Viz Media license rescues Finder manga under SuBLime imprint

You may or may not have seen the recent and rather acrimonious parting of ways between between Libre Publishing and Digital Manga Inc, with the former ending the partnership with the latter - a termination which DMI called "unjust" and "unfair to English readers", to which Libre themselves responded with dismay at the abrupt manner with which DMI took their comments into the public domain.

It seemed that the real loser here could indeed have been the boy's love manga reader with the loss of access to English versions of Libre Publishing's material totalling over 70 titles - however, Viz Media have now stepped into the breach with their SuBLime imprint to move towards filling at least part of that gap.

The starting point of this is the acquisition of Ayano Yamane's boy's love series Finder, with the publisher aaiming to release its eighth volume next March before going back and publishing prior, previously available volumes under their own banner from May 2017 onwards.

While Viz Media have noted that it won't be feasible to rescue every title previously published by DMI, they are looking into continuing other titles within Libre Publishing's titles. Let's hope that they at least manage to keep some of the most popular series in print (or even make some available as digital-only releases) lest they slip into the ether in the English-speaking world.