Udon Entertainment made four surprise license announcements during the Manga Publishing Roundtable at Anime Expo: Three new manga series and a picture book about cat characters, all scheduled for 2024.
Falling in Love with a Traveling Cat, by Mofusand, is sort of a cross between manga and a picture book, with lively drawings of anthropomorphized cats accompanied by brief text. Mofusand (styled mofu_sand on social media) has almost 600,000 followers on Instagram and over 400,000 on Twitter.
The other three new licenses all fall into the category of ecchi, playfully sexy but not hard-core.
More than a Married Couple but Not Lovers, by Yuki Kanamaru, is a high-school love-triangle rom-com set in a school where third-year students take a practical-skills class in which they have to live with another student as a couple, under video surveillance. Jiro hopes he will be partnered with his crush, Shiori, but instead ends up with Akari, a choice that leaves neither of them happy. Although they are complete opposites, Jiro and Akari decide to do their best to get along so they can switch partners, but they start to develop feelings for each other. This series has been adapted into an anime that runs on Crunchyroll.
My Stepmom’s Daughter Is My Ex is a rom-com based on a light novel series by Kyosuke Kamishiro (published in English by J-Novel Club), and it has been adapted into an anime that runs on Crunchyroll. The manga, with art by Rei Kusakabe, is the story of two teenagers who were a couple in middle school but later broke up; now their parents are marrying each other and they will be siblings, with all the awkwardness that implies.
Ottoman: Henshin Hero Husband, by Shinnosuke Kanazawa, is the story of an ordinary salaryman who loves his wife and dreams of being a manga artist someday, a dream that his wife supports. Everything changes when he is possessed by an alien and suddenly acquires superpowers, and when another alien threatens his wife, he transforms into the superhero Otto-Man (literally “husband-man”) and jumps into the fray to rescue her. The series is complete in five volumes, which Udon will release as two omnibi.Source: ICv2
