Comics / Press Releases

Tezuka Library Goes Digital

By The Editor
March 2, 2014 - 09:58

Tezuka Productions Co. Ltd. and Digital Manga, Inc. are proud to officially announce its latest partnership deal—to bring Tezuka’s backlist of manga titles, which have not yet been adapted and published beyond the shores of Japan, to the English language market, utilizing Digital Manga’s localizing production strong-arm, the Digital Manga Guild—to publish and distribute in digital editions.

Tezuka Productions—the Japanese production studio founded by the Father of Manga, Osamu Tezuka, and brought to the anime and manga fandom famous works that stirred controversial, political and cultural awareness to the masses since the 50’s, for such titles as Astro Boy, Unico, Budda, Blackjack, etc.—specifically appointed the Digital Manga Guild to localize their library to English, and then eventually to other languages. Tezuka Productions believes that DMI’s Digital Manga Guild, which brings together the enthusiastic and energizing spirit of the manga/anime fandom in a co-op revenue share venture between Japanese publishers, manga localizers (comprised primarily of manga/anime fans) and Digital Manga, follows the spirit of community and membership, which is in-line with the same philosophy of Osamu Tezuka’s vision of his works through Tezuka Productions.

With over 250 of Tezuka Productions’ works untapped to the rest of the manga reading world, it’s the Digital Manga Guild’s privilege, pride and joy to be able to undertake this huge localization task and to help fulfill every manga translator, editor, and typesetter’s dream to work on such high profile projects. Digital Manga welcomes all localizers, especially Tezuka fans, to join the Digital Manga Guild, digitalmangaguild.com, and participate in the localization efforts to bring these great works to the rest of the world. Some of the most notable works DMG will start will be titles such as The Three-Eyed One, Vampires, Metamorphosis, Big X, and Rainbow Parakeet.

Plans for publishing the backlist of titles are tentatively set for Spring 2014, first with releasing digitally, Digital Manga’s already published English Tezuka works—Barbara, Swallowing the Earth, Unico, Atomcat, and Triton of the Sea on eManga.com—in development in the eManga platform, will be a specially dedicated section for all things Tezuka, “Tezuka World”, where Hollywood movie and television directors, script writers, and producers will be able to browse through the Tezuka properties and propose treatments for potential Hollywood projects. Digital releases on to other platforms would soon follow. The future prospect of this partnership includes multi-language development based from the English editions of the properties which enables the readers to select the language to read.

All facets of this partnership, from the licensing, production, promotion, distribution and development of Tezuka's works, are based on a community driven effort, to not only to bring Osamu Tezuka's high literary and award winning works to hungry fans, but to bring his message of world fellowship to all borders of the globe. So come and be part of the Digital Manga Guild and Tezuka's world community!

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12