Yen Press


Yen Press, LLC is an American manga and graphic novel publisher co-owned by Kadokawa Corporation and Hachette Book Group. It published Yen Plus, a monthly comic anthology, between 2008 and 2013. In addition to translated material, Yen Press has published original series, most notably a manga adaptation of James Patterson's Maximum Ride and Svetlana Chmakova's Nightschool.

History

Yen Press was founded in 2006 by former Borders Group buyer Kurt Hassler and DC Comics VP Rich Johnson. In July 2007, it was announced that Yen Press was to absorb ICEkunion, a Korean publisher that had been publishing manhwa in the United States. While the manga titles bearing ICEkunion's label would be continued to be sold in stores, subsequent printings would bear the Yen Press logo. Hassler assured fans, "We plan to pick up all the existing titles...We’re going to continue everything, so fans shouldn’t worry. None of these series are going to fall into a void.”
The first issue of Yen Press's comic magazine Yen Plus was published on July 29, 2008. The magazine became online only in 2010 and was discontinued altogether in 2013.
In 2009, Yen Press announced that it had acquired the rights to Kiyohiko Azuma's manga Yotsuba&! and Azumanga Daioh from their former licensee, A.D. Vision. In September 2009, Yen Press reissued the first five volumes of Yotsuba&!, in addition to publishing the sixth volume; Azumanga Daioh was reissued with a new translation in December 2009.
On April 11, 2016, it was announced that Yen Press would function as a joint venture between Hachette Book Group and major Japanese publisher Kadokawa Dwango, with Kadokawa owning 51% of the company.
In 2017, Yen Press launched JY, an imprint for publishing graphic novels aimed towards middle grade readers.

Titles

Original series

† - Digital distribution rights only due to being a Square Enix title. Viz Media has the rights for series' paperback releases.

Manhwa

European titles

* - Published under the JY imprint
+ - Serialized in Yen Plus