Thought this might be of interest, Mino Taro's new project

[Ami]

LovePlus Character Designer Launches Original Manga for Shōnen Magazine Edgelink

LovePlus Character Designer Launches Original Manga for Shōnen Magazine Edge
Thursday, July 23, 2015 in News & Info, Anime News. Leave a comment

The official website for Kodansha's upcoming manga magazine Shonen Magazine Edge revealed on Thursday that LovePlus character designer Taro Minoboshi (formerly Mino?Taro) will launch his first original manga serialization titled Seifuku Robin Son (Uniform Robin Song) in the magazine's inaugural issue on September 17.

The tagline on the the magazine's website for the new manga reads: 'Even in 'this world,' we are becoming adults who will fall in love. A herbivore-type youth survival story for boys and girls.' (In Japanese, the word soshoku-kei or herbivore-type is used to describe a person who shuns marriage or has no interest in finding a girlfriend/boyfriend.)

Mino?Taro left Konami in March and revealed that he would work as a freelancer under the new pen name Taro Minoboshi. Konami announced in March that it would continue to make games in the LovePlus series despite his and producer Akari Uchida's departure from the company.

The Loveplus franchise launched on the Nintendo DS in 2009, and sold at least 180,000 copies in half a year. The game has since spawned an enhanced LovePlus+ edition, New LovePlus for the Nintendo 3DS, a few mobile and arcade spinoffs, and at least five manga series.

Shonen Magazine Edge will also serialize Hiroyuki Takei's (Shaman King, Ultimo) new manga Nekogahara, as well as Yasuyuki Torikai's Shinyaku Märchen manga adapting Sound Horizon's Märchen story album. The magazine will ship on the 17th of every month, and Kodansha will also publish a digital version simultaneously with the print version.

Shonen Magazine Edge's name comes from the fact that Kodansha is aiming to publish works 'at the extreme exterior of the 'Magazine' group.' Fumio Osano, Kodansha's editor for Naoko Takeuchi's Sailor Moon and Codename: Sailor V manga, will serve as editor-in-chief of Shonen Magazine Edge.

Source: Comic Natalie

[MorisatoK]

Might be worth a read* with the lovely and yet familiar artworks.

* given that some scanlator picks it up

Somewhat more surprising is the old news from march of Konami continuing the LP franchise. Must have slipped from my radar.

Don't know if I would buy another game from them though with all the fuss lately about Konami (Hideo Kojima, bad working conditions etc.)

[Demonicdan]

Man that looks cool, but the girl on the left bears a striking resemblance to that new girl they added in LP Collection. Hairstyle and everything. Also a rebelious looking loner type girl who likes cats? Where on Earth could he possibly have gotten that idea...

[Ami]

It's just too bad that Konami likely owns the rights to LP and our favourite characters.

I wonder what it was that they wanted to do and Konami stopped.

I haven't even had a save for Manaka or Nene. I saw Rinko and was sold on her immediately ♥. I don't think I could play one of their new creations unless it felt like Rinko.

[Demonicdan]

It's possible they'd have to sign a non-compete clause when they left to stop them going away and makin more VN's, though that's only one possible option. Maybe after all this time they just wanted to work on something other than a dating sim?

[Ami]

I can't see them being restricted in such a way. VN's are huge and I can't see any artist with half a brain signing a contract stating that.

Uchida said of his departure:

“I still don’t know yet, but I’d like to keep up the pace and continue doing what I can do. …it was when a fan told me ‘thank you!’ while clenching my hand in tears. In the end, it was the my best decision after thinking about what I can do for such fans from this point on.”

“Now that I have all the time to think about the unlimited things I can do, [the thoughts] of hopes and uncertainty has me jumping up and down like a child. I’d like to have an opportunity to be able to make something together with you all, so when that time comes, please lend me your strength. Let’s cause a commotion together, again!”

To me, it sounds like he wants to make a better LP style, VN.

Mino Taro also said:

“I have nothing but the deepest feelings for the titles I’ve worked on. In the midst of working in rough conditions as a video game creator, there was a lot I thought about, but I’ve come to my decision after thinking about the last opportunity of being able to do things I wasn’t able to with Konami.”

This reinforces my supposition that Konami was once again, interfering with the studio and its product/s.

And out of interest, here is the notice from Konami.

Thank you for your continued interest in our product line.

