Yen Press simulpubs Napping Princess: The Story of the Unknown Me

One of the anime films we're most curious about this year is director Kenji Kamiyama's Ancien and the Magic Tablet, and although there's no news of any UK screenings of the film at present that doesn't mean we have to go without taking in its story entirely.

The reason for this is that Yen Press have snapped up the manga adaptation of the film, titled  Napping Princess: The Story of the Unknown Me, for a western release, and what's more they're giving the series a "simulpub" treatment, releasing each chapter alongside its Japanese publication.

Here's the synopsis for the film upon which this manga is based:

This fender and genre-bending film takes us into the not-too-distant machine-driven future. Kokone should be diligently studying for her university entrance exams, but she just can't seem to stay awake. Aside from stealing precious study time, her napping is even more distracting, as it brings on strange dreams with warring machines that hint at family secrets that have been dormant for years. She can't ask her father, a hipster mechanic more talented and artful than his job requires, as he's always busy modifying motorcycles and cars in flights of fancy. What are these visions that lead Kokone at once closer to and farther away from her family? Like all the best anime, the film revels in multilayered fantasy to show how sometimes opposites - waking and dreaming, the past and the future - are far more intertwined than they appear.

The first chapter is available now, priced at £1.49, with chapter two arriving on 10th March, with a spin-off manga also being published on 18th March.

You can find more information on the Yen Press web site, while that first chapter is available at ComiXology and other digital retailers.