futekiya | Manga Planet

About

Click on the images above to view the
archived websites.

“In 2018, futekiya began as a Boys Love manga news and culture website operated by FANTASISTA, INC., a
CG/VR production studio based in Tokyo, Japan. futekiya transformed into a budding global distributor of officially licensed BL manga in 2019. By creating an online
subscription service, futekiya works to expand the ways fans
can access and support artists and creators.”

From futekiya’s July 2019
press release.

In July 2019, futekiya launched their online subscription service for officially licensed BL manga.¹ futekiya was originally a BL manga news and culture website operated by FANTASISTA, Inc., a CG/VR production studio founded by Hiroki Kurihara, starting in 2018. futekiya was the first subscription-based service to exclusively license BL manga in English.

A sister platform, Manga Planet, was launched in November of the same year, licensing non-BL manga series.² Manga Planet was initially founded as a collaboration between FANTASISTA, Inc. and Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. in 2012, a project to research and explore the ways manga is consumed worldwide.

Both Manga Planet and futekiya worked with dozens of Japanese publishers, as well as directly with manga creators, to bring hundreds of manga series to English-speaking audiences. In addition to published manga series, futekiya also licensed doujinshi in collaboration with creators.

In addition to manga series localized by futekiya, the platform became another home for publications localized by Animate International, Kodansha, Media Do, Medibang, and ShuCream.

With the license announcement of Shikke’s Pink Heart Jam manga, futekiya became the first publisher to simulpublish BL manga in English, starting in December of 2020.³

The updated service and payment model was released that September with an additional press release that highlighted one of the reasons for the change in payment model: “this change [aims] to ease the Japanese publishing industry’s wariness regarding a subscription-based licensing model, which is viewed by many Japanese publishers and creators as a devaluing of their work.”⁶

Manga Planet announced their initial foray into print releases prior to Anime Expo 2023 with the social media announcement of Ryo Ito’s It’s Still Too Early to be Love, and Samba Maekawa’s Let’s Talk About Us.⁷

Due to the response from these releases, Manga Planet addressed their plans for physical licenses in early October stating, “…we are currently not in a position to announce additional titles or expansion of distribution at this time. This is because we are currently at the stage of service development and marketing research. Whether we can launch officially into physical books depends heavily on the results of our current efforts.”⁸ Despite that, additional print titles were announced the following month, prior to Anime NYC 2023.

In 2024, four more print licenses were announced and released, two at Anime Expo 2024, and two at Anime NYC 2024. Manga Planet’s expansion into print releases grew in 2025 with the announcement of thirteen more, eleven of which were released that year.

In January 2025, it was announced that payment method provider Stripe would no longer support payments to Manga Planet due to their distribution of explicit content.⁹ This was an ongoing issue throughout the first quarter of 2025. Ultimately, these payment restrictions became a major factor for Manga Planet’s October announcement that the online service would be shutting down after March 31, 2026, nearly seven years after its launch.¹⁰ It’s also worth noting that “numerous sites and services in Japan have had to disallow payments from various services such as Visa and Mastercard, due to customer payments being refused through those services.” Manga Planet determined it would be best to shift their focus to print releases.

In early March 2026, the company announced that titles purchased with points would be transferred over to Renta! with specific instructions for users to follow.¹¹