American Manga Awards launches in August
Plus: Blackstone wins Mecha Comic buyout bid; Webtoon Entertainment files for IPO; CoMix Wave Films names new chief executive; and more
This is the weekly newsletter of Animenomics, covering the business of anime and manga. Today is Wednesday, June 5, 2024.
An announcement: Animenomics will be attending Anime Expo in Los Angeles next month, July 4–7, 2024. If you are an anime or manga industry professional and would like to meet with us, send us an e-mail at editors@animenomics.com.
American Manga Awards to celebrate U.S. manga pros
Anime NYC and the Japan Society are launching an American Manga Awards in August to celebrate the achievements of North American manga professionals in the world of Japanese comics, Publishers Weekly reports.
Why it matters: Manga sales in the United States have been at historic highs in the last three years, growing its influence in North America’s publishing industry.
Last year, manga was the fourth largest category in the U.S. books market, according to data from Circana BookScan.
The details: Manga industry veteran
is leading the planning committee of the awards, and authors and translators and are among the judges selecting the winners.Winning works will be selected in six categories: Best New Manga, Best Continuing Manga Series, Best New Edition of Classic Manga, Best Translation, Best Lettering, and Best Publication Design
Frederik L. Schodt, who wrote the first book about manga in English and translated works by Osamu Tezuka, will also become the first person to be inducted into the Manga Publishing Hall of Fame.
Zoom out: Manga awards are proliferating in Japan as digital manga becomes dominant, but an award ceremony specific to the North American manga market has not existed before.
For years, manga published in English have been nominated for and have won Eisner Awards, considered the most prestigious awards in the U.S. comics industry.
Manga nominees of this year’s Eisner Awards include Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Goodbye, Eri, Maki Fujiwara’s My Picture Diary, Kyoko Okazaki’s River’s Edge, and Mokumokuren’s The Summer Hikaru Died.
Blackstone wins bid to buy Mecha Comic app operator
Global private equity fund Blackstone has agreed to acquire IT services company Infocom, which owns the digital manga platform Mecha Comic and webtoon app Peanutoon, in a deal worth ¥260 billion (US$1.66 billion), Nikkei Asia reports.
Why it matters: Infocom’s sale price is 30 percent above what Sony had offered the company recently.
Backgrounder: Mecha Comic was Japan’s fifth most popular manga app last year, according to data compiled by Sensor Tower, and is the rare digital manga platform not owned by a comics or publishing industry parent company.
What they’re saying: Neither Blackstone nor Infocom has commented on the deal, but Blackstone global head of private equity Joe Baratta told Bloomberg last November that the company was actively seeking deals in Japan.
When asked about the weak yen at the time, Baratta said, “It may make us feel generally better about investing in a moment in time versus not.”
Clippings: Webtoon Entertainment files for stock listing
South Korea’s Naver Webtoon has filed paperwork to become a publicly traded company and list its shares on New York’s Nasdaq stock exchange. The offering price and number of shares issued haven’t been determined. (The Korea Herald)
Webtoon Entertainment’s prospectus reports that revenues grew 18.8 percent last year to US$1.28 billion. Nearly half of the Webtoon platform’s 170 million monthly active users come from South Korea, Japan, and the United States.
Shogakukan criticized Nippon Television over the network’s “insincere” attitude during the production of the screen adaptation of Sexy Tanaka-san, whose manga creator Hinako Ashihara died by suicide in January. (Jiji Press)
Catch up quick: Days prior, Nippon Television published the results of its internal investigation into the events leading up to Ashihara’s death, which calls for increased efforts to build trust with original authors.
Singapore-based VTuber startup AnotherBall acquired Studio Mayflower, an anime studio founded last year that is looking to incorporate machine learning into anime production processes. (Press release)
A U.N. Human Rights Council working group has published a report of its visit to Japan last year that calls on anime production committees to improve working conditions for animators. (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights)
Niigata Int’l Animation Film Fest diverges from Annecy
“As much as things are becoming global, there was something I was a bit frustrated with when surveying Annecy’s official selection: works with political themes are the ones which always end up getting prizes. More specifically, it seems that gender issues are the kind of theme that makes it easier to enter the official selection. And the thing is that works made in Asia—not just Japan—aren’t really in touch with such themes.”
— Tadashi Sudo, Niigata International Animation Film Festival program director
Context: Speaking with the French website Full Frontal, Sudo describes how the Annecy International Animation Film Festival influenced the programming of the budding Niigata International Animation Festival, which held its second edition in March.
Between the lines: Sudo isn’t criticizing politically-themed animation, but rather wants to see more representation of filmmakers who make commercial works in animation festivals in addition to small, independent filmmakers.
“I wanted to show that there can be auteurs even in robot anime franchises,” he said on inviting Mobile Suit Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino this year. “You couldn’t screen a robot anime in any festival, Annecy or elsewhere.”
What’s next: Sudo wants to see more attendance by audiences and journalists from outside Japan, pointing out that Niigata is accessible by airplane from many East Asian cities.
CoMix Wave Films names first new chief exec since 2007
Anime production company CoMix Wave Films has named managing director Tomohiro Tokunaga as its new president and chief executive, replacing longtime CEO Noritaka Kawaguchi, who will become chairman of the board of directors.
Why it matters: This is the first time CoMix Wave Films has changed leadership since the company was founded in 2007 in a management buyout from Itochu led by Kawaguchi.
Backgrounder: CWF not only operates as a studio, but also runs its own planning, fundraising, distribution, and rights management operations.
The company gained its reputation in the anime industry as a producer of indie works, including those of acclaimed director Makoto Shinkai.
What’s happening: Tokunaga, who Animation Business Journal reports is in his 30s, joined the company in 2020 from Telecom Animation Film.
He quickly rose through the ranks at CWF, becoming an executive officer in the same year and then a managing director in 2022.
At Telecom Animation Film, Tokunaga was an animation producer who worked on titles like Tower of God and Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro.
The bigger picture: CWF’s leadership change comes as the company announced a capital injection into Tokyo-based art studio Bihou.
Bihou has supplied anime production studios with background art for more than 30 years, but its financials suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kawaguchi, who has a reputation for tackling systemic issues in the anime industry, is joining Bihou’s board of directors as part of the investment.
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