'Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep' Light Novel Coming to the U.S.

Kingdom Hearts is one of the most popular video game franchises not only because of its blend of Disney and Final Fantasy characters, but because of its world spanning, years long narrative of darkness and hearts.

Soon fans will get to have a deeper look into the series when the Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep light novel releases in the United States next year.

Yen Press has confirmed that Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: The Novel will officially release in the United States March 19, 2019. Plans to license the novel were announced back in 2016, and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: The Novel is written by Tomoco Kanemaki with an illustrated cover provided by the artist for the manga adaptations of the series, Shiro Amano.

The novel series was actually split into a trilogy in Japan with the subtitles, Something Strange, Best Friends, and To the Future, and goes into more of a deeper narrative than was allowed in the original video game's version of the story. The synopsis for Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep: The Novel reads as such:

"Ten years before Sora fought to save the worlds, three young Keyblade wielders named Terra, Aqua, and Ventus trained in the hopes of becoming Masters one day. But on the day of Terra and Aqua's Mark of Mastery exam, everything changed forever, and the three each set off on their own journey..."

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep was originally released for the PlayStation Portable. Originally produced by Square Enix, it was the sixth released title in the franchise but is a prequel to the original Kingdom Hearts. The story follows three Keyblade wielders ten years before Sora, Riku, and Kairi were brought into the fight against darkness. The game featured three different stories following each of the new protagonists (Terra, Ven, and Aqua) as they tried to figure out the dark plan of Master Xehanort.

The events of the prequel will soon come to a head in the next entry of the franchise with many of the characters returning to the series in Kingdom Hearts 3. Kingdom Hearts 3 is currently scheduled for a release on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on January 29, 2019. It was original scheduled for a 2018 release, but was pushed back. Fans are honestly just happy to have a concrete release date after over ten years of waiting for a sequel.