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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