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1st New Twelve Kingdoms Novel Story in 6 Years Slated for 4 Volumes in October, November
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Shinchosha's official Twitter account for Fuyumi Ono's The Twelve Kingdoms novel series revealed on Thursday that the newest work in the series will release as four volumes. The first two volumes will ship on October 12, and the last two volumes will ship on November 9.
The official website for the novels had announced in December that the new work would ship in 2019, adding that the draft for the "epic" story was 2,500 Japanese manuscript pages long. The novels will center on the Kingdom of Tai.
The Twelve Kingdoms depict a fantasy world inspired by classical Chinese literature, where a girl named Yoko Nakajima finds herself after being transported from Japan. She becomes embroiled in the politics of the kingdom of Kei, as well as the other kingdoms.
Ono began writing the light novel series in 1992, and has published 12 volumes in Japan. Ono originally concluded the series in 2001 with the Kasho no Yume book. Ono published a collection of short stories set in the same world titled Hisho no Tori in 2013. While Kodansha published the original novel series' run, Ono published Hisho no Tori in Shinchosha's Shinchou Bunko line. Tokyopop released the first four volumes of the series in English between 2007 and 2010.
The novel series inspired a 45-episode anime series in 2002. Media Blasters originally offered the series in North America in August 2003 and then in a complete collection release in 2009. Media Blasters released the series on Blu-ray Disc in 2011.
Source: The Twelve Kingdoms novels' Twitter account via Nijimen
