Three manga publishers have announced that they will slow print releases in the coming months in response to the coronavirus crisis, with some variations in approach, citing disruption to distribution, retail, and consumer demand.
Yen Press will release its planned output for April as scheduled, then spread the releases planned for May through August over an additional month, to September. None of the titles originally planned for September will be released that month.
Yen will continue to release digital and print formats at the same time.
Meanwhile, Kodansha Comics and Vertical announced that they will push back print release dates for many of its volumes planned for Spring and Summer 2020 to later in the year, while keeping to the originally planned dates for digital release. Key launches including Wave and Listen to Me!, and key ongoing series Tales of Berseria Vol. 3 and Drifting Dragons Vol. 4 will be released as originally scheduled.
We reached out to VIZ Media last week, and the leading manga publisher is currently maintaining its original release schedule (see “VIZ Continues Shipping Manga to Book Channel”).