FanimeCon - Day Four - Viz Communications

Thanks to a deal between Shogakukan and Nintendo, Viz may seem to have turned into a Pokemon company. Since Viz's parent company in Japan publishes the Pokemon manga, the American company has published all of the Pokemon manga and several other books, from kids' stories to origami. Yet, when Viz' representatives gathered at FanimeCon, they had other projects to discuss that had nothing to do with Pikachu...although they mentioned that children seemed attracted to a large Pikachu poster in their San Francisco offices, and Viz was ready to issue a line of merchandise linked to the second Pokemon movie when it's released in 2000. Also, Toshi Yoshida (on the far left) joked that "We have a big Pikachu in the back and we milk it."

The great experiment for Viz is Eagle: The Making of an Asian-American President. Edited by Carl Horn (pictured), Eagle breaks the patterns of comics and manga release in the U.S. The story is a realistic tale of a half-Japanese Presidential candidate, much in the spirit of the earlier Sanctuary series released by Viz. But, while Sanctuary was released as 24-page comics, Eagle will be published in 110-page volumes. That will serve to advance the story along the same time frame as the actual 2000 presidential campaign, noted Horn. "It's the most fascinating manga I've ever read because of what Mr. (Kaiji) Kawaguchi observes about America," Horn said.

Also, Eagle has a unique cover created by Horn. Instead of flat stock, it's being issued with an expensive-feeling coated paper. Printed on that paper is a graphic made of video captures from Cable News Network showing actual 2000 Presidential candidates - again, to link the manga to the real campaign. Horn promises to update that graphic in the coming months to show what the real candidates are doing. Extra care was taken in adapting Eagle for English-language readers, who read left-to-right while the Japanese original is read right-to-left. Most of the translated manga was flipped to put the panels in the direction that they're read in English. But key panels, such as those showing cars on American roads, were left unflipped and pasted into the flipped pages so that U.S. cars aren't shown driving on the left side of the road, said Horn.

What's with all of this talk about Rumiko Takahashi visiting America? Yoshida said it might happen. Viz is reaching the tenth anniversary of the release of her Ranma 1/2 series in the U.S., and there's hope of getting her to the Comic-Con International in San Diego during the summer. While waiting for that trip to be finalized, Viz fans will have to settle for a lot more Dragonball in printed form, a "Fresh Pulp" collection from the first two years of the mature-oriented anthology and an book of interviews with leading Japanese artists. (Did Megumi Hayashibara really write a Pokemon Tale?)

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four