Sol Press was an American publishing company that focused on localizing Japanese visual novels, light novels, and

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

. Located in Orange County, California, it was formed in 2017. In October 2021, it was prohibited from doing business in the state of California for non-payment of taxes. The company had licensed nine visual novels, nine light novels, and six manga for release on the

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

and Kadokawa's

BookWalker , stylized as Book☆Walker, is a Japanese e-book store that sells manga, light novels, and magazines from various publishers, as well as a few published by themselves. It is based in Chiyoda, Tokyo and was created by Kadokawa Corporation. The c ...

platforms.

History

Sol Press was founded in February 2017 by Michael Valdez, who was unhappy with the slow translation processes and products of other video game localization companies. For the company's titles, Valdez emphasized the importance of not charging players for patches as he believed it was unnecessary and an unpopular business tactic. Although Sol Press-licensed visual novels are censored when released on Steam, free patches to receive adult content in the original games are downloadable on external websites. In September 2017, Sol Press created a

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

fundraiser to support the localization of the Haikuo Soft visual novel/ eroge '' Sakura Sakura''. Despite ''Sakura Sakura'' age and obscurity, Sol Press elected to pick up the game following positive feedback from the staff. Funding for the Kickstarter was completed a month later. It was released on November 19, 2018, on Steam. A second Haikuo Soft visual novel, '' Yotsunoha'', saw a Western release on July 13, 2019, on Sol Press' website after it was denied publishing by Steam. Joined by MiKandi Japan, another campaign was launched on December 1, 2017, to fund the

Laplacian In mathematics, the Laplace operator or Laplacian is a differential operator given by the divergence of the gradient of a scalar function on Euclidean space. It is usually denoted by the symbols \nabla\cdot\nabla, \nabla^2 (where \nabla is the ...

VN '' Newton and the Apple Tree''. After just three days, it had already reached its goal of $31,200. It was released on August 15. Later in the year, '' DareSora: Tears for an Unknown Sky'' was localized and released on September 14. In April 2018, it began expansion into licensing light novels with the books ''Strongest Gamer – Let's Play in Another World'' and ''Battle Divas – The Incorruptible Battle Blossom Princess''. The two were digitally released on April 30. At Kumoricon 2018 in Oregon, Sol Press announced the creation of Project Hyourin, a digital distribution client for works licensed by the company. It also formed an alliance with Japanese game publisher Entergram to release visual novels on consoles in North America. On May 24, 2019, Sol Press announced a partnership with

Kadokawa Corporation , formerly is a Japanese media conglomerate that was created as a result of the merger of the original Kadokawa Corporation and Dwango Co., Ltd. on October 1, 2014. History The holding company known today as Kadokawa Corporation was origi ...

to release light novels and manga on Kadokawa's

platform. The company was forfeited by the California FTB for failure to pay taxes in late October 2021. Citing requests from the original Japanese publishers, BookWalker removed series licensed by Sol Press on February 21, 2022.

Licensed works

Visual novels

Light novels

Manga

Notes

References

External links

* * {{vndb, 7033, producer Companies based in Los Angeles Defunct comics and manga publishing companies Defunct video game companies of the United States Video game publishers 2017 establishments in California 2021 disestablishments in California