Smeelia
Thousand Master
They might prefer licensing newer titles but I don't think they'd have any reason not to license older titles. It's still more money and they could probably put less effort into authorising translations and such (assuming they still have easy access to everyone that would have a say) since there'd likely be less interest in the older title in general (so less need to maintain consistency/integrity).kuuderes_shadow said:Unlike with anime, where fears of reverse-importing mean that older anime can actually have an advantage over newer ones in terms of getting the rights abroad (the Japanese want to keep them back at first), when it comes to manga and, particularly, light novels, the Japanese rights holder will want to push their newer titles, rather than one that was a big hit the best part of a decade ago, but which (as far as Japan' is concerned) is been and gone.
If a company wanted an older title, they could maybe strategically pick up some new ones and say "hey why not throw in this old thing too?". If the licensor wasn't as concerned about their older titles they'd have no reason not to go along with it.
Of course, there probably are reasons for why things haven't been licensed. They may not be good reasons but there'll at least be reasons.