MediaDo-Kodansha Advanced Media Joint News Release (click here for PDF version)

December 1, 2015

Popular Kodansha Manga eBooks now available

to public and academic libraries in U.S. and Canada

Bestsellers "Attack on Titan" and "Fairy Tail" expand manga eBook selection

SAN FRANCISCO – December 1, 2015 – MEDIADO Co., Ltd. (TSE Mothers 3678; head office: Shibuya-ku, Tokyo; led by CEO Yasushi Fujita) has signed a contract with Kodansha Advanced Media LLC (head office: San Francisco; led by President Hiroaki Morita), an affiliate of Kodansha Ltd. (head office: Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo), under which MediaDo and its exclusive partner, OverDrive, will distribute Kodansha Comics’ eBook manga titles to the world's largest network of digital libraries, including public and academic, in the United States and Canada.

Kodansha Advanced Media will make available more than 400 books from over 50 series in this distribution agreement, including the enormously successful graphic-novel series Attack on Titan by Hajime Isayama https://www.overdrive.com/media/2505523, which has more than 52 million copies in print and has spawned television, film and video game versions. "Fairy Tail" by Hiro Mashima https://www.overdrive.com/media/2505583, another extremely popular series, has more than 25 million copies in print and has also been adapted for film and television. The Kodansha Comics titles, which will be rendered in the browser-based MediaDo Reader, will be available to libraries in the OverDrive network beginning December 1, 2015.

“Manga and libraries have always been a great fit, because of the crossover with younger readers, and because of the amount of manga out there, digital distribution through libraries presents great opportunities to build readership, ” said Alvin Lu, General Manager of Kodansha Advanced Media. “Very exciting to finally make our graphic-novel digital editions available to young readers through libraries in North America, with smart, savvy partners like MediaDo and OverDrive.”

MediaDo has been entrusted to distribute Kodansha Advanced Media’s contents to North American eBook stores since June 2015. MediaDo and OverDrive announced their strategic partnership in May 2014, providing access to the world’s largest network of libraries that offer eBooks to their users.

Building on their partnership with Kodansha Advanced Media, MediaDo plans to work with other Japanese publishers who wish to expand their customer base and similarly distribute to OverDrive-powered digital libraries. MediaDo’s mission is to "deliver more digital content to as many people as possible,” not just within Japan but worldwide as well, thus continually playing a role in advancing quality domestic content into the world and promoting Japanʼs "Cool-Japan" strategy.

Inquiries: Contact pr@nullkamsf.com

About MediaDo

MEDIA DO Co.,Ltd.(TSE Mothers 3678) after establishment in 1999, launched internet business in 2000, expanded into the online music distribution service business in 2004, and begun it's current eBook distribution service business from 2006.

Media Do is known as one of the three main digital distributors within Japan. With its contents distribution platform CAS（Contents Agency System）supported by the distribution "md-dc" and its storage system "MDCMS", Media Do distributes many contents to digital stores like "Line Manga". On November 2013, Media Do was listed on TSE Mothers, and later affiliated with "OverDrive", an American company world's largest digital library system , and "Scribd", America's largest eBook subscription service as well as extending its business rapidly overseas with "Line Manga"'s joint corporation "LINE Book Distribution". For more information, visit www.mediado.jp.

About OverDrive

OverDrive is the leading digital distribution platform, supplying the industry’s largest catalog of eBooks, audiobooks, streaming video and periodicals to 34,000 libraries, schools and retailers worldwide. We support all major computers and devices, including iOS®, Android™, Chromebook™ and Kindle® (U.S. only). OverDrive delivers all digital media on a single platform, and offers innovations such as OverDrive Read, the breakthrough EPUB and HTML5 browser-based reading experience, and Read-Alongs. Founded in 1986, OverDrive is based in Cleveland, Ohio USA and is owned by Tokyo-based Rakuten. For more information, visit www.overdrive.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and our blog.

About Kodansha Advanced Media

Established in San Francisco in 2014, Kodansha Advanced Media is a digital graphic novel publisher and media content distribution company, focused on the digital distribution and promotion of a burgeoning list of premier English-language manga, including bestsellers Attack on Titan and Fairy Tail. The majority of its list are translations from the original Japanese editions published by its Tokyo-based parent company, Kodansha Ltd., while the print versions of its books are published by New York-based Kodansha USA Publishing and distributed by Penguin Random House Publisher Services. For a full list of titles, visit kodanshacomics.com.

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