New licenses always get me excited for the future. There are things I’m waiting for from Vertical Inc, Kodansha USA, Viz Manga, and Yen Press including Mobile Suit Gundam: Origin, Wolfsmund, and Vinland Saga. I wasn’t really expecting to get any new license announcements from other places, but recently, two other publishers have made some pretty fantastic announcements. Picturebox, the micropublisher that is releasing The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame in late April has announced two books to be a part of a line of manga called “10-Cent Manga.” The fist release, a surrealist Japanese remake of “The Last of the Mohicans” is slated for April 30th, and an Osamu Tezuka title The Mysterious Underground Men, is due out in October. Fantagraphics, publisher of The Heart of Thomas and Wandering Son has announced the publication of Inio Asano’s Nijigahara Holograph.

Inio Asano is no stranger to manga readers in the United States. His work inclues Solanin and What a Wonderful World! both published under Viz Media‘s Sig IKKI line.Both books follow young men and women in their 20s trying to find their way in the world. While Asano is not afraid of tragedy in his previously published works, Nijigahara Holograph looks to be much darker.

The story is told in two parts running concurrently – one as many of the main characters are children in school, and the other 10 years later. A tragic act obscured by flashbacks and memory is somehow linked to an apocalyptic future filled with butterflies, frank violence, and the suspense of a good Stephen King novel. This kind of manga doesn’t usually make it to the USA. Horror and suspense have been making a comeback as far as popular shonen titles like Attack on Titan and Bloody Monday, but the indie stylings of Asano make him a hard sell to your shojo and shonen buying crowd. It makes sense that Fantagraphics, whose main audience loves these types of comics, is the one who eventually picked up this title.

Nijigahara Holograph was published by Ohta Shuppan, the publisher behind Manga Erotics F. My best information tells me that Nijigahara Holograph was published in QUICK Japan, but I can’t verify that to be certain. It’s 200 pages, 1 volume, and will be published by Fantagraphics as a hardcover. No release date has been announced, but you can bet your buttons I’ll be preordering this bad boy. In the meantime, I have Wolfsmund, Gundam: Origin, and other goodies to tide me over. It’s a great time to be a manga reader.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Barbara give away – there was a lot of activity on Twitter, and  getting to read your responses was really awesome.

The winner of the contest, Lisa, had this to say about Tezuka’s works:

I am a huge Tezuka fan and have dedicated a bookshelf in my home to his works. My favorite is definitely Buddha! Currently I’m reading Message to Adolf. Have not yet read Barbara so I really hope I win!

Now, I said I was giving away a copy of Barbara, but I lied – it turns out that I’m giving away two copies! Our second winner, Vito, had this to say:

I’d say I prefer Ayako and Book of Human Insects over his lighter stuff, but I did buy Princess Knight as well, new to Tezuka but I am planning to expand my collection.

Well, congratulations Lisa Kraus and Vito Plahuta, you have both won! I will send a DM to your twitter accounts to get your information.

Everyone else – stay tuned! More contests coming next week!

As you all might have noticed, last week I said I would be back to doing my Rescue Me! series, which has been an ongoing discussion of licenses that TokyoPop returned to their respective owners at the summation of their manga publishing business that I would like to see rescued by other publishers. Astute readers will also remember (due to my “mover’s reviews“) that I’m getting ready to move. In fact, I’m so close to moving that I’ve packed up my entire manga collection… and the volumes of Skyshore Blue that I wanted to work with for this week’s feature. D’oh! So I’m putting Rescue Me! off until I get all my moving taken care of. Forgive me.

Instead, I thought we would look at previously unpublished manga this week, because Vertical Inc.‘s Ed Chavez has sent out the call for more licenses:

Well, well, well… it’s that time of year again!

If you all would like to see my last season’s requests in more detail, check this link, but for briefness I logged the following:

Kuragehime (Jellyfish Princess)
Uchū Kyōdai

While neither of these licenses were announced as of May of 2011, Ed has come through with a huge one for me from requests past, The Drops of God, so I know that he is really trying to get the licenses we request (provided they meet Vertical‘s standards, of course). Only Vertical is so up front and personal about what it licenses, and that makes the thrill of seeing new Vertical books being released all the more exciting.

This time around, I asked for Kuragehime again (I mean, someone’s gotta try), but the new series I’m interested in is Chihayafuru, an award winning manga about a card game called Karuta.

First of all – Karuta is a card recognition game that relies on both reading speed and acuity as well as poem recognition and hand-eye coordination. The purpose of the game is to recognize which cards relate to a specific poem which is read, and take the card from the board before an opponent does. More basic versions of the game are used to help children learn in elementary and preschool with things like shapes and colors.

The main character, Chihaya, is a girl who learns to love the game of Karuta and the passion to do well from a transfer student name Arata, who plays a competitive version of uta-garuta (a subtype of Karuta) which uses poetry from the Hyakunin Isshu as the cardface.

I’ve come to really enjoy stories of growing up and living life, and Japanese comics tend to do that very well, and Chihayafuru looks to be another story in the same vein. These covers are absolutely fantastic, and the inside art is vaguely reminiscent of Honey and Clover, a manga published by Viz Media.

No matter what you like, now is the time to talk with your local Vertical representative to get your vote in for a series you would like published. Vertical is looking for great titles that deserve to be on the NY Times best seller’s list. Make sure your manga gems make it to Ed. And, by the way, feel free to vote for any of my picks if you want.

(You don’t think I would talk about the book’s art without showing you it, would you? Here’s an evocative page from the second volume.)

What are you still doing here? Get on Twitter and send your requests to @Vertical_Ed!