2021 was a great year for anime, and most importantly, yuri. It was the year I was introduced to probably one of the greatest yuri series of all time, I’m In Love with the Villainess. I still can’t say enough good things about this series and await the eventual release of the anime. 2021 was filled with good news about ILTV, and I hope the trend will continue onto next year.
New Licenses:
So let’s remark about the massive release of ILTV into many different translations this year. The 1st manga volume and Light Novels 2 and 3 released this year in English, and the future ones are slated for release in January and February of next year. The english community is always strong and hungry for more ILTV content.
The second remarkable thing is ILTV getting licensed in Korean, Thai, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Vietnamese this year. Not only that, they got special benefits with the release of the light novel in those regions as well (why can’t we get that in America?). I’ve never seen a yuri light novel series get this much traction and popularity worldwide, hopefully an omen of good things to come.
New Releases for Source Material:
2021 was a remarkable year for Inori sensei, Aono Sumio sensei, and Hanagata sensei. The light novel series concluded with the release of volume 4 and 5 respectively in February and August, ending with a spectacular bang.
For the manga, we at last finished the 1st and 2nd arcs of the story, and now enter the Commoner’s Movement Arc, where the plot begins to thicken. This is where ILTV turns from good to great. We were blessed with beautiful covers for the 2nd and 3rd volumes of the manga in June and December.
Now most importantly of all…we finally get a paperback release for the light novels in JP! The original light novels were in E-book format only, but domestic demand in Japan must have skyrocketed to necessitate a physical printing (at long last and well deserved!). The 1st volume of the JP light novel (released in December) was given a new cover, revised arts, and extra new stories. This marks a huge step for the ILTV fandom, as a physical release only spells good signs for a possible anime adaptation.
Lastly, with the original series having wrapped up, Inori sensei has begun a spin off series based on ILTV. Titled “She’s So Cheeky for a Commoner”, it is a fresh retelling of the ILTV series from the villainess’s perspective Claire Francois! I highly recommend checking it out, if you loved ILTV, you’ll definitely like SSCC as well. This new perspective on the original story adds in more details from Claire’s perspective and new stories and characters never seen before. More ILTV content is always good for the soul.
ILTV Merch
The fans always asked Inori sensei, “Where can we get ILTV merch? Is ILTV merch coming out?” and she always told us to hold out hope. And hope was indeed delivered.
In June, a pop up store exclusively for ILTV merch opened up for several weeks, finally giving us rabid fans the goods we wished for so long.
That was a good day indeed, seeing the announcement for an exclusive ILTV merch shop. Really brought it home that this series has come a long way.
To make matters even better, recently in December, a yuri pop up store was happening to promote all of Ichijinsha’s yuri works with new merchandise. ILTV, of course, participated to spread even more awareness of its greatness.
Awards
I saved the best for last, because this was the most exciting news to happen for ILTV. ILTV won multiple awards this year, one of which was placing 12th place in the 2021 Yuri Manga Awards in May. Impressive for a series that only had one manga volume out at the time.
Secondly, ILTV won 17th place among hundreds of titles in the 2021 Tsugi Ni Kuru Next Manga Awards in August. No small feat, especially being a niche genre competing against other extremely popular manga.
Now for the biggest reveal. ILTV ranked 5TH PLACE in March in the 2021 AnimeJapan’s Manga We Want to see Animated Rankings, beating out even Spy x Family and Komi San Can’t Communicate. I posted about this crazy event earlier in the year, and am still hype about it. The last time a yuri work ranked in the top 10 for AnimeJapan was Bloom Into You, and we all know the greatness of that anime adaptation. Keep in mind, ILTV ranked this high with only 1 manga volume out…that means fans of the series came together to make magic happen. The passion of the ILTV community is unmatched. This is the best sign we fans can receive that one day, an anime WILL happen. Hopefully next year ILTV can rank even higher for the AnimeJapan Rankings again.
That’s all for the ILTV Milestones of 2021. Here’s to next year, as ILTV continues to soar to even greater heights.
Anime Drabbles 