Ai no Kusabi - volume 7?

[sun22]

Hello,
I'm a fan and follower of the series, and found Ai no Kusabi volume 6 one of the strongest so far. However, it turned out that it is still not the last volume. Yet I do not see any planned release of volume 7. Is there any tentative time when June is planning to publish the next volume?
Thank you very much!

[chibi-oni]

There are no Ai No Kusabi vol. 7 plans for Juné at this time. I am told the volume is not out yet in Japan. Tokuma, a Japanese publisher, has taken over the title and begun republishing. They may get to vol. 7 possibly late this year or early next. We originally licensed the title from Seibido Shuppan.

It's possible we could re-license with Tokuma and continue the series, but this would not happen for a while, if so.

[sun22]

Chibi-oni,
Thank you very much for the answer; the information and such quick response are much appreciated.

I've been buying DMP releases for a long time now, and bought most of them. I usually really like what you guys do, and am grateful. However, imagine being an Ai No Kusabi fan, who's heavily invested in the series (both emotionally and financially, as 6 volumes cost me about $60 plus shipping). And, only after 6 volumes do I learn that the prospects of seeing the conclusion of this series are very bleak. I do hope that DMP / June will try hard to get all next volume(s), as this could be a HUGE letdown for a lot of your fans. I understand that the change of the Japanese publisher is beyond your control, but I would think that the author and the publisher would be interested in getting their work published / concluded in the US, and hopefully would co-operate. I'm becoming very unsure if I should be getting ANY new DMP's series now - until I'm 100% sure those are complete, as it seems that there is no guarantee that even a fairly long series is going to be completed.

[chibi-oni]

We are trying to continue with Tokuma, but these kind of licensing issues take time to sort out. We will try to resolve it for the fans, though.

To date, we have published all of Ai No Kusabi that already exists in Japan. It's basically an ongoing series - when vol. 7 is eventually published by Tokuma, it will be new material that hasn't appeared before.

[sun22]

THANKS A LOT, Chibi-oni!! I really appreciate all the effort and all the work you guys do!!! I'll keep my fingers crossed re: all further AnK volumes and your negotiations with the new Japanese publisher.

[Gladys-chan]

While we are on this topic, I'd like to know if the novel has been written before or after the OAV Anime.
Thanx

[aoi_aka]

The OAV is based on the novels.

I saw the re-releases at Amazon JP and am planning to get them even though I can't read a lick of Japanese. I do wonder if the art is newer since the art didn't really give me a nice visual of the novel. We'll see when I have them in my hands.

[Galynthia]

Thanks for the heads up on Volume 7. I hope you all are able to secure the rights to it because there are a lot of us older fans who have been waiting for an english translation for years and were very excited about your release of this series. We'd hate to be stuck one volume short of the finish!

[golden_bastet]

Just wanted to add my voice to the others here.

As was mentioned earlier - since the books are the first official English translation of Ai no Kusabi they're the only real source of the details sacrificed to fit the original OAV into two hours. I can't tell you how thrilled I was to find out that they were coming out, so I could fill in those details. Right now I have the original OAV, the six books, and probably will get the new OAV at some point. I'm crossing my fingers that you're able to get the rights to continue the English translation for the book because this is probably one of the best yaoi works out there.

[Flavy]

Big supporter of this thread!!! Please get vol 7 and finish!! You do not finish or underprint way too many of your titles!