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Glacier Bay Books Launches Kickstarter Campaign for Its Fall Manga Releases
posted on by Joanna Cayanan
Glacier Bay Books launched on Tuesday a Kickstarter campaign for its previously announced manga titles including Yumi Tada's True Blue Never Fades (True Blue wa Kesshite Iroasenai), Konomi Oumi's Universe from the Balcony (Veranda kara Uchū), Tokushige Kawakatsu's The Cursed Body, and Akino Kondoh's Box Garden Beetle (Hako Niwa Mushi). The campaign also includes the new manga title Baku Chan by Jūshichi Masumura. The titles are scheduled for release this fall.
Author: Yumi Tada
Synopsis: Bonny and Mickey are young and in love, but Mickey is married to the life of a long-haul trucker. Though they have a son together, the gulf between the two grows with each broken promise and passing year, until all that's left are small mementos, postcards, and memories.
After a naïve, pure-hearted young man enters their orbit, things slowly begin to change…
Shodensha originally published the manga in March 1995 under its Feel Comics imprint.
Author: Konomi Oumi
Synopsis: UNIVERSE FROM THE BALCONY includes a mind-expanding panorama of Konomi's stories sure to inspire and delight: ethereal beings that slip into the cosmos, the faint smell of a goldfish bowl, wordless plant spirits, impossible love, a mermaid who's forgotten how to swim.
Oumi originally released the manga at the COMITIA 145 event in September 2023.
Glacier Bay Books first announced in 2022 that it would release Tokushige Kawakatsu's The Cursed Body manga in 2023.
The company describes the story:
Cat Head Isle follows a group of three friends that boat out to visit a small island. The only presence on the island is a cat shrine, but as they explore the island the friends start to exhibit increasingly erratic behavior...Willow Weep for Me is the story of a mother and son who encounter a mysterious beggar on an afternoon walk. After the beggar's body is fished up from the river later that evening, the strange, even gruesome, events begin to mount.
Both stories are deeply influenced by rental manga (kashihon) and the classic ghost story form, and illustrate the author's deep reading of Japanese and English literary traditions. This book is absolutely required reading for fans of horror manga and gekiga.
Author: Akino Kondoh
Synopsis: Unfurling fields of morning glories and buttony polka dots. Wormholes of childhood memories and cabinets of magical curiosities. Balletic bands of laughter and creeping stippled shadows.
Glacier Bay Books first announced the manga's release on May 15.
Seirinkogeisha published the short story collection manga in Japan in 2004.
Author: Jūshichi Masumura
Synopsis: A devastatingly beautiful short comic about an immigrant tapir on Earth by the author of CHILDREN OF MU-TOWN (published by Glacier Bay Books, 2021). Baku Chan is a young tapir emigrated to Tokyo, Earth all the way from their home planet, the distant Star of the Tapirs. Once they arrive, they find Earth a strange and alien, yet somehow familiar, world full of surprises. With the help of their newfound friend Hana they navigate the various challenges, uncertainties, as well as the humorous and beautiful moments of their new life as an immigrant. Set in a world that's a looking glass reflection of our own, and drawn in the wake of the escalating global politics of the 2010s, Masumura Jushichi's timeless tale was awarded the 21st Japan Media Arts Festival's New Face Award in 2018.
Masumura released the manga's original version in 2016, and Kadokawa serialized the manga in its Monthly Comic Beam magazine in 2019. Kadokawa published two compiled book volumes of the manga in 2020 and 2021, respectively.
Glacier Bay Books' campaign has 315 backers and US$36,147 of pledge out of its US$60,000 goal as of press time. The campaign will end on September 11.
Sources: Email correspondence, Kickstarter
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.
