Kodansha USA announced at its panel at Anime Boston on Saturday that it will release Hiromu Arakawa's ( Fullmetal Alchemist, Silver Spoon ) manga adaptation of acclaimed fantasy novel series The The Heroic Legend of Arslan by Yoshiki Tanaka ( Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Sohryuden - Legend of the Dragon Kings, Tytania ). Kodansha USA will release the series in print and digitally beginning in August.

Manga adaptation launched in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine last July and the first compiled volume is slated to ship in Japan in April.

The ongoing novel series, billed by Bessatsu Shonen Magazine as the "world's greatest historical fantasy," already inspired two anime films and a four-part original video anime from 1991 to 1993. Central Park Media, who released the anime in North America, describes the story:

As an unnaturally heavy mist descends on the battlefield, King Andragoras and his most valued officers confer among the bodies of dead and dying soldiers. When Daryoon, a young but highly skilled officer, voices his reluctance to send men into battle under these conditions, the king, unstable and enraged, banishes him. Now, Daryoon's new mission is to insure the safety of the King's only son, Prince Arislan. Daryoon and Prince Arislan set off on a quest of their own, but they can't succeed alone. They must convince both the Lord Narsus and his companion, the archer Elam, to join them in their quest to somehow help the soldiers win the war. Now a group of only six they must somehow overcome an enemy of 300,000 soldiers! These unlikely soldiers have fate on their side, so anything can happen!

The 13-volume novel series also inspired an earlier manga series by Chisato Nakamura. Similarly, Tanaka's Legend of the Galactic Heroes, Sohryuden, Yakushiji Ryōko no Kaiki Jikenbo, and Tytania novels all inspired both anime and manga.

Kodansha USA also announced that it will re-release Yuki Urushibara's Mushishi in digital-only format later this year.

Urushibara's manga began in 1995, and finished in Afternoon in 2008. Del Rey published the manga, and Funimation released Hiroshi Nagahama and Artland's anime adaptation and Katsuhiro Otomo's live-action film version in North America.

Urushibara's recent two-chapter special manga spinoff of Mushi-Shi inspired the January television special. The second season, Mushishi: The Next Chapter (Mushishi: Zoku-Shō) will reunite most of the staff from the first season and will premiere in Japan on on April 4. Aniplex USA will stream the series.