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Vertical Adds Ai Yazawa's Paradise Kiss Manga
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The North American publisher Vertical announced at its panel at Anime Boston on Friday that it will release Ai Yazawa's Paradise Kiss manga starting this fall. Paradise Kiss revolves around a high school student named Yukari Hayasaka who is discovered by "Paradise Kiss," a group of up-and-coming fashion school students including Jōji "George" Koizumi. The students transform Yukari into a fashion model, and she discovers a new passion for a future career and potential romance in her personal life.
The manga ran in Zipper from 1999 to 2003, and Shodensha has sold more than 6 million copies of the five compiled book volumes. Tokyopop published the original manga in North America starting in 2001, and the company released all five volumes before shutting down its North American publishing division in 2011.
Madhouse's anime version aired in Japan in 2005. Geneon Entertainment (USA) licensed the anime for North America in 2006, although Funimation has since released the anime in DVD box sets.
The manga was also adapted into a 2011 live-action film staring Keiko Kitagawa (live-action Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon's Sailor Mars, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift's Reiko) and Osamu Mukai (Honey and Clover, Nodame Cantabile, Mei-chan no Shitsuji, Beck).
