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Viz Media Licenses My Hero Academia: Smash!!, Komi Can't Communicate, Beastars Manga

Anime News Network's coverage of Anime NYC 2018 is sponsored by Yen Press.

Viz Media announced at its panel at Anime NYC on Saturday that it has licensed the My Hero Academia: Smash!!, Komi Can't Communicate, and BEASTARS manga, as well as the Automatic Eve novel. All four are slated to debut in summer 2019.

Manga artist Hirofumi Neda launched the Boku no Hero Academia Smash!! (My Hero Academia: Smash!!) spinoff manga on Shueisha's Jump+ app in 2015 around the time the My Hero Academia anime was announced. The manga tells original gag episodes in four-panel strips. Shueisha shipped the fifth and final compiled volume in November 2017.

Kōhei Horikoshi's My Hero Academia manga launched in Weekly Shonen Jump in July 2014. Viz Media is publishing new chapters in its English-language digital Weekly Shonen Jump magazine and in print. Viz is also releasing Hideyuki Furuhashi and Court Betten's My Hero Academia: Vigilantes (Vigilante: Boku no Hero Academia Illegals) spinoff manga digitally. Both the main manga and the spinoff together have 17 million copies in print.

Paru Itagaki launched the BEASTARS manga in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion magazine in September 2016, and Akita Shoten published the 11th compiled book volume on November 8.

The manga takes place in a world of carnivores and herbivores, where there is a lot of hope, love, and anxiety. Regoshi is a wolf who is a member of Cherryton Academy's drama club, and even though he's a wolf, he's very sensitive. The manga follows the adolescent life of Regoshi and many other animals.

The manga won the 11th Manga Taisho awards in March. The series also won a New Face Award at the 21st Japan Media Arts Festival Awards in March, and also ranked at #2 on the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! male readers list in December.

Tomohito Oda launched Komi Can't Communicate (Comi-san wa Comyushō desu.) in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine in 2016, and Shogakukan released the 10th compiled book volume on September 18. The 11th volume will ship on December 18.

The story follows a second-year high school student named Komi, who is very beautiful but has poor social skills. Still, she wants friends. Komi becomes friends with Tadano, who is good at reading people's feelings. With Tadano's help, Komi gains friends little by little, and her high school life becomes more enjoyable.

Viz Media will release Rokuro Inui's Automatic Eve (Kikō no Eve) novel under its Haikasoru imprint. The company describes the story:

A mighty shogunate ruling the land from Tempu Castle. An imperial line of strict female succession. Caught between these two immense powers, the sprawling city of Tempu is home to many wonders—not least a superhuman technological achievement in the form of a beautiful automaton known as Eve. When a secret that threatens to shake the imperial line intersects with the mystery of Eve's creation, events are set in motion that soon race toward a shocking conclusion. A new, astonishingly inventive science fantasy masterpiece of historic proportions.

Shinchosha published the novel in 2014, and released a new edition last year.

Sources: Viz Media's panel at Anime NYC (Kyle Cardine), email correspondence