sola Anime And Novel Licensed [Update]

Aye, we don't usually cover any licensing crap, but I happen to have an hour to kill, and this concerns one of the most enjoyable animes from 2007 - sola - so what the hell. Via Anime on DVD, it's become apparent that the anime sola ("sora" meaning "sky" in Japanese) is Bandai Visual's latest acquisition for North America, where they plan to launch the first DVD volume on June 10, 2008.

On Bandai's sola website (more like a static image, really), we are informed that the sola graphic novel will also be released this summer, by Broccoli Books. In case you're not familiar with this title, a brief description can be found on the publisher's products page:

"Once there was a girl who yearned to see the blue sky.
-But someone has to pay the price before it can come true.
Conceived by the creators of two Japanese blockbuster PC games, Naoki Hisaya (Kanon) and Naru Nanao (D.C. ~ Da Capo~), sola is a mysterious and fantastic story of Yorito Morimiya, a high school student who loves to take photos of the sky. One night, he meets a mysterious girl, Matsuri Shihou, who is what one calls a "Yaka", an immortal, ageless existence. Their chance meeting unravels a story that stood still for hundreds of years...

Lately, Bandai's licensing deals seem to be improving a lot, as they recently acquired the rights for bringing two other promising animes to North America - True Tears and the slightly-censored Shigofumi - both of which are currently being aired in Japan. Ganbatte, Bandai-kun!


Update: Bandai Visual USA has just issued a press release restating the above, along with more about the story, theme and creators of sola... plus a link to Broccoli Book's sola page, where the first graphic novel volume is listed for release on June 18, 2008. Oh and don't worry about dubbing if you're after the anime: it will only have Japanese audio with optional English subtitles.