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Yen Press Licenses Fruits Basket, Twinkle Stars, and Liselotte and the Witch’s Forest

This past week we got some major shoujo licensing news from Yen Press. The publisher has acquired the rights to three of Natsuki Takaya’s manga series, including the new Fruits Basket Collector’s edition as well as Hoshi no Utau (Twinkle Stars) and Liselotte to Majo no Mori (Liselotte and the Witch’s Forest).

Fruits Basket was previously published here in North America by Tokyopop, but has been out of print since 2009.  Just recently in Japan, Shueisha began reprinting the series into a collector’s edition. And to go along with that Takaya is currently publishing an online series on HanaLala.com called Fruits Basket Another – a sequel of sorts with new characters. Yen Press’s announcement is right on time with these new developments in Japan.

Here’s a brief synopsis of each series:

Fruits Basket collectors

 

Fruits Basket: Tohru Honda was an orphan when one day fate kicked her out of the house and on to land belonging to the mysterious Sohma family. After stumbling upon the teenage squatter, the Sohmas invite Tohru to stay in their house in exchange for cooking and cleaning. Everything goes well until she discovers the Sohma family’s secret, when hugged by members of the opposite sex, they turn into their Chinese Zodiac animal!

TwinkleStars_vol1

Twinkle Stars: In a small town in the countryside, close to the sea, a young high-school girl lived alone with her cousin. When life seemed to her too painful and too sad, she contemplated the sky and refreshed herself by looking at the stars. But one spring night, she met a boy who sealed her destiny…

Twinkle Stars is a total of 11 volumes. It was published in Japan from 2007-2011.

liselotte_cover1

Liselotte and the Witch’s Forest: They say that in a place far, far away; in the east, of the east, of the east… there is a forest where witches dwell. They are said to bestow blessings or inflict curses, brew potions in steaming cauldrons, practice their magic… and fly their brooms into the night sky. This is where Liselotte has decided to live, in the small chance that she may one day revisit a certain person from her past – but only if the witches don’t get to her first…

Liselotte and the Witch’s Forest is a total of 5 volumes. It went on hiatus in 2011 and is yet to be continued.

Those of you who wanted Natsuki Takaya hard copies, rejoice!

 

 

 

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2 Comments

  • I never thought the day would come!!! I never had the chance to buy the series, so I won’t have to worry over ebay collections anymore! XD I am also super excited for her other series. I am glad that shojo is FINALLY getting the recognition it deserves. It feels like nearly every month, a ton of new series and some rescues are being licensed. Yona, Takaya’s works, Everybody’s Getting Married, LDK, Maid Sama, Otherworld Barbara, The Secret Sakura Shares to name a few.

    Do you think you can make a post about how shojo is faring these days? I’d love to se what the results are and if we’re doing better than before.

    • I think it is recovering from the “bubble burst” that happened around 2009-2010. Publishers are smarter about licensing. When you say better than before how far back are you thinking? I would say that the licensing is improving from the somewhat dry spell of popular titles from about 2011-2014.

      We just have to convince girls to buy what they want to read. The biggest problem is they don’t want to pay for it all. I reported a site to Viz just the other day because it had pdfs of all their most recent books. It was not only Viz but Kodansha and Yen Press titles as well. It’s sad and frustrating. I think that’s why seinen is doing so well, though. Guys are more willing to spend their money on manga than girls.

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