Kodansha Comics Adds A Silent Voice, Maria the Virgin Witch Manga

North American manga publisher Kodansha Comics announced at its panel at Anime Expo on Saturday that it has licensedYoshitoki Ōima's A Silent Voice (Koe no Katachi) and Masayuki Ishikawa's Maria the Virgin Witch (Junketsu no Maria) manga.

Kodansha describes A Silent Voice as follows:

A Silent Voice by Yoshitoki Ōima opens with a young deaf girl transferring into a new school. She quickly becomes the target of a vicious bully, but as the years pass, the boy learns what loneliness feels like, and seeks her out to apologize. Thus begins a tumultuous and emotional story that anyone who grew up different – or had trouble understanding someone different – will identify with.​

Kodansha will publish the first volume in spring 2015, and will release new volumes every two months.

Ōima began the manga as a one-shot in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine in 2011, and then turned the story into a full series in the main Shonen Magazine last August. Kodansha published the fourth volume in June. Crunchyroll is releasing the series digitally as Kodansha publishes the manga in Japan. Ōima has said that she will end the manga in about two more volumes.


Kodansha describes Maria the Virgin Witch as follows:

From the creator of Moyasimon, Masayuki Ishikawa, Maria the Virgin Witch stars a witch who uses her magic to protect her French village from the ravages of the Hundred Years War, but when her flagrant use of the dark arts attracts the attention of the archangel Michael, she'll be forced to swear an oath of chastity or lose her powers forever!​

Kodansha will release the first volume in the three-volume series in early 2015.

Ishikawa launched the manga in the inaugural issue of Kodansha's good! Afternoon magazine in 2008, and the manga ended its run in the magazine in 2013.

Ishikawa also drew the Moyashimon: Tales of Agriculture manga, which ended in January. Del Rey published part of the manga in North America. Moyashimon inspired two television anime series and a live-action television series.

The third volume of the manga had announced last October that an anime adaptation of the manga had been green-lit.