WITH THE LIGHT was far from a shot in the dark. It is fantastic material that we felt strongly upon our first introduction to the property had a place in the market…although possibly a place other than the manga section of the bookstores. Autism is a growing problem affecting more and more families both in North America and abroad. There was a built-in and deserving consumer base there. Apart from being an overwhelming critical success, the book has surpassed all of our sales expectations and is significantly outselling several new, what one might consider at a glance more “commercially viable” series. It was not for nothing that we chose to make this title our entry into the market.

Now as for the idea that we had a “notoriously difficult time” obtaining licenses in a crowded marketplace, I’m really not sure what would have given you that impression. Honestly we’ve been pleasantly surprised with how warmly we’ve been received on the licensing front. We launched with several high-profile properties which debuted as some of the bestselling new series in the market, established licensing relationships with four publishing houses in Japan (that have been disclosed so far), and we have some incredible new announcements just waiting in the wings… tease tease

As for the ICE Kunion acquisition, that was hardly a licensing grab on our part and frankly was never a part of our initial business strategy. What was a part of our original business plan was doing manga adaptations of some of our parent publisher’s highest profile properties (such as the adaptation of James Patterson’s #1 New York Times bestselling MAXIMUM RIDE series that was just announced last month at the New York Anime Festival) as well as starting up an original monthly anthology magazine to highlight our licenses in the crowded market you referenced earlier. To do that, we strongly felt we needed an editor with real experience both developing talent at a profession level and managing the rigorous schedule of a monthly publication. To that end, we hired JuYoun Lee to head up both these initiatives. Her experience working in Seoul made her more qualified than anyone else we could have hoped to find. Now since JuYoun was almost single-handedly running the ICE Kunion imprint already, Sigongsa (ICE K’s parent publisher) offered us the opportunity to assume the line, and since we love the material and wanted to see it continue, that’s just what we did. Nothing more to it than that.

So there’s a quick insight into the happenings at Yen Press for you. Make no mistake, we’re not particularly inclined to taking shots in the dark, and we came to play!