into a new world in order to find the perfect toilet, which involves creative uses for dragon scales and slimes among other things. The first volume is scheduled for April 2021 and will have a MSRP of $12.99.
Failure Frame: I Became the Strongest and Annihilated Everything With Low-Level Spells is one of those isekai (transported to another world) series where the hero seems underpowered at first. It starts with a goddess summoning an entire class into her world to fight on her behalf. While most of the students start their adventures with high-level powers, Mimori is the exception, with such inadequate skills that the goddess imprisons him in a dungeon. The twist (which is given away in the title) is that while Mimori’s skills might not be the most desirable, he is abnormally powerful, and that makes all the difference. Seven Seas has licensed both the light novel and the manga series, with the light novel launching in March 2021 with an MSRP of $13.99 for volume 1 and the first volume of the manga scheduled for April 2021 with an MSRP of $12.99.
Muscles Are Better than Magic sounds like the opposite of every isekai manga, but of course it’s really an open question: Musclebound Yuri, who has spent the past decade training and bulking up, has to help a beautiful elf escape from the forest, a forest he has never left. It’s a wacky opposites-attract buddy comedy in both manga and light novel form. Seven Seas will release the first volume of the light novel in January 2021 with an MSRP of $13.99 and the first volume of the manga in April 2021 with an MSRP of $12.99.
Reiwa Hanamaru Gakuen is set at Hanamaru Academy, where the student body is buff, cut, and dressed like girls. In fact, the guys in this "bro-tastic" comedy series not only wear girls’ uniforms but act stereotypically girly as well, taking selfies, going to the bathroom in groups, and worrying about the length of their skirts and the size of their chests. The first volume will be released in April 2021 with an MSRP of $12.99.
Rozi in the Labyrinth is a fantasy manga in which friendly fellows with cat ears, silver hair, and other supernatural features guide a young girl through a mazelike city filled with quaint, cobblestoned, winding streets. If that plot doesn’t sound like it would amount to much, check out the cover: This is a book that looks like it will have beautiful art. The first volume is scheduled for January 2021 with an MSRP of $12.99.