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Shueisha Publishes Game Based on Honobu Yonezawa's Mystery Novel Seasons of Books and Keys

Shueisha Games and developer iMel announced on Friday the video game adaptation of Honobu Yonezawa's Seasons of Books and Keys novel that will launch for Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam in winter 2026.

The company streamed an announcement trailer for the game and launched a Steam page.

Kazuki Ura plays Jiro Horikawa in the fully voiced game and Yūichirō Umehara voices Shimon Matsukura.

Shueisha Games describes the game's story:

Two male high school library committee members find themselves drawn into a series of unlikely cases: a safe that refuses to open, the theft of exam questions, the last book read by an upperclassman who took their own life, and a secret their own partner has been keeping. What begins as small mysteries tucked into ordinary school days slowly opens the door to someone's secrets and lies. 
Players step into the role of Jiro Horikawa, one half of the duo, listening to each request that comes into the library and threading the small inconsistencies together until the door to the truth opens.

The truth behind each client, the secret his partner keeps, and where the friendship between the two boys finally leads: it all waits inside.

Yonezawa wrote an all-new original episode titled "Used Kitan" for the game. Yōko Tanji, the illustrator for the original novel series, designed the characters for the game.

The game will be available with Japanese, English, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese subtitles.

The game is a "drama-like adventure," a genre that Shueisha Games and iMel built for this title. The genre is meant to combine "the act of reading a story with the act of watching one."

Seasons of Books and Keys is the first volume of Yoneawa's "Library Committee Series," which has more than 400,000 copies in print.

Yonezawa is perhaps best known for his Kotenbu (Classic Literature Club) novel series that began with Hyōka, the first novel, in 2001. The Credit Roll of the Fool (Gusha no Endroll) novel then followed in 2002, The Kudryavka Sequence (Kudryavka no Junban) in 2005, The Doll that Took a Detour (Toomawari Suru Hiyoko) in 2007, Approximating the Distance Between Two People (Futari no Kyori no Gaisan) in 2010, and Imasara Tsubasa o Iwaretemo in November 2016.

Kyoto Animation and late director Yasuhiro Takemoto adapted some of the stories in the series into a 22-episode television anime series titled Hyōka in 2012. The novels also inspired a manga in Kadokawa's Monthly Shōnen Ace magazine.

Yonezawa wrote the Shōshimin mystery novel series that has had several manga adaptations, including Anko Manjūya's Shunki Gentei Ichigo Tart Jiken (The Case of the Springtime Limited-Edition Strawberry Tart). SHOSHIMIN: How to become Ordinary, the television anime of the mystery novel series, premiered in July 2024 with its second season releasing in April 2025.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's live-action film adaptation of Yonezawa's The Samurai and the Prisoner (Kokurōjō) samurai historical mystery novel opened in Japan on June 19, and ranked at #2 in its opening weekend. The film opened in the United States in New York and Los Angeles first on Friday, before opening in other locations starting in August. Yonezawa and Kadokawa published the novel in June 2021. Yen Press released the novel in English.

Source: Email correspondence