Viz Licenses First Three Naruto Epilogue Novels

Coming as somewhat of a surprise, Viz Media has announced that they will be releasing the first three Naruto 'epilogue' novels in English starting this year. The epilogue novels tell character-specific stories that will help bridge the gap between the final two chapters of the manga, much as last year's film 'The Last' did.

The first three, of six total, novels that we're confirmed to get are 'Kakashi's Story', 'Shikamaru's Story', and 'Sakura's Story', and are planned to be released in November, February 2016, and May 2016 respectively. The following three books, which are entitled 'Konoha Hiden', 'Gaara Hiden', and 'Akatsuki Hiden' in Japan, are due to come out in May, June, and July of this year respectively, and will hopefully be licensed at a later date.

Viz also announced licensing the 'Uzumaki Naruto: Illustrations' book that will be released in November, as well as giving the 72^nd (and final) manga volume a February 4^th release date.

Tegami Bachi (Letter Bee) Manga to End with 20th Volume

The 19^th volume of Hiroyuki Asada's Tegami Bachi (Also called Letter Bee) just came out in Japan this past Saturday, and lists that the 20^th volume (due out this winter) will be it's last. The manga began in Monthly Jump in 2006, and when the magazine ended it switched to Weekly Jump before finally finding a new home in Jump Square in 2007. The manga tells the story of a young boy named Lag Seeing who delivers mail as a “Letter Bee”, coming across all sorts of dangers which his “Dingo” companion Niche protects him from. The 17^th volume was just released by Viz in the US last November.

This is a series I remember liking well enough when I got to read a bit of it in the US version of Shonen Jump, so I really need to get around to checking it out more properly eventually. I remember that Niche is adorable and sassy, and that's more than enough for a read, I'd say.

Boruto: The Movie - First Poster Revealed

Weekly Shonen Jump has released an illustrated poster by Masashi Kishimoto for the upcoming 'Boruto: Naruto The Movie' film, which is set to open in Japan on August 7. The poster, as can be seen above, shows a Naruto logo which has been de-faced to read 'Boruto' by Naruto's son (whose name can be romanized as either Boruto or Bolt – I'm unsure as of now what Viz has gone with) as Naruto himself stands in the background, with text reading 'Watch me crappy old man!'.

The main Naruto manga ended in November of last year after running for 15 years. A new mini-series depicting further adventures of the 'next generation' of ninja however, entitled 'Naruto: The Seventh Hokage and the Scarlet Spring Month', will begin serialization later this month on April 27^th. This film will likely tie-in to the events of said manga.

As always, we'll keep you posted on more news as it becomes available, and look forward to reading reviews of the spinoff's chapters as they come out!