An ADV Manga Mystery: Where's Yotsuba?

From Publishers Weekly: MangaBlog maven Brigit Alverson interviewed ADV Manga Sales Account Manager Chris Oarr and asked the question that's on a lot of people's mind: Where's Yotsuba Volume 6? Once scheduled for release in February 2008, the latest English-language edition of Kiyohiko Azuma's irresistably fun all-ages manga has been missing in action since then. And what did she get for an answer?

"I love Yotsuba&!" Oarr said. "Yotsuba&! is one of four or five manga titles that has great craft and is popular in the U.S. We want to keep Yotsuba&! available to readers. That’s what our focus is right now."However, Oarr could not say when the next volume will be published.

"I know we’ve been criticized for our PR strategy or whatever you want to call it," Oarr said. "But right now, while we're sorting everything out, it just doesn’t serve anybody’s purpose to answer the very reasonable questions that fans post on the Internet every day: 'When will Yotsuba&! come out?' We don’t know, and we're not going to lie about it. I'm also not going to go out on the Net every day and say, ‘I don’t know.'"

Mind you, ADV is primarily an anime-driven business, and manga has never been its main focus. But still, it's a shame that circumstances have made it difficult for them to release a title that has gotten almost universal acclaim in Japan and the U.S., including a 2008 Eisner Awards nomination for Best Publication for Kids category. Lesson for all you manga fans out there? Don't just read manga for free online -- buy the dang book if it's available or you might not find it in the bookstores the next time you look.

Image credit: © Kiyohiko Azuma / Media Works Inc.