Anime News Network has a report of Dark Horse’s panel at this year’s Sakura Con last Sunday.
No big announcements were made, but Carl Horn revealed that the release of Mangettes: Gate 7 was delayed due to XXXHOLiC taking longer than CLAMP originally planned:
Regarding CLAMP’s new work that is to be released simultaneously in Japan and the U.S., it’s still continuing, but it was delayed due to xxxHOLiC taking longer than CLAMP had originally anticipated.
So just as I thought, XXXHOLiC wasn’t supposed to be this long originally. But with XXXHOLiC moving to a new magazine, makes me think that the series still has a long running ahead. Will CLAMP wait until XXXHOLiC is finished to start Gate 7? Or did they move XXXHOLiC because it’s easier to handle 3 monthly works?
Carl Horn also revealed why Dark Horse hasn’t re-licensed X yet:
Regarding other CLAMP titles where the license has been lost, Carl said that he thought people would be upset if they rescue-licensed and released X before the series was actually finished.
What about CLOVER? It’s in the same situation as X (worse, I’d say) but they still released it.
Many thanks to wanderingdreamr for letting me know about this!
23 thoughts on “Little news about Mangettes: Gate 7”
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Chibi Yuuto's CHRoNiCLEs 
I’m glad that xxxHolic hasn’t had some rushed ending that has much left to be desired (yet..>.
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I don’t think XXXHOLiC would have a rushed ending… it was planned to end shortly after Tsubasa, it wouldn’t be rushed. But Kodansha probably asked CLAMP to extend the series due to its popularity.
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Well, I hope xxxHOLiC ending will be better than TRC ending who didn’t really satisfy me…
As for X here that’s the last Italian update I can offer…
Not a while ago there had been a big Anime convention in Italy so I took my chance to talk to the future editor of X here to get some info.
The staff confirmed they had been told that X was about to be finished (as in ‘CLAMP would soon resume it and end it’) and that’s an important issue for them too because also it would be a bad affair to reprint the series if they can’t print its end (the bigger sold would be the one of the volumes not yet printed [they would be bought by who had the old edition only and by who also would buy the new one]. If those volumes don’t exist not only they would lose the gain of selling them but also Italian fans would be discouraged from buying the series since as of now it’s pretty easy to know if the series is being continued in Japan).
However, and that’s the sad part, with not verbal language mostly, they kind of confirmed my suspicions.
Despite what they had been said they’re not really sure CLAMP is going to finish X anytime soon which is why they’re postponing the reprint.
In this way, if CLAMP will resume X, they will have the rights to reprint it and gain over it, if CLAMP will not (or will take too long) they can wait for the reprint or avoid doing it at all so they won’t lose too much money.
In short it’s all a big question mark…
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“Not a while ago there had been a big Anime convention in Italy so I took my chance to talk to the future editor of X here to get some info.
The staff confirmed they had been told that X was about to be finished”
Really?
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Yes, but as I said the general impression was they weren’t sure the assurances about this they got were trustworthy.
They didn’t say it out loud but they just didn’t sound persuaded.
And if they’re not persuaded I end up feeling even more doubtful about this.
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Thanks!
Although i read that in France, many guys who attended the Japan Expo, said the Clamp reassured on end’s X…according to them will be very soon.
Recently, these items/news are very frequently…very very frequently
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I guess Italian editors had the same reassurance but, since they saw nothing official announcing X being continued after likely more than 5 months after they had talk with CLAMP, they became wary.
The previous reprint of X (yes, we had 2 prints of X, te first one that stopped at Vol 10 and the second that stopped at 18) was finished in 2004, so it’s not that old and till a while ago it wasn’t that hard to get for new CLAMP fans.
Ergo, if they want insurance they’ll sell the new reprit they need the new volumes. Fans won’t support the reprint without them.
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Good on the Fans, personally.
But thanks for the update. Pretty much how I suspected things were working out.
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Personally I’ll be happier if CLAMP were to continue X and they were to reprint it all. But if CLAMP isn’t going to continue it I see no point for a reprint… -_-
You’re welcome. I still hope in the future I’ll get happy news but so far… -_-
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I am aware of the Italian publisher’s declaration. I am a positivistic and I like to think that they are right.
