New York Comic Con News:  At NYCC, Kodansha America unveiled ten new manga series that will debut in North America in 2017 including Fairy Tail: Rhodonite, the second volume in a spin-off shonen manga series written by Fairy Tail creator Hiro Mashima and drawn by Kyouto Shibano.   This volume focuses on the adventures of the tough and lovable Gajeel Redfox.

Of the nine other new manga licenses announced at the NYCC, four are shojo (girls) comics including the Kiragami Defense Squad, a 3-volume (and still ongoing), a series by Lily Hoshino (Otome Yokai Zakuro) that features lots of bishonen (gorgeous guys) in a typical high school setting.

High school is also the setting for Rin Mikimoto’s Kiss Me at the Stroke of Midnight, a 3-volume (ongoing) shojo series that plays fast and loose with the conventions of the subgenre that follows a shy girl in love with a hunky and popular guy.

The protagonist of Anashin’s Waiting for Spring, an ongoing shojo series that has already reached five volumes in Japan, is also a shy high school girl though her story involves an entire basketball team composed of good looking boys.

Mei Morino Wake Up Sleeping Beauty, which has reached four volumes in Japan, is a different sort of shojo title—the protagonist is a high school boy who gets a job as the caretaker of a spooky mansion, and must overcome his fear of the supernatural to win the heart of the mysterious girl who lives there.

In addition to the four shojo titles, Kodansha is also adding a josei (for late teen and adult women) series, Kore Yamazaki’s Frau Faust, an ongoing series that has reached three volumes in Japan, and represents an ingenious reworking of the Faust legend with a bespectacled female protagonist.

The two new shonen (boys) series slated to debut in 2017 including Musawo Tsumugi’s Love and Lies, a 4-volume (ongoing) series that is set in a future Japan where all marriages are arranged and dictated by the government at the mandatory age of 16, but the teenage protagonist of Love and Lies is in trouble because he is love with a beautiful classmate; and Hiroyuki’s Ahogaru: Clueless Girl, a 4-panel high school humor strip that will appeal to fans of Azumanga Daioh and similar works.

The other two new licenses announced at NYCC are seinen (older male teens and young adults) series including Fuse’s Regarding My Reincarnation as a Slime, an ongoing  (2 volumes so far) series about a 37-year-old man who is killed, but gets chance to resume his life in a fantasy game, but there is a catch, he is now a blind slime with magical powers; and Haruko Ichikawa’s Land of the Lustrous, a science fiction series set in the distant future in which immortal and genderless life forms known as “Gems” inhabit the Earth.