The Finder series (ファインダーシリーズ) is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Ayano Yamane. It is serialized in the semimonthly yaoi manga magazine Be × Boy Gold since 2001. Several adaptations of the manga have been released, including original video animations, light novels, and audio drama CDs.

Plot

Twenty-three-year-old Akihito Takaba (高羽 秋仁 Takaba Akihito) is a young freelance photographer who takes pride in his work and seeks to get a major "scoop". After he takes photographs of the business dealings of crime lord Ryuichi Asami (麻見 隆一 Asami Ryūichi), Asami kidnaps him, beginning a relationship between them as they find themselves continually drawn to one another. Liu Fei Long (劉飛龍 Ryū Feiron, Chinese: Liú Fēilóng), a rival Chinese boss who blames Asami for his father's death, takes an interest in Takaba, as well, seeking a way to get revenge. Afterwards, Fei Long kidnaps Takaba, and Asami steals an important document of Fei Long's, which he uses to trade Takaba with.

Characters

Media

Manga

The Finder series is written by Ayano Yamane. It is serialized in the manga magazines Be x Boy Gold and B-Boy Zips. The individual chapters were collected and published in 10 tankōbon volumes. Biblos originally published the series from 2002 to 2005. Following the Biblos' bankruptcy in 2006, Libre acquired the series in 2007, reprinting the first three volumes before continuing its release. In 2004, Central Park Media licensed the Finder series in English for North American distribution under its Be Beautiful Manga imprint. After Libre acquired Biblos' assets following the latter's bankruptcy, they accused Central Park Media of infringing on its copyright of the transferred Biblos properties, stating that all foreign license holders needed to negotiate new licenses with Libre as those Biblos had sold ended with the company's bankruptcy. John O'Donnell, then manager of Central Park Media refused Libre's claims and felt that Biblos's original license agreements were still valid. In 2009, Central Park Media filed for bankruptcy and its assets, including licenses, were liquidated. Finder was not listed among the assets, indicating Central Park Media no longer held the license. In March 2010, Digital Manga Publishing announced that it had acquired the English license to the Finder series, publishing the series under their Juné imprint. On June 18, 2016, Digital Media announced that their publishing agreement with Libre was terminating at the end of the month. On July 7, 2016, Viz Media acquired the licensing arrangements to publish the series under their SuBLime imprint. Since Volume 8 was released in Japan in May 2016, SubLime stated that they would publish Volume 8 first by March 2017, and then republish the first seven volumes every other month beginning in May 2017.

Volume list

Chapters not yet published in volume format

Light novels

A light novel adaptation was written by Ai Satoko and published by Libre, with illustrations provided by Yamane.

Other media

Anime

A special anime adaptation of 'Target in the Finder' (ファインダーの標的) was recently released by ANiMix Project on February 29, 2012 - starring Japanese voice actors Tetsuya Kakihara as Akihito, Takaya Kuroda as Asami, and Nobuo Tobita as Feilong. It is not really a fully animated animation, as the animation was limited to only the character's mouth, eyes, and some important body movements of the scenes. A special Cast Talk CD was included in First Press edition. A preview of an ANiMiX was made for the manga series Yebisu Celebrities.

Drama CDs

Others

A character book was released December 18, 2007 that included a pull-out poster.

Reception

In May 2009, Germany's Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons labeled the first volume of Finder as "harmful to young persons", which results in the first volume of the series being "restricted to people of legal age only. It is also prohibited to show incriminated content as teasers, trailers or in any other advertising context." In response, Tokyopop Germany removed the information about the first volume from its website, but continued to list the other three volumes it had already published. In Manga: The Complete Guide, Jason Thompson gave the series a rating of 3½ out of four stars, stating that the series is "written in an appropriately dark and brooding fashion" due to its use of "graphic sex and S&M", and praised the art as "coolly attractive". Digital Manga Publishing's translation of volume 3 ranked #4 on The New York Times Best Seller list for manga the week of May 1, 2011. SuBLime's translation of volume 7 ranked #1 on The New York Times Manga Bestseller List.