Having seen just a few Japanese companies set up shop in the US to bring out their properties on their own and failing hard, it’s welcome to see an approach that should work for the better. Kadokawa has bought a 51% stake in Yen Press, a subsidiary of Hachette Books, and have formed Yen Press LLC which the two larger companies own. Through this, Yen Press will be releasing quite a few Kadokawa based works in the coming years which will be detailed some time in the future. Yen Press has been on a strong run with light novels in the past two years and accelerated it a lot in the past year as well.
Yen’s Kurt Hassler will remain at the head of the new company as Managing Director and Publisher. It was noted in the press release that the company is the second largest English manga and light novel publishing company in North America.
For fans, this is likely to not be a noticeable event at all beyond an increase in what comes out and the quicker schedule that might come from it since Kadokawa will have a greater interest in promoting their top tier books legally around the world through Yen.
Michael Pietsch, CEO of HBG, says, “This new partnership with KADOKAWA is an exciting opportunity for HBG — the venture will further strengthen our Yen Press brand, and allow us to leverage KADOKAWA’s superb reputation in both manga and light novel genres, as well as their digital distribution and anime platforms. Combining KADOKAWA’s expertise in these categories, and HBG’s excellent sales, distribution and publishing support services, Yen Press will be well positioned to continue its remarkable growth. And this important new partnership is in extremely able hands, with Kurt Hassler as Publisher – no one is more perfectly suited to lead this new venture than Kurt, who has built the publishing program to where it is today.“
Check out the full press release here.