Yen Press Publishes Napping Princess/Ancien and the Magic Tablet Manga Simultaneously With Japan

Yen Press announced on Monday that it will publish Hana Ichika's Napping Princess: The Story of the Unknown Me (Hirune Hime: Shiranai Watashi no Monogatari or Ancien and the Magic Tablet) manga simultaneously with Japan. The first chapter is available now and the second chapter will be available on March 10. Yen Press will also publish a spinoff on March 18.

The manga began on Monday on Kadokawa's Comic Newtype online manga platform. The first volume will ship on April 10.

The manga adapts the upcoming Hirune Hime: Shiranai Watashi no Monogatari anime film, which will open in Japan on March 18. A spinoff anime short will debut in early March on Hulu Japan. The New York International Children's Film Festival (NYICFF) will screen the film on March 19 in Japanese with English subtitles under the title Ancien and the Magic Tablet.

NYICFF describes the film's story:
This fender and genre-bending film takes us into the not-too-distant machine-driven future. Kokone should be diligently studying for her university entrance exams, but she just can't seem to stay awake. Aside from stealing precious study time, her napping is even more distracting, as it brings on strange dreams with warring machines that hint at family secrets that have been dormant for years. She can't ask her father, a hipster mechanic more talented and artful than his job requires, as he's always busy modifying motorcycles and cars in flights of fancy. What are these visions that lead Kokone at once closer to and farther away from her family? Like all the best anime, the film revels in multilayered fantasy to show how sometimes opposites—waking and dreaming, the past and the future—are far more intertwined than they appear.

I.G Port's new anime studio subsidiary Signal.MD (Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note, Anime Tamago's "Colorful Ninja Iromaki" short) is animating the film as its first anime film project. Kamiyama (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Moribito - Guardian of the Spirit, Eden of the East) is directing the film, as well as penning the script. Satoko Morikawa (The Cat Returns, Eden of the East, Xi AVANT) is designing the characters, and Shigeto Koyama (Michiko & Hatchin, Moribito - Guardian of the Spirit, Heroman) is in charge of mechanical design. Animator Christophe Ferreira confirmed that he is working on the film's concept art, storyboards, and animation, and the website lists his role as "creature design." Warner Bros. will distribute the film. Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy XV) is composing the music for the film.​