Hanashi Media - New LN Publisher?
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A new supposed English LN publisher has popped up, claiming to be based in Delaware.
On the website it says the following LNs are licensed by them:
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The Death Mage that Doesn’t Want a Fourth Time
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The Misfit of Demon King Academy
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I Got Caught up in a Hero Summons, But the Other World Was… at Peace!
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Black Iron Magician and Ferrous Disciple
Their website is completely bare-bones and doesn’t have any info on release dates, ebook/physical options, or whatever. They have a twitter but no public tweets yet. https://twitter.com/hanashimedia
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At the bottom of the main page is the following dismissible message: This is a demo store for testing purposes — no orders shall be fulfilled.
ETA: I'm not finding useful sources to confirm this is a for realz thing. A web search using "Hanashi Media" and Light Novel pulls up their sites, and their sites alone..
I searched on two of the four titles they list, and found no mention of them being licensed to them other than Novel Updates, and, well, there is nothing there indicating that their source was anything other than the Hanashi Media test sites...
I haven't dived into the authors' twitter feeds as of yet, but that's the next obvious step. -
Well if this is real, then they've managed to pick up some pretty well known titles and even one that would likely be considered a kadokawa prestige title.
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Interesting ISBN they've put on their book covers...
https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/book/gesammelte-werke-in-deutscher-sprache-9783161484100
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Publisher response to inquiries on Twitter:
"Sorry, this is a mistake!
We are not the licensors. Our website is a beta version still a bit buggy used in internal processes.
For now we will not publish any of the novels listed there.
Please wait for the actual announcements. Sorry for the inconvenience."
https://twitter.com/hanashimedia/status/1448455347513950218?s=21So, false alarm or premature leak?
Based on what some redditors have found, it looks like the company is on file in Delaware, for what it's worth.
License Wishlist: Kino's Journey, Crest/Banner anthology, SukaMoka
Favorite JNC Series: Bookworm, Faraway Paladin, Dendro, Grimgar, Crest/Banner of the Stars, Tearmoon Empire, Skull Dragon's Precious Daughter, Apothecary Diaries, Otome Heroine's Fight -
@yumenokage
Premature I think.
You probably don't go through with English cover design on something that you don't have the licence to. -
@timmaaah it would be an odd choice, but they may have had to do some to demonstrate to publishers what they were capable of, and it would hardly be the first company to accidentally aim too high in their mockups.
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@georgemto said in Hanashi Media - New LN Publisher?:
@timmaaah it would be an odd choice, but they may have had to do some to demonstrate to publishers what they were capable of, and it would hardly be the first company to accidentally aim too high in their mockups.
You can create a mockup of a site and make it available to select others without making it accessible to the general public; if we can do that with the 'new' site at LNT for bug checking, these chaps bloody well ought to have been able to pull that off as well.
Instead, they released it into the wild.
#notimpressed #hubris #idiocy
2023-01-27
As folks are still upvoting this, I should mention here that it turned out to be unintended, a true error on their part that it went live at that time.And that they're doing a damn fine job now that they have gotten licenses and started publishing.
Solid translations.
Excellent turn around time.
Quality support with clear lines of communication.
Notification of where you should be able to pre-order from when.
Notification of Amazon delisting them for the usual dumb reasons with them apologizing for that occurring (the apology I feel is going too far, Amazon is an ass and it isn't their fault, but they still see it as impacting their customers even if at a remove.)
Ability to purchase from their own website.Really, a class act all around.
All your libraries are belong to us. | Aub Rozemyne | Those who do not read shall not eat.
Help me, Satomi-san. You're my only hope. | Fight! Yurika! | WW[R|S]D
Croquettes, Baguettes, and Books, oh my! -
This could just be good marketing as they have a heap of people talking about them in different places on the internet and they haven't even announced a book yet or "officially" launched a site yet...
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@timmaaah said in Hanashi Media - New LN Publisher?:
This could just be good marketing as they have a heap of people talking about them in different places on the internet and they haven't even announced a book yet or "officially" launched a site yet...
I've always had problems with the "If it attracts attention, it's good" way of looking at things.
