via Japan Digest
Publishers Shueisha, Shogakukan Plan Invasion of the Manga for U.S.
Publishers Shueisha and Shogakukan are laying plans to invade the U.S. with manga comic books via a joint venture they’ll establish in January, Nihon Keizai reported. They’ll start out with an English-language version of the Shueisha magazine Shonen Jump, but plan to make anime, or animated movies, which already have a huge following among the younger set, and get into character goods licensing as well. Shonen Jump’s first U.S. edition will total about 300 pages, and sell for about $4.95. It will carry Dragonball and other serials. Biz LLC will publish it every two weeks, and the companies are hoping to hit circulation of a million within three years–and revenues of Yen 15 billion ($125 million) within five. That would be 15-fold increase from the parent’s current combined overseas sales. The companies hold stakes in each other in Japan, but are rivals in the domestic market. The 50-50 venture, Biz LLC, will be capitalized at Yen 1.5 billion ($12.5 million). It will technically be owned by Shogakukan subsidiary Biz Communications, which has been publishing comics in the U.S. since 1986, and a new Shueisha subsidiary to be established in the U.S.
Although manga has been sold in the US for the past 10 years, it’s always been reformatted into American-style comics. If they do a bi-weekly compendium like Shonen Jump, it’ll be interesting to see if that format will take off. Kids ’round the world love manga, so the demand is there.