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Viz Adds Terra Formars, Ore Monogatari, Black Rose Alice Manga
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
North American publisher Viz Media announced at its New York Comic Con panel on Friday that it has licensed the following manga: writer Yū Sasuga and artist Kenichi Tachibana's Terra Formars; writer Kazune Kawahara (High School Debut) and artist Aruko's My Love Story!! (Ore Monogatari!!); Setona Mizushiro's (After School Nightmare) Black Rose Alice; Koushun Takami, Mioko Ohnishi, and Youhei Oguma's Battle Royale: Angels' Border; and Time Killers - Kazue Kato Short Story Collection. It will also publish The Art of The Wind Rises, an art collection for Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises film.
Sasuga and Tachibana launched Terra Formars in 2011. The manga takes place in the year 2577, hundreds of years after scientists sent cockroaches and mold to terraform Mars. However, when the first manned ships land on Mars, they encounter large humanoid cockroaches with great strength, and are wiped out. Humanity then sends elite warriors to Mars to eliminate the cockroaches. The manga ranked at #3 on the Da Vinci magazine's list of the best male-oriented comics in the first half of 2013. The manga also topped the male readers category of the 2013 edition of the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook. The manga was also nominated for this year's Manga Taisho award. Shueisha published the sixth compiled volume in Japan in August.
Ore Monogatari!! is a romantic comedy that revolves around the love triangle between the unattractive Takeo Gouda, his cool and attractive childhood friend Sunagawa, and the pure Yamato, whose specialty is making candy. The original 100-page story was published in an issue of Bessatsu Margaret Sister in October 2011, but the manga then returned in Bessatsu Margaret as a serialized work. The series won Best Shojo Manga at the 37th Kodansha Manga Awards in May. The manga also ranked at #1 for female-oriented comics for the Da Vinci magazine's "Book of the Year" list for the first half of 2013. Additionally the manga was nominated for this year's Manga Taisho award. Shueisha shipped the fourth volume of the series in August.
Mizushiro launched Black Rose Alice (Kuro Bara Alice) in Akita Shoten's Princess magazine in 2008. The vampire manga revolves around Dimitri, a tenor singer in Vienna who miraculously survives an accident. Since then, Dimitri's body has felt odd. One day after a rehearsal, Dimitri's lover, theatre manager, and other performers suddenly commit mass suicide. A man named Maximilian then confronts Dimitri and tells him he has become a vampire. Akita Shoten published the sixth compiled volume in October 2011. Go! Comi published Mizushiro's After School Nightmare manga, JManga published part of her Dousei Ai manga, and Tokyopop released her X-Day manga in 2003.
Battle Royale: Angels' Border features a story by original Battle Royale novel author Koushun Takami and art by Mioko Ohnishi and Youhei Oguma. Akita Shoten originally published the one-volume manga in January 2012.
Shueisha originally published the one-volume Time Killers - Kazue Kato Short Story Collection manga, a short story collection by the creator of Blue Exorcist, in October 2011.
Additionally, Viz Media revealed that it will publish Takaya Kagami (A Dark Rabbit Has Seven Lives, The Legend of the Legendary Heroes), Yamato Yamamoto (Kure-nai), and Daisuke Furuya's Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign (Owari no Seraph) manga in print. Viz had announced on Monday that it would publish the manga digitally in its Weekly Shonen Jump magazine.