There is such a thing as bad attention; just ask Philip Morris and various other firms who've had to completely revamp their marketing as a result of incidents in their past...
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That only works if they have in fact got the licenses for those LNs if they don't it just breeds resentment and lack of faith from the consumer.
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@timmaaah
The only problem with that is if they don't actually have the license and they piss off the Japanese publishers for giving false information. -
Yea I honestly can’t imagine how a no-name publisher got prestige titles such as Misfit Demon Academy or Death Mage. Those have been widely requested and I don’t know how they could get them instead established Kadowkawa partners such as YP or JNC. Even Sol Press had established some sort of “credibility” by releasing low-tier LNs first before baiting the JP publishers into licensing them Chivalry of a Failed Knight (RIP). Granted I guess Tentai did also get World Teacher out of nowhere too. I just don’t understand how these nobodies are able to out-negotiate the big players already in the English market (or the latter are for whatever reason uninterested in these prestige titles).
I’m not holding my breath, but the fact that they already have fully edited English covers doesn’t sound like random chance. And them saying they’re not the licensors on twitter could just be them trying to cover their asses and not break NDA if the website hadn’t already done that. -
Another tweet someone posted on the JNC Discord:
https://twitter.com/HanashiMedia/status/1448488662258237442
None of these series have been licensed. Not by us, at least. What you could see on the site were mockups shown during talks.
We will make a proper debut soon! In the meantime, it was a pleasure to meet you in advance! -
They've now edited their website to remove the book covers.
I've emailed NU to let them know the situation, so hopefully they'll revert the relevant novel pages to show them as not having been licensed.
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@legitpancake Hanashi might be a a new established Kadokawa partner.
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They announced their first two licenses today. https://twitter.com/HanashiMedia/status/1495460185640480769
Another World Survival: Min-Maxing My Support and Summoning Magic!
- Publisher: Futabasha
- Bookwalker
To kill a the bully that tormented him, Kazuhisa dug a pitfall in the forest by the boarding school he attended. However, after an Earth Quake, what he stabbed in the trap wasn't his tormentor, but an Orc leveling him up. With the entire school transported to another world, he must now grow in strength in a near apocalyptic scenario for the school.
The Evolution Fruit: Before I Knew it, My Life Had It Made!
- Publisher: Futabasha
- Bookwalker
One day, a man claiming to be a god suddenly hacks a certain school's intercoms, ordering all of its students to team up and prepare to be transported to another world. There, they will be given special skills in the hopes that they become that world's heroes and defeat the Demon King that ravages the land.
The initial transfer is a success. However, Seiichi Hiiragi, who suffers from his classmates' constant bullying due to his somewhat undesirable appearance, is left behind as no one is willing to be his teammate. Nevertheless, the self-proclaimed god decides to send Seiichi to the parallel world and lets him join his peers. Unfortunately, this fateful ordeal causes Seiichi to arrive at a location deep in the forest, far not only from his schoolmates but from human civilization as well.
Desperately searching for a way to change his predicament, Seiichi's miserable days only seem to continue to worsen. Yet when all hope seems lost, Seiichi discovers a strange fruit known as the "Fruit of Evolution"—which may be his first step toward a significantly better future.
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@aruseus493 said in Hanashi Media - New LN Publisher?:
The Evolution Fruit: Before I Knew it, My Life Had It Made!
The anime for this is dumb silly fun if you don't take it seriously (and they didn't seem to either). I enjoyed it enough to want to read more of the story.
Here's hoping they manage a better release schedule than Tentai and of course Sol Press (RIP).
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@harmlessdave said in Hanashi Media - New LN Publisher?:
@aruseus493 said in Hanashi Media - New LN Publisher?:
The Evolution Fruit: Before I Knew it, My Life Had It Made!
The anime for this is dumb silly fun if you don't take it seriously (and they didn't seem to either). I enjoyed it enough to want to read more of the story.Here's hoping they manage a better release schedule than Tentai and of course Sol Press (RIP).
That's actually a pretty good description of the whole story.
Lets see:
Green's Theorem
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@piisfun - you probably should spoiler those last 3, they take place after the anime.