Given the resignations of Akari Uchida and Mino Taro as staff members who were formerly in charge of production on the Love Plus and Tokimeki Memorial franchises, we are aware of everyone’s concerns about the future of both franchises.

Love Plus and Tokimeki Memorial are both series of games that are deeply important to us and have earned your love and adoration for many years and as such, production of them will continue unabated and it is our sincere hope that you will likewise maintain your enduring support moving forward.

If there are still any remaining points that you wish to see clarified, you may reach us at our customer service line.

『ラブプラス』・『ときめきメモリアル』シリーズに関するお知らせ

平素は弊社製品をご愛顧いただきまして誠にありがとうございます。

弊社の『ラブプラス』・『ときめきメモリアル』シリーズの制作を担当した社員（内田明理氏、ミノ☆タロー氏）が退職したことで、同シリーズの制作について、お客さまにご心配をおかけしております。

KONAMIの『ラブプラス』・『ときめきメモリアル』シリーズは、お客さまから長年愛され続けている大切なコンテンツであり、今後も制作・提供を続けてまいりますので、ご期待ください。引き続き同シリーズをご愛顧賜りますようお願い申し上げます。

ご不明な点がありましたらコナミお客様相談室までご相談ください。

[Hime]

Huh this is all pretty cool to know. If Konami can pull off something else like love plus, I'd be interested to see it even if it wasn't our girls because I just love a lot of aspects of this type of game. Unfortunately, with many companies, they sometimes mistreat their workers. It's sad, but for a big company like this, it would take a little more to get me to not buy from them in the future. I'll be keeping an eye out, but, whether it's reported or not, a lot of companies have similar problems.

That said, I'd love to follow Mino Taro's work still! If any of you guys hear anything else about these things, let us know! I'll be on the lookout too.

[Demonicdan]

It's a shame that konami own the character rights to all the LP characters, maybe if they go bankrupt or restructure again they'll sell off the rights and Mino Taro or a more sympathetic game company could buy them and make new games.

[Ami]

This may go to our benefit.

If Konami find that LP wanes in popularity they may recontract them and hopefully place a higher value on their contribution and permit more artistic freedom.

[Hime]

Maybe, but I don't know if they would go back. they do seem pretty fan driven, though it may be hard to forgive and forget.

I just think there's so many aspects of Love Plus that I adore. The ability to date (or even "hang out") with a digital girl, rendered with 3D, who has 3 different subtypes of their main personality is kind of amazing. They rarely feel super flat, and I love that. The fact that I hear so many stories about their lives and stuff is cool. It's an incredible amount of detail that kind of lets you connect to the character. It's got the good elements of a VN. Though I felt that I liked the books a lot because there was more detail, I realized they needed to keep the pre-date section to a pretty nice minimum. I kind of wish the girls had a few simple struggles or something after the pre-dating section that you felt like you could help with, but it's whatever. Moving on, we have three girls in the game. Each of them have unique appearances, and not only that, but they have a range of outfits, costumes, and accessories that they wear, not to mention the hair change and the hair color change. There's so much interaction that it can be hard to get bored. I love this about Love Plus, and have found none of this in other games. It's always the story OR the dating OR the customization unless you guys know of some games I'm missing out on.

That said, I would readily accept new games from either developer if they offer such choices. I do really love Rinko, but I also have had a lot of other people from games that I've loved (Naomi from Harvest Moon AWL), the only difference being the opportunity for Rinko to reciprocate that without it becoming a flat dialogue of "I love you" or "I'm happy to be with you" every day because of the nature of the game. I don't know what's in store for the future of these games, but I am hopeful.

[.:[R]Plus:.]

I'm trying to look at it from a positive point of view, LP,LP+,NLP,NLP+..if you think about it the game remained almost the same with each release except from some small updates on the graphics and additional added stuff..This is not necessarily bad since this was the vision of the original artists but if Konami is being truthful and does recruit a new team of fresh artists to revive the series this could mean that in a few years we can look forward to some new unexpected game features and a few possible much different spin-offs of the series with our favorite heroines..

that's IF Konami is interested in bringing it back..

But realistically there was a time when Konami would release tons of merchandise with the girls and this all stopped around the time NLP took a bad turn..And seeing how Konami goes from bad to worse it's uncertain if they would ever care to do anything further..