Seven Seas Announces Yuri, Memoir Manga Releases
In amongst more isekai titles — although the press releases meant I learned that word, which describes a normal person trapped in another universe, usually a fantasy or video game world — Seven Seas will be releasing some interesting-sounding titles next year.
The most prominent is Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey, a manga autobiography by Akiko Higashimura, who created the much-loved Princess Jellyfish and Tokyo Tarareba Girls. It’s due out May 21, 2019.
High schooler Akiko has big plans to become a popular mangaka before she even graduates, but she needs to get much better at drawing if she ever wants to reach her goal. Looking for an easy fix, she signs up for an art class, thinking all her problems will soon be solved. She’s in for a surprise: her new instructor is a sword-wielding taskmaster who doesn’t care about manga one bit. But maybe this unconventional art teacher is just what she needs to realize her dreams!
Also of interest is a yuri (girls’ love) title about working women called I Married My Best Friend to Shut My Parents Up. (Great title!) It’s the story of a young professional woman who creates a fake marriage with a female co-worker to keep her parents off her back about being single. As told by Kodama Naoko, the fake relationship might turn into something more. It’s due out June 11, 2019.
There’s also a more “sensual” yuri collection by Nagashiro Rouge coming May 7. Eve x Eve contains six short stories by the same author.
(The isekai titles are My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! by Satoru Yamaguchi and Nami Hidaka, which puts a woman into an otome (romance) video game, out July 30, 2019; Mushoku Tensei: Roxy Gets Serious by Rifujin na Magonote and Shoko Iwami, a spin-off of Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation out April 30, 2019; and Skeleton Knight in Another World by Ennki Hakari, KeG, and Akira Sawano, in which a gamer wakes up in a game as a skeleton. The manga starts July 9 with the light novels beginning earlier, on June 11.)