Image courtesy of Seven Seas Entertainment
© Seven Seas Entertainment, Inc.
Media Do International, the California-based subsidiary of e-book distributor Media Do Holdings, announced on Sunday that it has acquired manga and light novel publisher Seven Seas Entertainment. Nikkei reports that Media Do International acquired Seven Seas for US$80 million.
The announcement reported that Seven Seas will continue to operate under its current leadership team and editorial direction, and will not change its distribution, publishing schedules, and core operations, with Seven Seas books continuing to be distributed by Penguin Random House Publishing Services worldwide.
Media Do highlighted the acquisition as part of its push for worldwide distribution, underpinned by the role of its large language model AI-based “MediaDo Translation System” (MDTS) as a crucial part of that process alongside the acquisition of Seven Seas. Media Do announced the development of the MDTS in April 2025.
Manga translator Jason DeAngelis founded Seven Seas Entertainment in 2004, and prior to this acquisition, was the largest independent publisher of manga and light novels in the English language market. The company began as a publisher of original English language (OEL) manga, but has since expanded to publishing Japanese manga, light novels, Korean webtoons and manhwa, Chinese novels and manhua, and Thai novels.
Image courtesy of Seven Seas Entertainment
© MEDIA DO Co., Ltd.
Tokyo-based Media Do distributes e-books for many Japanese publishers. The company established its American subsidiary Media Do International in San Diego, California in 2016, and it publishes translated manga such as Baki digitally.
Media Do acquired the MyAnimeList site from DeNA in January 2019, and later sold all of its shares in the company to Tokyo-based Web3 and AI company Gaudiy in March 2025. Media Do, NTT Docomo, Akatsuki Group, and MyAnimeList also launched their jointly developed digital manga distribution service MANGA MIRAI in the United States in March 2025.
Sources: Press release, Nikkei, Media Do’s website, (link 2, link 3)
