Manga Mavericks announced during its panel at Anime Expo on Thursday the following new licenses from mahjong set company Mahjong Pros‘ Mahjong Pros Publishing imprint:

Title: Golden Sakura
Creators: Sayaka Okada (story), Kazuo Maekawa (art)
Release: November 2026 (physical/digital)
Summary: Broke, betrayed, and buried under $50,000 of debt, failed pro Mahjong Player Takuya Saotome takes one last gamble: crossdress as Sakura Shindou and enter the women’s professional mahjong scene.

Title: Maetel of the Glassy Sea
Creators: Katakei, Yoshiki Suda
Release: November 2026 (physical/digital)
Summary: Akina Mizuhara’s first love was film. As a college student chasing a future in movies, she studied abroad in Portland and came face to face with a painful question: what if loving something is not enough to make it your life? Then she found mahjong: a game with the same drama, tension, and emotional pull she had always searched for on screen.

Maetel of the Glassy Sea follows Mizuhara from private doubt to the M.League spotlight, through marriage, rivalry, team glory, losing streaks, MVP pressure, and the fight to keep moving forward as U-NEXT Pirates’ “Noble Female Pirate.”

The Mahjong Pros Publishing imprint focuses on licensing, localizing, and distributing mahjong-themed manga and textbooks. The company announced its Mahjong Pros Publishing imprint in June 2025.

Sources: Email correspondence, Manga Mavericks’ Anime Expo panel (Alex Mateo)

Kodansha announced on Friday that Makino‘s Defying Kurosaki-kun (Kurosaki-kun no Iinari ni Nante Naranai) manga is inspiring a new live-action series adaptation that will debut on Fuji TV On Demand. The announcement did not mention any further details about the series.

Kodansha USA Publishing is releasing the manga digitally in English, and it describes the story:

“I demand absolute obedience from you.” Yu Akabane has worked hard to reinvent herself for high school, and there’s only one step left in her plan to leave her plain Jane days behind: asking out her idol, the “White Prince” Shirakawa-kun. When circumstances lead to Yu moving into the school dorm where Shirakawa-kun boards, she thinks she’s found her lucky break. But unluckily for Yu, “Black Devil” Kurosaki-kun, the boy everyone at school (including the teachers!) is afraid of, lives there too—and when Yu defies him, he’s all too eager to punish her…

Makino launched the manga in Kodansha‘s Bessatsu Friend magazine in 2014, and ended it in October 2021. Kodansha published 19 compiled book volumes for the manga. Kodansha USA Publishing released all 19 volumes in English digitally. The manga was nominated for Best Shōjo Manga at Kodansha‘s 45th annual Manga Awards.

The manga inspired a live-action film in January 2016, as well as an accompanying two-episode live-action drama in December 2015.

Makino launched the Kurosaki-kun no Iinari ni Nante Naranai S sequel manga in Kodansha‘s palcy app in May 2023, and ended it with the second volume in December 2024.

Source: Comic Natalie