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NEWS: Dark Horse Licenses Non's Adabana Mystery Manga




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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6789
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Thu Feb 06, 2025 1:19 pm Reply with quote
So Dark Horse was able to license this manga despite facing layoffs on the same day.
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kpossibles
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 01 Dec 2018
Posts: 157
Location: USA
PostPosted: Thu Feb 06, 2025 3:08 pm Reply with quote
mdo7 wrote:
So Dark Horse was able to license this manga despite facing layoffs on the same day.
The amount it costs to localize vs produce a new comic is less. They barely release a consistent amount of manga in comparison to other manga publishers.
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 06, 2025 5:58 pm Reply with quote
Oh! I've actually had some interest in this series!
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Alan45
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Joined: 25 Aug 2010
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Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Thu Feb 06, 2025 7:21 pm Reply with quote
mdo7 wrote:
So Dark Horse was able to license this manga despite facing layoffs on the same day.


The two events are unrelated. The licensing was likely in negotiation for weeks and may have been actually signed days before the announcement.
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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6789
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Thu Feb 06, 2025 11:33 pm Reply with quote
kpossibles wrote:
mdo7 wrote:
So Dark Horse was able to license this manga despite facing layoffs on the same day.
The amount it costs to localize vs produce a new comic is less. They barely release a consistent amount of manga in comparison to other manga publishers.


Alan45 wrote:
The two events are unrelated. The licensing was likely in negotiation for weeks and may have been actually signed days before the announcement.


Yeah, I know. I was just making a bit of a small shot comment for the 2 announcements today regarding Dark Horse, the picking up a manga and laying off people at the same time. I wasn't taking a direct insult shot at Dark Horse if that's what you're thinking.
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Alan45
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 07, 2025 8:30 am Reply with quote
Actually it is possible that the announcement of the new license was intentionally released on the same day as the layoff announcement to soften the news.

With regard to manga it would be difficult to insult Dark Horse. They have put out very little manga in the last couple of years, much of it reissues of titles they put out previously. The new license announcements of the last few months have been a surprise.

Dark Horse has been sort of circling the drain for a couple of years now. The loss of the Star Wars franchise when Disney bought Lucas hurt them badly.
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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6789
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Fri Feb 07, 2025 10:45 am Reply with quote
Alan45 wrote:
Actually it is possible that the announcement of the new license was intentionally released on the same day as the layoff announcement to soften the news.


Yeah, that's what I also thought when I saw both announcement on ANN hours apart from each other. I thought to myself: "how can they be able to make an announcement about getting a license to that manga but at the same time announcing a lay-off for their company". When I first saw the article about the lay-off, I also thought "oh boy, is this going to effect their manga translation, and obtaining the license to getting any future manga?", and that was before this article came out. That's why both article left me baffled and stumped at the same time.

Alan45, you also wrote:
With regard to manga it would be difficult to insult Dark Horse. They have put out very little manga in the last couple of years, much of it reissues of titles they put out previously. The new license announcements of the last few months have been a surprise.

Dark Horse has been sort of circling the drain for a couple of years now. The loss of the Star Wars franchise when Disney bought Lucas hurt them badly.


I keep wondering to myself, why are they still in business? I mean I understand that there are publishers out there that are obtaining license to publish comic/graphic novels based on well-known IPs like Star Wars, Star Trek, etc... I want to also mentioned that western publishers that published comic/graphic novels are also wanting a piece of the license, translate, and published manga for the US market. So Dark Horse is not alone, and also could face a big struggle as a publisher because you already have Titan Comic, Ablaze Publishing; hell, you got Alien Books (a subsidary of Valiant Comics) jumping into the manga publishing game.

I mean beside Alien Books, how many other western comic/graphic novel publishers that don't do manga could jumped into the manga publishing game. Because I can see IDW Publishing, Boom! Studio, & Image Comic/Top Cow Production could probably jump into the manga publishing market. I know you told me on another thread on ANN that there is no chance that DC may revive CMX imprint, but how are you so sure? The reason I brought up IDW, Boom!, and Image Comic above well...

IDW did translate and published a manga (I believe ANN had an article on this), but this was back in 2007 (way before anime/manga become mainstream in the US). They never tried to license and publish manga again after Reptilia. But now given that manga outsell US comics in North America, and there's the Naruto X TMNT crossover comic. Could this lead to IDW Publishing to jump back into licensing and publishing manga after their first try in 2007? It's possible, and I can see this putting a strain on Dark Horse Comics.

For Boom! Studio, that publisher just got bought out/acquired by Penguin Random House in July, and in November, Random House has launched an imprint brand to license and release manga, manhwa/webtoons. How are we so sure that Boom! Studio could create a manga publishing branch/imprint to help and aid Random House on their manga licensing, and publishing? It could be possible for Boom! to jump into the manga publishing game.

Image Comic and their subsidiary, Top Cow Production could probably jumped into the manga publishing game (and maybe outdo Dark Horse) because of not only manga outdoing US comic book/graphic novel in the US and Image put out comic better then Dark Horse. It's because well both Image and Top Cow have done work related to manga, like for example Image has published Ken Niimura's Henshin in the US, and there's UltraMega which is heavily influenced by Ultraman franchise. Top Cow, famous for Witchblade well... you know this one. I can't rule out the possibility of Image Comic, or even Top Cow to joined in on the manga publishing game for the US market because of their past history. So I can see both Image, and Top Cow could jump into this type of thing.

So yeah, Dark Horse is going to have a much harder time if those 3 or more publishers that don't do manga could join in on the manga publishing game.
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