I've got some disappointed news for fans of Sailor Moon who have been enjoying buying ebook editions of the 'Eternal Edition' releases from Kodansha: They appear to have been cancelled! I was first notified of this from a tween by Sailor Moon Canada:
We have gotten reports that the remaining volumes of the Eternal Edition of the #SailorMoon manga will not be released as e-books.— Sailor Moon Canada 🇨🇦 (@Sailor_Moon_CA) May 17, 2020
Now the tweet itself isn't necessarily confirmation of the series being cancelled in and of itself, but it did lead to fans poking around the internet a little. Sure enough, while the print editions have reached all the way up to book eight, the ebook releases have mysteriously stopped at book six, with no release dates planned for the remainder of the series. This is a pretty perplexing development to be sure. Bad sales would likely not be much of a contributing factor since digital books are practically free to distribute (and it's hard to believe Sailor Moon being a poor seller). Licensing issues would be another head scratcher since the series license is already owned by Kodansha. It could be that there's a deal being worked on backstage to make the series an exclusive for another service (but then, SMC's sources said 'cancelled' not delayed,' so...). The good news is the paperbacks are still being released and are still being made with the highest quality available. The bad news is (for the time being anyway) the digital release appears to be put on hold, so those who were hoping to preserve the condition of the books by reading the digital releases may be out of luck on this one.
0 Comments