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Let’s hope you’re right. Maybe the fact that 2012 too is considered a good date for the end of the world, will encourage CLAMP to resume X… ^_-
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Oh, I feel special now for finding a news tip. XD And the reason I think Clover, but not X, got reprinted was because Clover did have an ending of sort. True it didn’t answer everything, but didn’t CLAMP say they were also satisfied with where it had left off?
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Yeah, I feel a lot more satisfied with Clover as a complete story then X.
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It is true that CLOVER “feels” more finished than X, but still, Dark Horse’s argument doesn’t convince me because officially CLOVER is an unfinished series just like X.
Thanks again for the news!!!
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thanks for the news! I want to be positive and think that they aren’t reprinting X now because they actually think it’s gonna be finished sometime… (hope never dies)
Olivia
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I second that!
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Is this a sign that CLAMP isn’t quite sure where they’re going with xxxHOLiC? There doesn’t seem to be any resolution in sight, that’s for sure. (I hope they take up Gate 7 before xxxHOLiC ends, if only because the premise promises so much more by way of interesting storylines and artwork.)
The situation with X and Clover is most likely due to the fact that X ended on the cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers, while Suu’s story was resolved. Basically, all we have left is the resolution of Kazuhiko’s story and the fleshing out of his, Gingetsu’s, and that Bors guy’s backgrounds.
ETA: And the fleshing out of the entire world of Clover, which we don’t know that much about. Hm! It looks like there is a lot left to cover in the series.
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I personally don’t like the idea of XXXHOLiC going on for longer than CLAMP originally had planned. You can feel it while reading the recent chapters that the series looks like it’s being dragged rather than going to some specific path.
Obviously CLAMP have replotted the story in order to draw more volumes, but it’s like making a series longer because it’s making money, and that is never a good thing. It’s like J.K. Rowling making more than 7 Harry Potter volumes when she knew that 7 was enough.
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I see what you mean. The filler stories we’re getting now aren’t that different from what we had before, but the problem is that Rou feels more like a drawn-out epilogue than a new part of the series. That’s most likely because we’re stuck in the “falling action” after the climax of Yuuko’s death (and the incredible anti-climax with Doumeki’s egg).
I really hope that CLAMP isn’t doing this because they or Kodansha want to milk the story for all it’s worth, but that sounds plausible. Hasn’t xxxHOLiC sold more copies than any of their other series?
Oh, and one more thing! Seeing your avatar reminded me of how Kasumi hasn’t updated her CLAMP gallery for over a year. If you don’t mind, do you know if there’s someone else out there who’s making the images available?
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So they still plan on releasing the mangettes? It’s just taking longer than expected? Well now I know.
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Thanks for the news as always 😀 Love your new layout and avatar btw ^^
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I think that since xxxHolic is now going to be a monthly series, it’ll make room in Clamp’s busy schedule for them to start printing Gate 7. They were probably going to finish xxxHolic before printing Gate 7 so that they wouldn’t have too much in their schedule, but since xxxHolic is continuing, making it into a monthly series works out better. However, I think they want to at least get into the flow of things before starting Gate 7, hence the delay.
Or they might still be finishing xxxHolic first, but I HOPE that’s not the case. TT~TT I wanna see gate 7~
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I’m inclined to believe that the reason why Dark Horse hasn’t rescue-licenced X is also because it’s Viz that holds the English publishing rights. Most of Dark Horse’s acquisitions are coming from Tokyopop, who lost most of licences on Kodansha works. This includes the majority of CLAMP’s works, including CCS, Clover, Chobits, and MKR.
On the other hand, Viz has X, Yen Press has Kobato, and Del Rey has xxxHOLIC and Tsubasa. Given that Viz has been fairly stable, I think they’re more likely to hold onto their licence on X until its completion. After all, if you look at other licences like Inuyasha and Neon Genesis Evangelion, you can see that Viz has managed to hold on some works for almost a decade.
In Evangelion’s case, the publication history has been inconsistent for years, but Viz has been publishing it as soon as it another volume is compiled in Japan (most recently, volume 10 and 11) actually reviving it with new editions of older volumes. If they’re still holding onto a work like that, with such an irregular publication schedule and an uncertain date when it will be finished, I’m thinking Viz will probably hold onto X until it’s complete.
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