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Dark Horse Adds Shin'ichi Sakamoto's Innocent Manga, The Art of Octopath Traveler Book
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
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Dark Horse Comics announced at its panel at Anime NYC on Saturday that it has licensed Shin'ichi Sakamoto's Innocent manga and Square Enix's The Art of Octopath Traveler book.
Innocent is the first manga from Sakamoto licensed in English. Dark Horse Comics will publish the manga in three 3-in-1 omnibus volumes starting with the first volume on November 22, 2023.
Sakamoto launched Innocent in 2013, and the manga changed its name to Innocent Rouge when it moved from Weekly Young Jump to Grand Jump in 2015. Shueisha published nine compiled book volumes for the original Innocent manga.
The story takes place during the French Revolution, telling the story of "another protagonist" of the time. Charles-Henri is the fourth generation head of the Sanson family of executioners living in Paris.
Sakamoto ended Innocent Rouge in January 2020, and Shueisha published the 12th and final compiled book volume in February 2020.
Innocent was nominated for the 18th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize "Reader Award" in 2014, and was also nominated for the eighth Manga Taisho awards in 2015. The manga inspired a stage musical in 2019.
Dark Horse Comics will release the 224-page The Art of Octopath Traveler book in hardback on November 8, 2023. Square Enix released the book in Japan under the title Octopath Traveler Design Works: The Art of Octopath 2016-2020 in January 2021.
The original Octopath Traveler game shipped worldwide in July 2018 for the Nintendo Switch. The game then launched on PC via Steam in June 2019, and on Stadia in April 2020. The game has sold more than 3 million copies worldwide. The same team who developed the Bravely Default game worked on Octopath Traveler.
Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent, the prequel mobile RPG set on the same Orsterra continent as the original game, launched for iOS and Android devices in October 2020 in Japan and globally on July 27.
The Octopath Traveler II sequel game will launch on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC via Steam on February 24, 2023.
Source: Email correspondence
