Broken Frontier

FredArt Studios and Dark Horse Comics announced today that Kodansha will publish a Japanese language edition of Megatokyo Volume 1 under the Kodansha Box imprint. It will contain the same material as the English language Dark Horse edition with additional notes and commentary for Japanese readers. It is the first Original English Language manga title to be licensed by Kodansha for the Japanese market.

"When Kodansha contacted me last year about publishing Megatokyo in Japan, they said that with all of the Japanese manga being published in English that they were interested in balancing the flow by bringing English language titles to Japan," said Megatokyo creator Fred Gallagher. "I feel honored by Kodansha’s interest in Megatokyo , and I’m very excited about this opportunity to present my work to a Japanese audience."

"I'm looking forward to seeing how Japanese readers will read Megatokyo ," said Kodansha editor Katsushi Ohta. "On the release day I want to go to Akihabara and observe how people will pick up the book in the stores, see what comments they might have."

In September, Megatokyo will be introduced to Japanese readers in a 30 page preview in FAUST magazine. This preview will include an introductory comic by Fred Gallagher, as well as translation notes and an introduction to manga influenced works produced outside of Japan. FAUST is a quarterly literary magazine edited by Katsushi Ohta which contains the work of notable writers and artists such as Kinoko Nasu (Tsukihime, Fate/stay night), Nishio Ishin (Katanagatari, Shin Honkaku Mahou Shoujo Risuka) and Hajime Ueda (FLCL, Qko-chan). An English language edition of FAUST is scheduled for release next year, joining the Taiwanese and Korean editions currently available.

The Kodansha Box edition of Megatokyo Volume 1 will be published several months after the FAUST preview. Kodansha Box is a new line of books launched in November 2006, with each book packaged in a distinctive silver slipcover ‘box.’ Edited by FAUST magazine’s Katsushi Ohta, he describes Kodansha Box as "a collection of works on the theme of the adolescent mind. I hope it will become a sort of index of Japanese popular culture."

Dark Horse Comics, who published the first three volumes of Megatokyo, was instrumental in helping license the Japanese version of Volume 1 to Kodansha. Megatokyo is currently published by CMX, the manga imprint of DC Comics, the world’s largest English language comic book publisher. This Japanese edition joins several other foreign language editions of Megatokyo , including German, Polish, Italian and French.