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Publishing Company Asahi Sonorama to Go Out of Business

According to a press release posted to its official website on Thursday, manga and magazine publishing company Asahi Sonorama will cease operations and disband in September. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Asahi Shinbun publishing company. According to the press release, the company is folding due to "a change of conditions in the publishing world and decisions made by the management."

The company will stop releasing new books this month, but will continue retailing back issues and magazines until September. Titles published by Sonorama include the manga Hyakki Yakou Shou, the shōjō manga magazine Nemuki, the sentai-themed magazine Hero Vision, and the Vampire Hunter D novel series. It also published the Crusher Joe, Shin Petshop of Horrors, and To Terra manga. After the September issues of magazines published by Sonorama are released, many of the manga and novel series in the magazines will be published directly by the Asahi Shinbun company.

Asahi Sonorama was founded in 1959 as "Asahi Sonopress." The company had its first big success with the magazine Asahi Sonorama, a magazine that came with a "flexi disc" with music and news recorded on it. "We take pride in our history," says the press release. "Lately, we've been focused on producing comics. We kept going with an unpretentious work ethic and tried to resist changes in the [publishing industry]. This is a truly unfortunate end."

Source: Golgo 31

Image © Asahi Sonorama/Mitsukazu Mihara