1st volume slated for July with 8 color pages

Dark Horse Comics confirmed with ANN on Wednesday that it has licensed Kenji Tsuruta's Wandering Island (Bōken Electriciteit-tō - Wandering Island) manga and will release the first volume on July 19, 2016. Dana Lewis will handle translation and Susie Lee will handle lettering.

The book will retail for US$14.99. It will feature French cover flaps with the above illustration, as well as eight interior color pages that were printed in grayscale in the original Japanese release of the first volume.

Dark Horse Comics describes the story:

Wandering Island is the story of Mikura Amelia, a free-spirited young woman living alone with her cat, who operates an air delivery service—flying her vintage seaplane to Japan's small island communities located hundreds of miles out into the ocean. One day going through her grandfather's papers, she discovers an undelivered package with her name on it, addressed to an island Mikura has never heard of. She learns about the folklore among sailors of a "wandering island” in the North Pacific that seems to drift and disappear, spotted at various times over the years by ship's crews. For the sake of adventure, and the memory of her grandfather, Mikura is determined to find it!

The original 150-page work from Tsuruta was published in Kodansha's Manga Box Amasia anthology in 2010, and it began irregular serialization in Kodansha's Afternoon in 2012. Kodansha shipped the first compiled volume in Japan in October 2011.

Tsuruta's Spirit of Wonder manga inspired two original video animations (OVAs) in 1992 and 2001. Dark Horse Comics licensed and published the original manga in 1998, and AnimEigo released the first OVA under the title Spirit of Wonder: Miss China's Ring, while Bandai Entertainment released the second OVA titled Spirit of Wonder Scientific Boys Club.

[Via Brian Ruh]