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NEWS: Viz Media Licenses Kingdom Manga

Kasahara: Again, Raijin tried its luck with a magazine-only Baki back in the day.

Someone at Viz has guts -- and patience.

Still no Bastard, huh? Hopefully, it does better than Baki and Yowamushi Pedal.

This is very surprising. This seems like something they should have licensed fifteen years ago before the manga had so much to localize.

Shay Guy wrote:

Someone at Viz has guts -- and patience.

Maybe the patient person trained on Kaze Hikaru. Viz started serializing it in July 2005's Shojo Beat magazine, and they're still not finished putting it out despite the series finishing in Japan in 2020. We get a single volume a year. Volume 32 came out last year, which means the final volume will come out in 2037 at the current rate. I'm quite thankful that it's still coming out, but I really didn't expect that 2005 teen me wouldn't get to read the end of it in English until I was menopausal.

My mind is blown. Has there ever been a case before of a manga localizer picking up a series that's 70+ volumes in, and still going?

R. Kasahara wrote:

My mind is blown. Has there ever been a case before of a manga localizer picking up a series that's 70+ volumes in, and still going?

Viz didn't start translating Jojo's Bizarre Adventure until Japan was 96 volumes in. Also Kodansha started their translation of Hajime no Ippo just a year and a half ago, and that series is currently 142 volumes long.

GATSU wrote:

Still no Bastard, huh? Hopefully, it does better than Baki and Yowamushi Pedal.

To be fair, Yen Press is still continuing to release Yowamushi Pedal, with the next omnibus coming out later this month. They're only a little past halfway to where it is in Japan, but I don't think Yen Press had any idea it would ever approach 100 volumes, like it currently is.

Nionel wrote:

This is very surprising. This seems like something they should have licensed fifteen years ago before the manga had so much to localize.

There was absolutely no way that Viz could have ever expected Kingdom to become the online fan favorite that it is now. Remember, Viz released the Gintama manga back from 2007 to 2011, before it started to truly catch fire with fans, & wound up cancelling the release due to poor sales, so you can't always assume that licensing early is always the smartest plan.

Back when the Kingdom anime first debuted it was ragged for its CG-heavy visuals, and the FUNimation release of the first two seasons in 2016 were DVD-only affairs that FUNi seemingly wanted absolutely nothing to do with it (as they didn't dub it, & their name was barely on the packaging). It's also a story revolving around a part of Chinese history that's nowhere near as well known as something like Romance of the Three Kingdoms (this is about China's Warrings States period, hundreds of years prior to the Three Kingdoms), so no one could have predicted it'd catch on like it has, likely even in Japan.

Really, it's only been in the past 5-7 years that Kingdom has truly become as notable as it's become abroad.

Triltaison wrote:

Shay Guy wrote: Someone at Viz has guts -- and patience. Maybe the patient person trained on Kaze Hikaru. Viz started serializing it in July 2005's Shojo Beat magazine, and they're still not finished putting it out despite the series finishing in Japan in 2020. We get a single volume a year. Volume 32 came out last year, which means the final volume will come out in 2037 at the current rate. I'm quite thankful that it's still coming out, but I really didn't expect that 2005 teen me wouldn't get to read the end of it in English until I was menopausal.

Honestly, I think Kaze Hikaru (much like Hayate the Combat Butler & likely even Case Closed) only continues to see release because Shogakukan is literally preventing Viz from cancelling it due to poor sales. Back when Viz cancelled a bunch of titles around 2010 & 2011 it was pretty much almost (if not entirely) only Shueisha titles, not Shogakukan titles, and that would make some sense since Shogakukan is the primary owner of Viz, so they can effectively force Viz to do whatever they want it to do.

Really, it's only been in the past 5-7 years that Kingdom has truly become as notable as it's become abroad.

Shay Guy wrote:

Someone at Viz has guts -- and patience.

Maybe the patient person trained on Kaze Hikaru. Viz started serializing it in July 2005's Shojo Beat magazine, and they're still not finished putting it out despite the series finishing in Japan in 2020. We get a single volume a year. Volume 32 came out last year, which means the final volume will come out in 2037 at the current rate. I'm quite thankful that it's still coming out, but I really didn't expect that 2005 teen me wouldn't get to read the end of it in English until I was menopausal.

Honestly, I think Kaze Hikaru (much like Hayate the Combat Butler & likely even Case Closed) only continues to see release because Shogakukan is literally preventing Viz from cancelling it due to poor sales. Back when Viz cancelled a bunch of titles around 2010 & 2011 it was pretty much almost (if not entirely) only Shueisha titles, not Shogakukan titles, and that would make some sense since Shogakukan is the primary owner of Viz, so they can effectively force Viz to do whatever they want it to do.

Viz should've done licensing during that time instead of some years after the fact. Even if they wanted to do a print during the early pandemic (highly doubtful), they could've done it digitally through the SJ subscription service for chapter services then go and do print later on. Like how they did it for JoJo part 6 and soon to be for part 7 iirc.

While the SB fanbase is lower than other Viz fanbases, its still a dishonest to slow the production of each volume especially for titles that have ended long ago, to one per year - which is ok if the title is still ongoing and there's only one JP volume a year - otherwise Viz should do better.

Shogakukan was the primary owner of Viz back in the late 80's to 2002, then Shueisha bought 50% equity in Viz. And since then its a joint venture between the two, along with other non-Hitotsubashi Group titles such as Vagabond (Kodansha) and Fullmetal Alchemist (Square Enix)