Libre Publishing Ends Publishing Agreement With Digital Manga, Inc.

Companies to part ways at the end of June 2016.

GARDENA, CA - June 17, 2016 – Digital Manga, Inc., is saddened to announce the end of a long and fruitful partnership with Libre Publishing. Titles affected by this separation include the completed Kizuna series by Kazuma Kodaka and the ongoing Finder series by Ayano Yamane.

For the past decade, Digital Manga, Inc. (DMI), and Libre Publishing have produced great translations of multiple series together for Western yaoi fans. DMI thanks Libre for the publishing rights to almost 70 beloved titles, including Finder, Kizuna, The Devil's Secret by Hinako Takanaga, the Our Kingdom series by Naduki Koujima, and the individual volumes of Yellow by Makoto Tateno. Additionally, DMI and Libre were able to coordinate for the most popular artists—including Ayano Yamane—to visit the United States to meet their English reader fans. Several volumes of Finder reached the top five best sellers on The New York Times Best Manga Sellers list, including volume 7, which debuted at #1 in early 2015.

DMI worked tirelessly to maintain an ongoing relationship with Libre and keep Finder titles in print, even going so far as to implement a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter in order to meet English reader fans' continuing worldwide demand for the series. Libre's unjust termination of the publishing agreement means that DMI's readership will never be able to read Finder volume 8 or the rest of the series in English. DMI president Hikaru Sasahara elaborated, “We are stunned and saddened that Libre has chosen to end our publishing agreement and included ongoing titles like Finder. We believe this is especially unfair to English reader fans since we know it will mean they will not be able to support the artists or publishers and may have to resort to scanlations.”

About Digital Manga Inc.
Located in Gardena, CA, Digital Manga Inc. is one of the industry's most unconventional and innovative companies, specializing in building corporate and cultural bridges from Japan to the West – specifically through the licensing, importation, and preparation of anime (Japanese animation), manga (Japanese comic books) and related merchandise for North America's mainstream and niche markets. In this capacity, DMI serves as a catalyst for the spread of Japanese pop culture institutions into the global arena. The company's imprint lines include DMP (its mainstream imprint), DMP Platinum (its classic manga imprint), JUNÉ (its boys love imprint), 801 MEDIA (its adult boys love imprint), DokiDoki (its exclusive co-publishing imprint with Shinshokan Publishing), DH/DMP (a co-publishing venture with Dark Horse Comics, Project H (its Adult Hentai manga imprint) and DMG (a new forefront for its digital distribution initiative). For more information about Digital Manga Publishing, visit http://www.digitalmanga.com as well as:

www.dmpbooks.com
www.junemanga.com
www.digitalmangaguild.com
www.projecthentai.com
www.akadot.com