BY KATSUHIRO OTOMO
7BOOK ONE
This is number it-m of one thousand five hundred
in the limited hardcover edition of
KATSUHIflO OTOMO'S AKIRA: BOOK ONE
AKIRA&OTOMO
In1970, Japan's comic
magazine industry wasdrvided roughly into two
types d[ publications. One waslor luvenile readers, from
children jp to middle teens.
The other was lor an adjil
audience consisting mainly ol
young salaried workers.
Kodansha, Ltd., one of the
country's largest publishers,
lelt that there was an mter-
mediate group being missed:
high school and college
;tu dents, a readership
.ensitivB to new trends
developing in film, music,
lashion, all forms of the arts
and entertainment.
Voung Magazine, a 300
lage biweekly, was designed
tor this potential audience. But
finding exactly the right
material to capture the
imagination of a new reader-
ship proved difficult. For two
years Young Magazinestruggled. During this time, it
attracted the m teres t of
rli St -writer Katsuhiro
Otomo.
Since the publication of his
first work in 1973— adapting
the short novel MateoFalcone by Prosper
Merimee—Otomo'srepu ta-
rn had steadily grown, based
1 a number of unique aed
(20 to 3D pages in length rather
than the hundreds, sometimes
thousands, that an ongoing
mics) Some of these dealt
with fantasy and science-
fiction themes, many with
slice-of-tife contemporary
drama; all had a visual spirit
and rhythm that reflected
Dtomo's feelings for new
wave cinema and modern \an
With the publication of
Domu in 1 9B3, Otomo enjoyed
his greatest success. This 230
page comic—which centers
upon a conflict between two
dwellers in a modern day high
rise apartment complex, an old
man and young girl, each
possessing deadly psychic
powers— became a best seller
and went on to win Japan
science-fiction Grand Pnx for
story of the year (previously
this prize had only been
awarded to novels]
The success of Domu and
reactions to an earlier work—the still to be completed
series. Fireball-dealing
with a human versus mega-
computer theme, led Otomo to
consider doing an even larger
scale science -fiction story.
The story was Akira. And
ecause he liked the newdirection it was taking, Young
Magazine was where Otomo
chose to present this major
work, which, when complete,
would be a six volume graphic
novel.
Reader reaction to the first
25 page segment of the series
to appear m Voung Magazinewas overwhelming. The
material broke with tradition
and touched a nerve. Circula-
tion began to rise. The new
audience had been found
Today there are about half a
dozen titles like YoungMagazine. Young Magazine
and two others have a
circulation of over one millior
Traditionally in Japan, a
comics series first appears ir
irstallmerts in a weekly or
biweekly magaiine. Whensufficient material has been
pjblislied, the series is then
cnllecled into a book ediiion
Usually this waiild he about
240 pages and in a format thai
is a little bit larger but still
similar in size to an American
paperback book. Here toe,
Akira broke with tredition.
The first Japanese book
edition was n a format closer
in dimension to the magazine
size (about the height and
width of one of ojr comic
books] and contained 360
pages. The title and author's
name appeared on the cover mEnglish; no Japanese lettering
was used. The formal and
style grew out of Otomo's own
concept ot making the book
ediiion similar in feeling to
American comics Book
designer Akira Saito worked
closely with Olomo to achieve
this goal. Initial fears from
Kodansha's Sales Division
over the wisdom of the design
and packaging of the book
faded as advance orders
began to pour in. What wasoriginally slated to beaSO.DOO
print run eventually shot up to
nearly 300,000 copies. The
first book edition of Ahifa
became 3 number one
bestseller.
That was in September of
1984. Three other volumes
have come out each year since
then. All have had the samesort of phenomenal reception.
The fifth volume is complete,
and will shortlysee print. With
print runs now at about half a
million copies each, the
completed saga of Akira will
have a total of two and a fialf
million copies in print.
And that's not really the
Otomo. m addition to his
comics work is a designer of
TV commercials for clients
such as Suntory, Canon, and
Honda, and acted as director,
scenarist, designer, and
illustrator on an animated film
of Akira that has been playing
the United States this year.
Olomo has also been very
involved in the production of
the English language version
ofAkirBsincethis IS the first
time that tiis work has
appeared in the United States
in translation and also the first
time It has appeared com-
pletely in color His own
studio, IVIASH ROOIVI Co.,
Ltd., prepares the adjusted
artwork from which wereproduce (Japanese comrcs
are onginally done to read
from right to left and their
dialogue balloons and sound
effects are designed for
lettering that reads veriicallyl.
Through Kodansha's editors mNew York and Tokyo with
whom we work, Otomo sees
the material at each stage of
development, providing notes
on the scnpt adaptation by Jo
Duffy and furnishing color
guides to Steve Oliff, who
was his personal choice for
colorist on the proieci.
This concern lor all pfiases
in the production of his work is
certainly one of the factors in
making Akira the phenome-
non that it was for Japanese
readers. The other factors are
surely the artistry and excite-
ment that is brought to the
telling of the story. Now,
thanks to Katsuliiro Otomoand Kodansh^ LM, American
readers can at long last share
in that phenomenon
^BYKATSUHIROOTOMO
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§MANGA-SKETCHBOOK@DALNET SCANNED AND EDITED BYFINNPEST