December 2022 Seven Seas Pubwatch

December has arrived in style! Peep me preparing to watch all the Christmas movies from Die Hard to Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz to Mean Girls. There’s a lot to take in this final month of the year: some hotly anticipated pre-orders coming our way, some intriguing Isekai titles and more! Jump in, and take a seat as we get into it!

 

BL Lovers Unite:

 

Series: Entangled with You: The Garden of 100 Grasses

Story & Art by: Aki Aoi

Release Date: 12/27/2022

Format: Manga

Translation: airco

Adaptation: Cae Hawksmoor

Lettering: Rina Mapa

I am a huuuuuuge fan of fairy tales and folklore and seeing this title totally gave me slight Beauty and The Beast vibes. Aki Aoi’s self-contained Boys’ Love fairy tale set in the deep, dark woods and features a promise that must be kept. Marcel’s sister, Bertha is injured in the forest while gathering herbs and a fearsome horned man appears, offering help–in exchange for a promise to be kept in the future. Some ten years later, Marcel returns to the woods, steeling himself for death and finding the opposite.

There’s a gentle soul who quietly exists and baffles Marcel who was willing to sacrifice himself for his darling sister. As this twitter user so eloquently phrased it: a ”Monster boy romance manga” with a “misunderstood horned gentleman” is totally up my alley. The artwork in Entangled with you: The Garden of 100 Grasses looks incredible and the story is one I want to read. Previewing some of the first pages reveals the starting dynamic of two people, er, individuals who vastly misunderstood each other meeting again and it looks to be a read that I’ll devour as soon as I get home from buying it at my local B & N after Christmas.

 

A Slice of Isekai, Anyone?

 

 

7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! (Manga)

Story & Art by: Hinoki Kino, Touko Amekawa  & Wan☆Hachipisu

Release Date: 12/13/22

Format: Manga

Translation: Hana Allen

Adaptation: Veles Svitlychny

Lettering: JM Iitomi Crandall

 

Look. I don’t often read many manga alongside the light novels BUT  I have been enjoying 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!, too much not to share! So the story goes that every time noblewoman Rishe turns twenty, she dies and is reincarnated to the day she gets dumped and has her engagement to the crown prince annulled.  She’s lived several interesting lives: She has been a traveling merchant who has seen the wonders of the world, an apothecary who has used medicine to save lives, and even a maid supporting a noblewoman getting married, happily. This time around before she can even leave the grand party that serves as the catalyst for the emergence for the beginning of her new life, she meets a face she never wants to see again. And before her night is through she meets him again, this time he has a marriage proposal!! He’s a Crown Prince from a neighboring land and also–the man who killed her in one of her previous lives when she was a knight.

His name is Arnold and he’s awfully curious about Rishe and her impressive skill set from everything from basic knowledge of plants and herbs for creating medicine to self-defense and how she knows how to correctly hold a sword. Rishe’s acceptance of her proposal with strings attached means she has to put away her fear and think of how to stay alive. Her other goals include trying to prevent an upcoming war that consumes the land, and attempting to make society better for women–even creating a training ground for handmaidens to learn how to protect themselves and their masters. The light novel is well-written and very descriptive, I gravitated to it first before reading the manga adaptation–which is a first for me.  The manga kept the pace and I even lent it out to a friend who is interested in the re-incarnated villianess genre. If you love your Reincarnation drama via manga in the Sho-Josei genre (Shoujo/Josei genre-blurring) with LOTS of surprises, I would recommend as volume two of both the manga and light novels hit stores this month!

 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! (Light Novel)

Story & Art by: Touko Amekawa & Wan☆Hachipisu
Release Date: 12/06/2022
Early Digital: 11/10/2022
Format: Light Novel
Translation: Amy Osteraas
Adaptation: Aysha U. Farah
Lettering and Retouch: Clay Gardner

 

HIGHLY ANTICIPATED:

 

Series: Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii

Story & Art by: Asuka Konishi

Release Date: 12/06/2022

Format: Manga

Translation: M. Fulcrum

Adaptation: Sophia Tyrant

Lettering: Arbash Mughal

 

Saving The Best For Last!!!!!!!!! Best known for their English language debut, Haru’s Curse–the manga reading fandom has been waiting for this next work by Asuka Konishi. What we know is that this new release is a romantic crime drama about a yakuza granddaughter who is sent from Osaka to marry the grandson of a rival family in Tokyo. Yoshino grew up the sheltered yakuza princess of the largest crime family in Osaka, the Somei. It has been an unusual life due to her family’s dangerous reputation and her beautiful but resting bitch face. It has also been a particularly lonely one as she’s never had a boyfriend or even a trusted circle of friends.  When her grandfather signs a truce with the Tokyo-based Miyama crime family, he offers her up as a  bride to the Miyama leader’s grandson as a true!

On the surface her betrothed is normal…he’s a charming high schooler who is popular and looks out for her at school and outside. But Yoshino soon learns that Kirishima Miyama is a violent sadomasochist who throws her for a loop: he falls in love with her after she doesn’t allow him to walk all over her. Showing a backbone, staring him dead in the face, and not being intimidated, hilariously, was the key to his heart? Now, a high schooler who is away from home for the first time she’s pressed on what her next moves should be. With the East-West peace treaty on the line, she doesn’t want to let his family down but most of all she’s not here for letting Kirishima succeed in scaring her off. Look, I bought this manga a few days ago and I’ve already re-read it four times. I NEED MORE OF THIS. Konishi does an amazing job in the setup of these two battling characters and how twisted this new, emerging relationship of theirs is shaping up to be one I keep rereading.

WRAP UP:

No new news as of this week from the United Workers of Seven Seas, the union at Seven Seas but please keep their site bookmarked or follow them on Twitter for updates on their next moves and how best to support them. As we’ve seen in the later months of this year with strikes from the railroad industry to schools and universities nationwide, people desire and will fight for better working conditions. Let us all be a part of the equation that brings the best results to the table for workers everywhere, involved.

If you were like me and confused as heck about what the GO MANGA Store was– here is a handy TikTok video helping to explain it and how to access it:

 

And that’s all for this month’s Seven Seas Entertainment Pubwatch and for 2022! I picked up doing the pubwatch as I was inspired by the great work  Tia Kalla did originally. I’ve really enjoyed taking up the mantle and hope I’ve done a decent job. See you all in the (hopefully) joyous new year!

 

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Carrie McClain

Carrie McClain

Carrie McClain is a Southern Californian native who navigates the world as writer, editor and media scholar who firmly believes that we can and we should critique the media we consume. The X-Men were some of her first best friends. She is forever chasing the nostalgic high of attending school book fairs. As a retired magical girl, you can usually find her buried under a pile of Josei manga.

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