Japanese publishing conglomerate Kodansha and Japanese publication printing house Dai Nippon have announced the purchase of Tokyo-based Vertical Inc. for an undisclosed sum. The publisher of such works as Peepo Choo and Osamu Tezuka’s Ayako will be absorbed into Kodansha’s operations as an in-house translation hub for its new push in the US market according to the following from translator Peter Durfee.

“The new [Kodansha] president said that his company would be putting more resources into digital publishing and global business, and then announced this. Kōdansha and Dai Nippon Printing have teamed up to buy Vertical. The plan is now to have Vertical translate Kōdansha’s manga and other titles, which DNP will print and market in the United States via its partners there.”

With this new development, this will essentially end Vertical Inc.’s status as a publisher of titles and instead turn the company into a dedicated translation house for Kodansha titles being published in the US market, an unexpected development sure to upset many longtime fans of the company known for opening up licensing requests via Twitter and publishing a wide variety of cookbooks and other non-manga publications. Vertical Inc. previously received an undisclosed amount of investment from Dai Nippon in February of 2009, with the publisher declining to name the company at the time of the announcement, while Kodansha itself announced its entry into the US market last year, which led to the dissolution of the Del Rey brand at publisher Random House.