Digital Manga Inc. Launches Tezuka's World Kickstarter Campaign
Gardena, CA (October 21, 2014) Long time manga publisher, Digital Manga Inc. (DMI), is excited to announce today the launch of their new Kickstarter campaign, Tezuka's World Release Manga Inc.'s campaign begins now for 30 days, from 10/21/2014 to 11/20/2014, with plans to publish to English, some of the most highly requested titles from Tezuka Production's library of manga titles—The Three-eyed One, Rainbow Parakeet, Wonder 3, Alabaster, The Vampires, and Birdman Anthology in their continued effort to expose the Western audience to more classic Tezuka titles. With previously successful Tezuka Kickstarter campaigns such as Captain Ken, Unico, Barbara, and Atomcat, DMI, with the support and partnership of Japanese production house, Tezuka Productions, once again seeks fans for their help to bring these widely requested titles to American shores.
Tezuka's World Release Kickstarter Campaign
With an ambitious end goal of $589,000 to publish all six titles, total 31 volumes, Digital Manga's campaign to fund the localization and production of the books, will start out with a $380,000 goal to get the first two titles published, The Three Eyed One & Rainbow Parakeet, then following a $475,000 stretch goal to get Wonder 3 and Alabaster into production, and finally The Vampires and Birdman Anthology for its final goal. Each of the title series will also include a forward from long time manga scholar and author Fred Schodt. The campaign will also include many reward tiers to backers who support this project. Rare and highly sought after Tezuka related prizes include: the original Astro Boy Poster Schematic that is 31"x43" on heavy bond paper stock that glows in the dark to reveal Astro Boy's inner working parts in color, Digital Manga's one-of-a-kind customized 4' foot long Astro Boy exhibit statue, Astro Boy plush, retro Astro Boy Tin windup toys, Tezuka figurines. Planned release date for a majority of the series are set at summer 2015.
Tezuka's World Release Kickstarter Campaign
Digital Manga's ambitious endeavor is to deliver all volumes of publications to the supporters in one big printing for 2015 instead of sporadic releases throughout the year. Not only will the successful campaign help bring in these titles, it will also help Digital Manga to achieve their goal of localizing more Tezuka titles for the future. DMI's mission is to share the love of Tezuka not to just English and Japanese speakers, but to all audiences as well.
The Three-eyed One
Sharaku Hosuke is a 3-Eyed One descended from an unknown ancient race, and seems an innocent child at times, but when the bandages are removed from his forehead and reveals his third eye, he becomes a dark, merciless boy who will do anything to find his people's history and a place to belong.
Pages: v1:210pgs; v2:232pgs; v3:232pgs; v4:208pgs; v5:252pgs; v6:232pgs; v7:232pgs; v8:254pgs; v9:232pgs; v10:232pgs; v11:200pgs; v12:200pgs; v13:208pgs
Kickstarter Release date: Vol.1-13: 7/2015
Rainbow Parakeet
Rainbow Parakeet is an actor of wide renown as a master of mimicry and disguise who fills in difficult roles for a small fee: the employers must turn a blind eye to his thieving, but young and spunky detective Senri Mariko relentlessly pursues him, always a few steps behind.
Pages: v1:220pgs; v2:208pgs; v3:208pgs; v4:232pgs; v5:224pgs; v6:216pgs; v7:248pgs
Kickstarter Release date: Vol.1-7: 7/2015
Wonder Three
In the series, Wonder 3, it is the year 196X, and in a world beset with constant war can humanity redeem itself in one year before the galactic space federation decides to end Earth once and for all?
Pages: v1:200pgs; v2:256pgs; v3:232pgs
Kickstarter Release date: Vol.1-3: 7/2015
Alabaster
Alabaster is about James Block, a once famous athlete, now infamous villain Alabaster, who seeks revenge on those who've betrayed him and revolts on anything he considers beautiful. He adopts a girl Ami who he regards as the perfect invisible woman, but will her hope of young love for another man be Alabaster's undoing?
Pages: v1:272pgs; v2:224pgs
Kickstarter Release date: Vol.1-2: 7/2015
The Vampires
The Vampires has young werewolf boy, Toppei, move to Tokyo in search of his missing father, but when he is witnessed killing a man in his transformed state he is embroiled in Rokuro Makube's devious machinations for money and power. Will Toppei ever be able to free himself in order to find his father?
Pages: v1:200pgs; v2:192pgs; v3:224pgs; v4:264pgs
Kickstarter Release date: Vol.1-4: 7/2015
Birdman Anthology
In Birdman Anthology, it was decided through galactic intervention that humans were unfit to run society, so special seeds were scattered throughout Earth that evolves birds into the dominant sentient race. They believed they were better than the humans that lived on Earth, however it seems that history always has a way of repeating itself…
Pages: v1:182pgs; v2:258pgs
Kickstarter Release date: Vol.1-2: 7/2015
Digital Manga Inc. has over 20 years of experience publishing manga, and president and founder, Hikaru Sasahara, personally knew Tezuka and his dreams of world unity. Hikaru had created Digital Manga, Inc. in order to bring about his concept of "East meets West," and has published many manga including other Tezuka titles like Barbara, Unico, Triton of the Sea, and the upcoming Captain Ken.
"Producing a complete Tezuka manga library in English has always been my dream, and I am thrilled to make it happen, but only with the support from all the Tezuka fans…" - Hikaru Sasahara - Digital Manga Inc. - President
Tezuka Productions has brought to the anime and manga industry controversial books that always pushed the boundaries of what it means to be human. Tezuka does not shy away from showing all the facets of humanity, whether it be sorrow, joy, humor, tragedy, these things encompass what it means to live no matter what type of skin, color, shape, or gender others have. Some famous books Tezuka and his production company have published are Astro Boy, Blackjack, Unico, and Buddha.
Questions? Contact us at: [email protected]
About Digital Manga Inc. Located in Gardena, CA, Digital Manga Inc. is one of the industry's most unconventional and innovative companies, specializing in building corporate and cultural bridges from Japan to the West - specifically through the licensing, importation, and preparation of anime (Japanese animation), manga (Japanese comic books) and related merchandise for North America's mainstream and niche markets. In this capacity, DMI serves as a catalyst for the spread of Japanese pop culture institutions into the global arena. The company's imprint lines include DMP (its mainstream imprint), DMP Platinum (its classic manga imprint), JUNÉ (its boys love imprint), 801 MEDIA (its adult boys love imprint), DokiDoki (its exclusive co-publishing imprint with Shinshokan Publishing), DH/DMP (a co-publishing venture with Dark Horse Comics, Project H (its Seinen Hentai manga imprint) and DMG (a new forefront for its digital distribution initiative). For more information about Digital Manga Publishing, visit http://www.digitalmanga.com as well as:
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