Mangasplaining Extra (MSX) announced two more manga licenses and another publishing partner with Udon Entertainment. MSX and Udon will be bringing Nami Sasou’s autobio No Roses Without Thorns: My Life as a Shojo Manga Assistant, and Kotteri’s full colour romance Veil straight to English in 2024. These add on to the two just-announced Fantagraphics titles for 2024. Unlike the earlier titles, however, licensing restrictions will not see either work serialised digital first on MSX.
Udon Entertainment describes itself as a publisher of original and translated art books, graphic novels, and manga – predominantly titles linked to video game properties like the Persona and Steins;Gate series. In more recent years the publisher has engaged in broadening its catalogue, with more recent titles like Yasuki Tanaka’s mystery thriller Summertime Rendering as well as esteemed vintage classics like Riyoko Ikeda’s historical romance The Rose of Versailles (first published in the 1970s and never before translated to English in its entirety). The two MSX-produced titles should do well to add to this growing portfolio.
Nami Sasou’s No Roses Without Thorns: My Life as a Shojo Manga Assistant will be published as a single volume in 2024. The book will be translated into English by Rachel Thorn, lettered by Kyla Aiko, and edited by Mangasplaining co-founder Deb Aoki. This manga will give an autobiographical peek behind the curtain of the 1970s golden age of Shojo Manga.
The synopsis:
“What’s it like to be a manga creator’s assistant, when she’s working on the most popular shojo manga in the country?
“The 1970s were a golden age for girls manga, or shojo manga, in Japan – but what was it like to create these pages of roses, sparkles and romance? Manga artist Nami Sasou shares some of the not-so-glamorous stories from the ink-stained battlefield of… cute girls’ romance manga? A highschool assistant to Suzue Miuchi, the creator of the famously popular Glass Mask, this manga about making manga tells it like it was… With a decidedly ‘shojo’ point of view!”
Kotteri’s full colour (!!!) romance manga Veil will be released in hardcover 2-in-1 omnibus volumes. Five volumes have been released in the series in Japan. The English translation will be handled by Jocelyne Allen and edited by MSX co-founder Andrew Woodrow-Butcher. It will be expected “beginning 2024”.
Mangasplaining Extra synopsis for the Udon release:
“A chance encounter. A handsome soldier. A beautiful woman. A tentative love affair smolders on the snowy cobblestone streets, out of sight of those that might keep them apart. A manga unlike anything else in English, VEIL is a beautifully illustrated full-color romance manga, told in stylish short vignettes, beautiful illustrations, and secret moments. Published in English by UDON in handsome two-volume omnibus collections.”
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