First Look at Ode to Kirihito

[strobe_z]

Looks very similar to the Buddha books - no surprise there. What does surprise me though (in a pleasant way) is that the advertised price on Amazon.ca (CDN$ 21.75) is roughly the same than one volume of Buddha (CDN$ 21.09). For a book that's roughly 400 pages (or twice the size of Buddha), that's pretty good.

Amazon.ca says October 2006... I can't wait!

[cmoon]

I hope Vertical can keep pushing Tezuka successfully as a serious artist that did more than just Astroboy. So much STILL isn't in print, and I keep hoping that at a certain point the dam will break and we'll actually see things like Jungle Emperor in English. It has to happen sometime!

[Puddles]

[putrocca]

[Irina]

[cmoon]

I am really suspicious that Dark Horse lost a lot of money on the whole Astroboy/metropolis/future world/lost world releases. I think they really hoped to mass market these the way you do any other popular manga not anticipating that US comic readers don't buy comics from the 50's and 60's. I don't think it helped that sans astro, that list of books isn't particularly strong. I've never been sold on Tezuka's pre-Jungle Emperor work, and this was precisely what DH was trying to break into the market with. Sort of weird imagining the difficulty that VIZ was having getting people to buy into Phoenix--why start with books like future world???

Regardless, Vertical has the right idea. Clearly in the US, the market is small, so you just gear your releases to a small audience. I can't imagine for a moment that there aren't enough Tezuka fans world wide (DH does sell in other countries too), not to be profitable for DH, but their response after finishing up Astroboy makes it seem as though this were the case. Hard to say what's going on with them!

[strobe_z]

I agree... I'd consider myself a huge Tezuka fan, but even for me Futureworld/Metropolis/Lost World were a bit tough to wade through. I was more interested in the historical view on Tezuka's work as well as having a chance to see some of the progress in his storytelling and artwork... but I don't think that's something you can really bank on to generate interest for the general public.

AstroBoy was a good place to start I think, but I would've followed it up with things like Jungle Emperor Leo and Princess Knight... stuff that has a built in fanbase in North America (albeit more nostalgic than "otaku").

Vertical has quickly become my favourite manga publisher for doing the job on Buddha that Viz SHOULD have done on Phoenix. I also credit them for getting Buddha into bookstores. That's where I first saw it... never knew Tezuka had written a series like that, and I was blown away right there in the aisle at Chapters. I had to drive to three different locations to find copies of volume 1 and 2 (only volume 3/4 were on the shelves).

Chip Kidd did a bang-up job on the presentation of the series... it looks fabulous on my shelf. I can't wait to see Kirihito sitting there next to them.

Hopefully Kirihito sells well enough that Vertical will continue to work through Tezuka's "adult" manga. Assuming that's the case, what do you think would be the best series to follow up with? I think my vote goes to Ayako.. but I'm not altogether sure why. I've only read the first volume in Korean (but I just got the French Boxset edition from Delcourt.. VERY nice), but I just seem to be drawn to it. MW might be another good one, but I'd prefer to see Ayako "go Vertical"

[putrocca]

[snake search]

the Ode to Kirihito page is up on the vertical website if anyone is interested.

[putrocca]

Excellent thanks. I'll add the link to the main site.

[strobe_z]

I couldn't resist playing around with those cover images to figure out what the book will look like, more or less... (click for larger image)



I LOVE the little grey "dust cover" - it looks like you can slide it back and forth to reveal either face. And judging by the dimensions of the covers... the spine is THICK. Not that that's really a surprise, given the fact that this is the only (?) one volume release of the traditionally four volumes of Kirihito.

Once agin though, looks like Chip Kidd's work... and bang on.

[cmoon]

Do we have any idea what vertical is thinking about doing next?

[putrocca]

No official word, but my money's on Ayako, or possibly MW. I'll see if I can talk to them about it - they're very nice.

[strobe_z]

Looks like we were all wrong... but I am very pleasantly surprised!

According to Amazon.ca, the next series coming from Vertical is...


by Osamu Tezuka (Author), Camellia Nieh (Author)

List Price: CDN$ 30.00
Our Price: CDN$ 19.80
You Save: CDN$ 10.20 (34%)

Availability: This title will be released on June 5, 2007. Pre-order now! Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Product Details

Hardcover: 500 pages
Publisher: Vertical (Jun 5 2007)
ISBN: 1932234667
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is very exciting for a lot of reasons...
- It's the first series which isn't already available in French
- It's another 3-volume series being released as one hardcover
- I've been looking at volumes 2 & 3 of the Korean version sitting on my shelf for over a year... and been wondering where the heck I was ever gonna find vol. 1!

That aside, it should be a very interesting book... for more info on the series, check out the

"The Song for Apollo" is a science fiction Manga for young readers featuring a boy named Chikaishi Shogo, a bad boy who has grown up without knowing love. In the story, he travels in time to search for true love.

His mother's promiscuous lifestyle has made him hate love. The police put Shogo under the care of Doctor Enoki. Because of the electrotherapy he undergoes, Shogo enters the world of dream and meets the goddess of love. By her command, he experiences the ordeals of love. He travels to different places beyond time, traversing past and the future, falling in love and then experiencing the sorrow of parting. In his travels he goes to Europe under Hitler's rule, an uninhabited island where animals cooperate with each other to live peacefully, and more.

Then he reaches last destination - a future society in 2030, where cloned humans control humans. There, the original humans are forced to live in the mountains, treated as creatures of the past. Queen Sigma, who does not know true love, presses Shogo to show her what love is.

Telling children about sex was a taboo in Japan in the late 1960s, but things changed suddenly in the early 1970s. For many reasons, sex was no longer a taboo subject. In the world of Manga, "Harenchi Gakuen"(1968) by Nagai Go, which was full of obscene scenes and nudes, opened the door to a new era in Manga. Following "Harenchi Gakuen," boys' Mangas started consistently dealing with sex. "Song for Apollo" was written during this period. In this work, Tezuka Osamu tries to convey the essence of love and sex through the eyes of the main character, Chikaishi Shogo, who wanders around searching for true love. This theme is common to Tezuka Osamu's other works such as "Phoenix" and "Buddha." Also at this time, Japan was going through a turbulent period when student riots and violent incidents involving student activists were rampant. Tezuka Osamu later remarked that Shogo's depressed character reflected the dark mood and instability of society at the time.

[cmoon]

Wow! That sounds pretty incredible.

It is pretty exciting to see Vertical taking on these lesser known works. We just need 2 or 3 more verticals to get all this stuff out faster!