Last week light novel series Rising of The Shield Hero was licensed, and it didn’t exactly leap off the page in anyone’s memory. So, I decided to find out just what this series is and even talked to the managing director who licensed it. Let’s break it down simply.
What is Rising of The Shield Hero?
Sometime before 2013, Aneko Yusagi began posting his LN online (Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari) for anyone to read. Just like some LN authors before him (Reki Kawahara of course), his novel got popular online, and it then got picked up by Media Factory. The material was collected and published in 2013.
The actual story half reminds me of Ixion Saga DT, makes me think back to Outbreak Company, and then of course you get the fantasy elements from many works in the genre: Naofumi Iwatani is an otaku who doesn’t have the most charm in the world. He somehow gets summoned into a parallel universe and happens to be one of the four heroes that feature a legendary weapon: the shield. His is the weakest of the four weapons though, so he has to use his shield to survive and actually become a legendary hero, despite being in a situation where he’s alone and out of money.
Who licensed this series?
One Peace Books, who has published titles like Ikeda’s Whispered Words and recently put out the manga version of Aquarion Evol, will be bringing over the LN and the manga series. Robert McGuire, the managing director of the company, confirmed its release dates (September 15, 2015 for Vol 1, October 20th for Vol 2 of the LN, November 17 for Vol 1 of the manga) via email. Glenn Robinson (The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition) will translate both series, and there’s no announced letterer for the manga at this time.
Why was this licensed?
1)
“This is a official licensed English version of the series,” mentioned Robert as I asked why people should look forward to this series this year. “And as far as I know,” he continued, “will be the only in print version in English available in the world.”
2)
“It is a forerunner in the increasingly popular sword and game genre and a must have for hard core gamers and light novel lovers alike.” So, like titles Log Horizon, SAO, Accel World, etc., it looks like there may be a market for fantasy works over here, particularly for LNs, at least for now since the “re-birth” of LNs in the West is still to be determined.
3)
It fits what One Peace Books already brings over: Japanese literature.
So…will One Peace Books be licensing more LNs?
“It’s really just too early to say whether what we might or might not license in the future.” As this being the company’s first LN announcement, maybe it is too early to see if they’ll be announcing more titles in the future, so Robert couldn’t elaborate more than that. But naturally, if sales do well for this title, then chances are this won’t be their only LN series release.
So…will it do well?
Not sure. I can only judge by the art, it…currently doesn’t look special. But it is a LN, so the text will be important. But from what I can tell, it sounds like something I’ve seen before. I’ll probably want to check it out since my LN backlog is, well, nonexistent of course.
Still, I’m certain none of us were sure, aside from Yen Press and Vertical, of what publisher would get into the LN licensing spree. We’ll have to see if One Peace Books will step in for the foreseeable future.