NEWS
MANGA WEEK – FALL 2026: ICV2 INTERVIEW: YEN PRESS PRESIDENT KURT HASSLER
On the Yen Lines, the 2026 Hits, and Top Prospects
Posted by Milton Griepp on August 20, 2026 @ 8:00 am CT
We caught up with Yen Press President Kurt Hassler, who left his job as Borders Group graphic novel buyer 20 years ago in 2006 to co-found Yen Press with Rich Johnson (see “Kurt Hassler Leaving Borders”) to talk about the scope of the Yen Press lines, their 2026 hits, and the top prospects coming up.
We’d like to get our arms around the total output of Yen and its imprints. What is the total annual output in terms of number releases for Yen, its various imprints and categories?
Kurt Hassler: Let’s see. For manga for Yen, we’re doing about 500 to 550 books a year. In terms of light novels, we’re probably doing about 200-ish at this point. Manhwa, we’re somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 a month, so 120 a year. That’s pretty much our output.
We did just launch this Avocado House imprint for more literary stuff, but we’re only planning about one or two releases [per month] a year, so somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 24.
Has that been stable for a while, or what’s the trend line?
It’s been fairly stable for a while. We increased it slightly, particularly on the manga side this year, about five more titles a month, but I feel like that’s our pretty stable number for now.
Talk a little bit about your biggest hits now, and then what you have coming out that you see as having the best opportunities.
The biggest hits right now… we’ve done phenomenally. Last year, it was all about Delicious in Dungeon, we had the Netflix anime. That’s been a staple, evergreen title for us since we started publishing it several years ago, but the Netflix anime really kicked it to that next level of sales. That’s been a key driver for the last two years.
The Summer Hikaru Died: similar situation. Not quite as deep a backlist, but we had the Netflix anime for that this summer. Really kicked it again into that next level. We’ve had several of the big anime hits, which, as you know, you get a few a year. We just happened to have benefited from them, from some great titles. That’s been driving a lot of what we’ve been doing.
We had a great success with the first volume of Love Bullet, which published last December. We’re looking forward to that second volume later this year. We have big hopes for how that series develops over time.
As far as the next one we’re hoping for is our big hit, we’ve had a great amount of success with The Guy She Was Interested In Wasn’t a Guy at All, what we call the Green Yuri. That was announced; the animation will be coming next spring (see “New Anime Set to Drive Sales”).
They’re actually using a Nirvana song in it, which was quite a treat, to get to see Dave Grohl holding up a copy of the book, waiting to do his interview for it. All hopes that that will be a three-year run of fantastic anime adaptations that lead to very strong sales for us.
What about on the Ize side, what’s going on there?
Solo Leveling has been dominating the Ize side since it was established. It broke records for Crunchyroll, the first and second season, to the point where I understand some of the servers went down because of the demand. That continues to crank along. The main series ended, but Solo Leveling — Ragnarok, the first volume, just started, so it’s continuing nicely in the new arc there.
Beyond that, the big hit is Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, ORV. That has been a fantastic seller. They just got the audiobooks out for the novels that the series is based on. It’s been in the market for a while. The animation is in the works there. Between those two properties, we’ve got a great hold on the manhwa market and mindset.
Anything else that’s going on at Yen that you want our readers to know about?
Really, just keep an eye out on the new releases. There’s a lot of great stuff coming out later this fall. We’re very excited about the Avocado House launch in October, a really good opportunity to see some of the more literary material coming out not just from Japan, but other markets where literature in translation may not be greatly served.
We really hope that we’re bringing some interesting things to the market, whether they’re fiction, nonfiction, but certainly more general interest than just the manga market.
For Hassler on Manga Spot, the new manga, graphic novel and merch chain shooting for 1000 stores, see “Interview: Hassler – Manga Spot”).
For more ICv2 Manga Week – Fall 2026 coverage, click here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Milton Griepp
Editor-in-Chief. Milton Griepp’s multi-decade career in the business of geek culture includes distribution CEO, e-commerce retailer CEO, board member of digital comics company, and for the past 25 years, as founder and Editor-in-Chief of ICv2.
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