At Sakura Con, Yen Press announced three new light novel licenses:
- The Saga of Evil Tanya — by Carlo Zen (art by Shinobu Shinotsuki)
- Regarding Reincarnating as a Slime — by Fuse (art by Mitz Vah)
- So I’m a Spider, So What? — by Okina Baba (art by Asahiro Kakashi)
As far as I can tell, there weren’t any release windows announced yet. All three titles initially began as web novels in Japan. The Saga of Evil Tanya recently had an anime adaptation, which you can watch streaming on Crunchyroll. Also note that the manga for Evil Tanya was announced to be localized by Yen Press.
There were also two Sword Art Online manga licensed: Sword Art Online Calibur, and Sword Art Online: Alternative – Gun Gale Online. No word on the Gun Gale light novels getting licensed — perhaps those will come later.
The Saga of Evil Tanya Synopsis
At the very edge of the front lines stands a young girl. She has golden hair, blue eyes, and pale, almost translucent skin. Her name is Tanya Degruechaff, and she will join the ranks of the Imperial Army’s Military Mages to become one of the most feared figures in this new world…
Regarding Reincarnating as a Slime Synopsis
Living alone and never having had a girlfriend, 37-year-old Satoru Mikami is dissatisfied with how his life has turned out. But after dying at the hands of a robber, he awakens to a fresh start in a new world…as a slime monster.
So I’m a Spider, So What? Synopsis
I used to be a normal high school girl but in the blink of an eye, I woke up in a place I’d never seen before and--and I was reborn as a spider?!
Spider and slime have piqued my interest with those short descriptions. Especially spider. Curious, when was the last time we had a female protagonist in a licensed LN? I am watching Tanya and liking it a lot. I will give the LN a one volume try.
For female leads, there are the two isekai series licensed by Cross Infinite World (Violet Knight, Silver Siren). And then there are a few titles coming out this summer, actually. Sound Euphonium, Magical Girl Raising Project, and Mikagura School Suite. Your Name too, if you wish to count that.
The anime folks on my Twitter feed overall didn’t seem to like the Tanya anime much, but it appears that it has a pretty big following everywhere else online. I don’t know much about it, other than the protagonist makes a lot of scary faces.
There’s been a certain demand of ‘sociopathic characters who get things done efficiently’ for several years now — the most famous one I know of being Moonlight Sculptor. Tanya also seems to draw on the hard military fiction crowd… but alas, I didn’t manage to get very far before its mixture of ‘9y/o himmler’ and ‘military porn’ crossed the line for me.
Cho are you planning to review Violet Knight also? Curious.
Thanks for the insight on Tanya. It seems like some interesting articles could be written in relationship to politics and whatnot in the real world. I’m probably not the one to do so though.
Violet Knight is on my to read list… IDK when I’ll get around to it.
I dislike a Youjo Senki English name. I have no idea why they push “Evil” in name, maybe for marketing purposes? I would prefer something like “Young girl war chronicles”.
Evil is cool now~
I wonder why they call it “Saga of Evil Tanya” instead of “Saga of Tanya the Evil”, since it’s the original title. Sounds better in my opinion.
I agree, Tanya the Evil sounds much better. I’m not sure why the name is different from what Crunchyroll went with.
AM I EVEN ALIVE RIGHT NOW?!?
I’m currently following these titles on the fan translation side and I love them. Now they might go overseas? I just hope the translation isn’t too bad.