Middle grade readers with a penchant for manga and anime will get a fresh taste of Japanese kid lit this fall, courtesy of four new titles from Yen Press. Distributed under the JY (Junior Yen) imprint, these chapter books are part of a licensing agreement with Kadokawa, whose Tsubasa Bunko label has maintained a top spot in the Japanese children’s book market for the past 10 years.
The acquisition marks a natural progression from JY’s initial partnership with Tsubasa Bunko, under which the novel Little Witch Academia: The Nonsensical Witch and the Country of Fairies was published in 2019. “The JY list was previously much more focused on strictly manga/comics releases,” said deputy publisher and editor in chief JuYoun Lee. “This represents a significant expansion of the line into chapter books.”
The four titles will include two in November: Phantom Thief Red, which originally sold close to 1.5 million copies; and Horror Collector, with 20 volumes published in Japan. The other two books, due out in December, are Online! The Unbeatable Game, whose illustrator Shinichirou Otsuka is the artist of the Re:Zero series, and Canine Detective Chris, a sleuthing story about kids and their pet dog that has been compared to Scooby-Doo and Adventure Time. “All of the books are being handled by very capable translators who rework the material into English as faithfully as possible to the original,” Lee said.
To appeal to manga and anime readers, the chapter books’ illustrations are designed to resemble the Japanese light novel, while the storylines encompass what sales and marketing director Mark Gabriel de Vera describes as “an emphasis on adventure and young protagonists facing challenges and succeeding.”
Yen Press will market these releases through traditional bookseller, library, and consumer channels, along with its existing middle grade catalogue. “We’ll also promote these titles on our main Yen Press social media accounts targeted towards our long-time following of manga fans, many of whom are now parents themselves,” de Vera said. Additional titles are slated to roll out in 2024.
