Kino's Journey , shortened to ''Kino's Journey'', is a Japanese light novel series written by Keiichi Sigsawa, with illustrations by Kouhaku Kuroboshi. The series follows a traveler named Kino and her talking motorcycle named Hermes, as they explore ...

'' is a Japanese

light novel A light novel (, Hepburn: ''raito noberu'') is a style of young adult novel primarily targeting high school and middle school students. The term "light novel" is a ''wasei-eigo'', or a Japanese term formed from words in the English languag ...

series written by

Keiichi Sigsawa is a Japanese light novel author. In 2000, his work ''Kino's Journey'' was a finalist for the 6th Dengeki Novel Prize, and was subsequently serialized in '' Dengeki hp'' magazine in March of the same year, marking his debut. ''Kino's Journey'' ...

, and illustrated by Kohaku Kuroboshi. The series premiered in the sixth volume of '' Dengeki hp'' on March 17, 2000. The first

volume Volume is a measure of occupied three-dimensional space. It is often quantified numerically using SI derived units (such as the cubic metre and litre) or by various imperial or US customary units (such as the gallon, quart, cubic inch). The de ...

of the series was published on July 10, 2000 under

ASCII Media Works ASCII ( ), abbreviated from American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a character encoding standard for electronic communication. ASCII codes represent text in computers, telecommunications equipment, and other devices. Because of ...

Dengeki Bunko is a publishing imprint affiliated with the Japanese publishing company ASCII Media Works (formerly MediaWorks). It was established in June 1993 with the publication of '' Hyōryū Densetsu Crystania'' volume one, and is a light novel imprint a ...

publishing

imprint Imprint or imprinting may refer to: Entertainment * ''Imprint'' (TV series), Canadian television series * "Imprint" (''Masters of Horror''), episode of TV show ''Masters of Horror'' * ''Imprint'' (film), a 2007 independent drama/thriller film ...

. As of October 2017, around 8.2 million copies of the novels had been sold in Japan. 23 volumes have been published as of November 2020.

Tokyopop Tokyopop (styled TOKYOPOP; formerly known as Mixx Entertainment) is an American distributor, licensor and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa and Western manga-style works. The German publishing division produces German translations of licensed J ...

licensed the novels for an English language release in North America. The first volume was published on October 3, 2006. Tokyopop released the series under its

rōmaji The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Ch ...

title of ''Kino no Tabi'' and rearranged the chapters of the first volume. Due to issues with the licensor, the remaining volumes have been canceled. The light novel series has also been translated into Chinese,

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

, and German. An additional volume entitled was released as a promotional gift for the second animated movie. A spin-off of the regular series under the title ''Gakuen Kino'' was also created. The first volume of the spin-off series was released on July 10, 2006 under Dengeki Bunko; the fifth volume was released on July 8, 2011. Volume six was released in October 2019 and seven in May 2021. The series is a collection of parodies originally published in three spin-off magazines of ''Dengeki hp'': ''Dengeki p'', ''Dengeki h'', and ''Dengeki hpa''. The spin-off features Kino as a

magical girl is a subgenre of Japanese fantasy media (including anime, manga, light novels, and live-action media) centered around young girls who possess magical abilities, which they typically use through an ideal alter ego into which they can transfo ...

Light novels

Kino's Journey

Gakuen Kino

See also

References

External links