Kodama Tales Licenses Five More Manga Series: Crows, Cyberblue, Beautiful Place and Others
According to an announcement on June 29, 2026, independent manga publisher Kodama Tales has expanded its catalog by licensing five more manga series. The licensed series include Hiroshi Takahashi's legendary delinquent manga Crows, along with the same author's Cyberblue and Beautiful Place, as well as Horizon and Casino Gui. The company plans to publish these series in English in digital and print formats.
Crows, in particular, is a cult series revolving around high school gangs and street fights that gained a massive fanbase in the 1990s and 2000s. With this work, Hiroshi Takahashi played a key role in shaping the delinquent genre; its sequel series Worst and the film adaptation Crows Zero are also considered milestones of the genre. Kodama Tales' involvement is practically welcome news for collectors who have been waiting for an official English release for years. This classic, previously only readable through semi-legal scanlations, will now meet readers through official channels.
As for the other licensed series: Cyberblue is a sci-fi action story by Takahashi focusing on cybernetic bodies and artificial intelligence; Beautiful Place is a more melancholic drama-romance work from his pen. Horizon and Casino Gui are works by different authors in the same genre, with details not yet fully disclosed. Since its founding in 2023, Kodama Tales has been known for focusing particularly on Japanese classics and series that are fading into obscurity. Having previously published early volumes of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure or variants of Fist of the North Star, the company offers a treasure for readers tracing the trail of 1990s Japanese pop culture with this move.
This licensing is part of a trend of independent publishers reviving cult series overlooked by larger companies. Especially the English adaptation of a work like Crows, which previously had a complete release only in Japan, has generated great excitement among fans of the genre. Kodama Tales has not yet announced a release schedule, but the series are expected to be released gradually within the next year. The publisher's official website and social media channels are worth following for details such as pre-orders and cover images.
