Seven Seas Entertainment

In October 2004, Jason DeAngelis launched a website that would change how English-speaking readers discovered manga. He called it "world manga", original English-language comics drawn in a manga style. The first titles, Last Hope and The Adventurers, were modest experiments. But DeAngelis, a former film and television writer, had bigger plans.

Within a few years, Seven Seas pivoted hard. Instead of creating original manga from scratch, the company began licensing Japanese series and translating them for North American audiences. The shift paid off. By the 2010s, Seven Seas was publishing hits like Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid and The Rising of the Shield Hero, plus a fast-growing light novel catalog under its Airship imprint. The company also launched Ghost Ship, a label for mature and ecchi titles, and started producing premium hardcover editions with color inserts.

Today, Seven Seas occupies a distinct lane in the North American manga market. It's not as big as Viz Media or Kodansha Comics, but it punches above its weight in light novels and in LGBTQ+ representation, titles like Bloom Into You and I'm in Love with the Villainess have loyal followings. The company operates from Santa Barbara, California, and distributes through Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and comic shops. In 2024, it celebrated 20 years in business, weathering controversies over translation quality and licensing decisions, but maintaining a reputation for discovering offbeat gems that bigger publishers overlook.[edit]