light novels
Beginning as a series of light novels in 2000, Kino No Tabi is written by Keiichi Sigsawa and illustrated by Kouhaku Kuroboshi. The story was first published in Dengeki hp Magazine, then serialized into bunko volumes by ASCII Media Works. Since then, the series has been published into 23 volumes, with the most recent release on Nov 20th, 2020. 10 million+ copies have been sold since!
The English release, simply titled "Kino no Tabi", was published on October 3, 2006 by Tokyopop, and has since been unable to release more volumes due to completely botching the volume. The chapter order is mixed up in the english release, and only one volume has been published. Many fans, even myself, rely on fan translations of the novels since TokyoPop still has hold of the localization license.
Trivia
- While release dates were sparadic for a time, Volumes 9 - 19 were all released on the same day of the following year, October 10th. Though Volumes 20 and 21 are released in the same month, they seem to be released a couple days before the other novels and a day apart from each other: October 8th and October 7th.
- Volume 22 broke this yearly release trend by releasing on July 10th, 2019, almost a year and a half from the previous volume (Oct 8th)
- Volume 23 broke the October and July release pattern, being released in Nov 20th, 2020.
- Volumes 1, 5, and 22 were released all on the same day (July 10th)
- Volumes 1-5 of Gakuen Kino were realeased in July; 1-4 was released on the 10th, and the 5th novel was released on the 9th.
- Volume 6 was released 8 years later in October, breaking the July release trend.
- Volume 7 was released 2 years later but in May.