Japanese book publisher 'urgently' reprints Dante's Divine Comedy because a gacha game where you can summon him has the weebs thirsting for that 14th century epic verse

The Divine Comedy is one of the classics of world literature, and still taught in Italian schools to this day. This epic poem was finished in 1321, shortly before author Dante Alighieri's death, and essentially follows his quest to right the world's wrongs and put a lot of people he didn't like in hell. Virgil mouths off a bit too, though once he's replaced in Purgatorio it all gets much more boring.

The poem, which was initially just called the Commedia before Bocaccio added the "divine" element hundreds of years later, is incredibly influential in western literature, and has been the inspiration for countless subsequent works. One of the more recent to take inspiration is Fate/Grand Order, a popular gacha-style game in Japan: so popular, in fact, that one of Japan's major book publishers is running out of copies of The Divine Comedy (thanks, Automaton).

Kawade Shobō Shinsha, founded in 1886 and one of Japan’s biggest publishers, announced that it was undertaking an urgent reprint of an illustrated edition of the book, which it directly attributes to the success of the game. Via machine translation, the publisher says:

"Due to unexpected shortages, probably due to the Fate/Grand Order effect, it has been decided to urgently reprint Dante's 'The Divine Comedy: The Complete Edition.' Sales are up 130% compared to last year."

Then the social media manager gets a little more personal: clearly they've been playing this thing too.

"The paperback is good, but even though it costs 5,900 yen, I can totally understand why people would choose the complete edition with all the illustrations that are used in FGO (I ended up doing the same thing...)."

If you're wondering what Fate/Grand Order's whole deal is, it was originally released a decade ago and swiftly became one of the most popular mobile games in Asia. It remains huge but has recently seen an uptick in interest thanks to various spinoffs, and one of the elements of the game is summonable servants.

【FGO】 Dante Alighieri (Pretender) Demonstration - ダンテ・アリギエーリ - Fate/Grand Order - YouTube

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Yes, as of a few months ago you can have Dante Alighieri himself as a summon in the game, which also features elements cribbed from the poem. The nine circles of Hell are key to the recent Ordeal Call IV: Tribunal of Humanity: Trinity Metatronius storyline. After a title like that, you can probably see why some 14th century Italian literature feels like light reading.

The edition being sold by Kawade Shobō Shinsha features the illustrations of Gustave Dore, a 19th century French genius whose talents included printing, illustration, and wood carving. His Divine Comedy illustrations were wood carvings and are probably the most iconic representation of Dante's masterpiece. Some examples can be seen here.

As for the game? Dante will turn up to the summons and be your buddy, though apparently he's actually someone pretending to be Dante, which is pretty meta. His key line? "Hehehe.., My opus is ultra cool..."

How far we have strayed from god's light.