Kodansha Print Club Revealed Bringing Digital Favorites to Print

Kodansha Print Club Brings Digital-First Titles To Print Starting December 2024

Kodansha USA Publishing proudly announces the launch of the Kodansha Print Club — a new publishing program aimed at bringing digital-first manga favorites to print, and directly to fans' bookshelves, starting with Love, That's an Understatement; Teppu; and Blade Girl. Kodansha will debut this select roster of currently digital-first series in print through a print-on-demand service coordinated by Penguin Random House and fulfilled by the Ingram Lightning Source. Beginning December 10, 2024, debut Kodansha Print Club titles will be available from online retailers such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Powell's, and more. 

The initial Kodansha Print Club titles will be the unlikely love story between a diligent student and delinquent Love, That's an Understatement by Fujimomo; the action-packed women’s MMA cult classic Teppu by Moare Ohta; and the passionate para-athlete coming-of-age story Blade Girl by Narumi Shigematsu. Volume 1s of each series will be priced at $14.99 USD / $19.99 CAD and will be available to order in print starting tomorrow, with subsequent volumes coming soon.

“In the US, manga has to check a lot of boxes to be viable in the traditional print publishing route. As fans know, there are many deserving stories that could reach more readers if given a physical format. Some folks have been following and championing these series in their digital releases, and it has been encouraging to see how ready people are for them,” says Haruko Hashimoto, Kodansha USA, Sr. Editor, Digital. “Internally, we’re actually quite a small team working on Kodansha Print Club books. Each series, each file takes careful consideration from all sides: editorial, production, design, etc. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s an effort that we’re excited to finally launch. My hope is for the Kodansha Print Club to bring refreshed and improved localizations to long-time fans, and introduce these series to new readers, too. There are a lot of English-language manga to pick from these days, so giving an often-overlooked story another chance at visibility is important. I’m looking forward to seeing if what we’ve curated for you finds a place in your shelf—or your friend’s shelf!—like it did mine.”

“One of the things Kodansha is known for is its sizable digital-first catalog, and ever since the start of the digital program, we’ve noticed fans clamoring to have a number of these series available in print. The Kodansha Print Club is our way of trying to bridge this gap and start fulfilling some of those fan requests,” says Ivan Salazar, Kodansha USA, Sr. Marketing Director. “Across conventions and online, fans have told us how important it is to have a physical copy of their favorite manga—to hold them in your hand, and display them on your shelf—and the Kodansha Print Club is just one more way to respond to manga readers by bringing even more fan-favorite manga into print.”

To purchase Kodansha Print Club titles starting December 10, 2024, customers need only search for print editions of Love, That's an Understatement; Teppu; and Blade Girl Volume 1s from the following online retailers: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Books-A-Million, Kinokuniya, Hudson Booksellers, Powell's, and the Crunchyroll Store, with more retailers to be added in the future. These titles will be available to purchase at both online and physical retailers. If you don't see these titles at your local bookstore, you can ask them to special order it. Shipping of all ordered titles may vary from vendor to vendor and could take longer for international orders.

The launch of the Kodansha Print Club program is a boon to the publisher’s efforts in bringing sought-after digital manga to print and in the hands of fans. Using print-on-demand for these titles expands our ability to bring more digital-first series to print and into the hands of manga readers and retailers. It is also through the continued support of the Kodansha Print Club that the publisher looks to expand the library of digital-first-to-print offerings to include more highly requested series. Kodansha would like to extend an invitation for fans to be part of this program by not only purchasing debuting Kodansha Print Club titles, but also by letting the publisher know which series they would like to see added to this ever-expanding roster. Suggestions, comments, and requests can be submitted via Kodansha’s Publishing suggestion feedback form.

About Love, That's an Understatement: 
Spare eraser? Check. Extra folding umbrella? Check. First aid kit? Check. Cool and collected high school student Risa Amakawa has something in her heavy bag for every situation, and the last thing she needs—or knows how to ask for—is anyone’s help. When she saves a beat-up delinquent in the park one rainy evening, she refuses any sort of repayment. But it turns out that saving the notorious Zen Ohira buys her the attention of some unsavory characters. As Zen keeps swooping in to help her out of one pickle after another, her feelings about relying on anyone but herself—and her feelings toward Zen—slowly begin to change… A new romcom from the author of Lovesick Ellie!

About Teppu:
It’s not easy being good at everything. First-year high school student Natsuo Ishido has always been a gifted athlete, and her ability to easily master every sport has not only bought her a life of boredom, but the resentment of everyone else who has had to work hard for their achievements. Not that Natsuo cares what anyone else thinks. All she longs for is a break from the monotony…for a real challenge worthy of pouring all her efforts into. A rival—an equal—worth beating down, crushing, and demoralizing… That all seems like a pipe dream until a pair of annoyingly peppy transfer students arrive from Brazil and start up a brand-new club that teases the challenge she craves—Mixed Martial Arts.

About Blade Girl:
One year after losing her leg, 16-year-old Rin is tired—tired of the painful physical therapy, tired of being treated differently, and tired of her stupid, heavy, awkward prosthetic leg. All that changes when she encounters the Blade Runners, a group of one-legged athletes who run with “blades”—carbon fiber prosthetics specialized for competitive running—made by their gifted prosthetist, Kazami. The blades are light, flexible, and formidably difficult to control—Rin can barely walk with one, much less sprint. But as she tumbles to the ground again and again, she rediscovers many of the things that she’d forgotten, and finds a new goal: to compete in the Paralympics.