Digital Manga, Inc. to publish Osamu Tezuka's shojo manga, Storm Fairy
GARDENA, CA - With successful Kickstarter campaigns like Captain Ken, Lugwig B, Alabaster, and the recent Clockwork Apple, Digital Manga isn't slowing down their Kickstarter train to publish “God of Manga” Osamu Tezuka titles, and their next project is a shojo (girl's) title called Storm Fairy. This manga is a collection of three short stories with the first being the longest at the length of half the book, and the other two make up the rest. Their new standard will have the book printed in high-quality off-set white paper, and is scheduled to be released in October, 2015. The Kickstarter campaign is planned to start June 16th, and will run for 30 days.
In Storm Fairy, Kuwagata Castle is in the midst of being invaded by enemy forces and the Empress flees to a nearby forest to implore a forest fairy to save her husband and her kingdom. A deal was struck and in exchange for the fairy's favor, the empress must give up the face of her next born child. Thus, two girls life become entwined, one who has to wear a mask to hide her disfigured face, another born with the face of the other. One day, while the Emperor and Empress are away, a usurper finds out about Princess Ruri's curse and steals her mask so he can place his own daughter on the throne. They oust Princess Ruri from her kingdom, and while on the run she meets a samurai, Tonosuke, who takes pity on her and takes her under his wing. Hakobe, the forest fairy blessed with another woman's face, is tasked with tricking unwary travelers but her sweet heart always leads her to help others. While on a trip into the town, she finds out the real Princess Ruri is on the run and decides to help her win back her kingdom. But, little does she know, she wears the face of the woman she's trying to save...
The second short story, “Kokeshi Detective Agency,” has a similar tone and feel to young adult book series, Encyclopedia Brown. Little fearless Paco goes around solving mysteries for she is not afraid of things that go bump in the night while her dog friend Waco does his best to protect her. In the third story, fairy Pink from the realm of beautiful sunsets morphs into whatever she wants so she may help those who are unhappy and in need, but King Brown and Sepia from the realm of thunderstorms do their best to make people miserable.
Even though this manga is classified as a shojo manga, Tezuka still questions what is perceived as beautiful or ugly, and I love it. – Hikaru Sasahara, President of DMI
Shojo is a type of genre born in Japanese magazines that were segregated according to gender. Shonen and shojo was printed similarly like the funnies in your Sunday newspaper. Magazines aimed at boys to sympathize with WWII created the genre shonen whereas magazines aimed at girls focused on their feelings and home life created the genre shojo. Post-WWII showed a surge of girls interested in manga, and when Tezuka published Princess Knight, he raised the bar on what was acceptable for Japanese girls to read. There are not a lot of shojo titles created by men (including Tezuka), so Digital Manga, Inc. is proud to add this teen shojo title to their library.
There will also be a stretch goal to reprint Unico in sharper color, and another stretch goal to print Crime and Punishment which was previously released as digital-only. More information regarding swag for stretch goals when it becomes unlocked.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digitalmanga/publish-tezukas-storm-fairy-and-reprint-unico
About DMI and Tezuka Productions
Digital Manga Inc. has over 20 years of experience publishing manga, and president and founder, Hikaru Sasahara, personally knew Tezuka and his dreams of world unity. Hikaru had created Digital Manga, Inc. in order to bring about his concept of "East meets West," and has published many manga including other Tezuka titles like Barbara, Unico, Triton of the Sea, and Captain Ken.
Tezuka Productions has brought to the anime and manga industry controversial books that always pushed the boundaries of what it means to be human. Tezuka does not shy away from showing all the facets of humanity, whether it be sorrow, joy, humor, tragedy, these things encompass what it means to live no matter what type of skin, color, shape, or gender others have. Some famous books Tezuka and his production company have published are Astro Boy, Blackjack, Unico, and Buddha.
Questions? Contact us at: contact@emanga.com
Digital Manga Inc.
Located in Gardena, CA, Digital Manga Inc. is one of the industry's most unconventional and innovative companies, specializing in building corporate and cultural bridges from Japan to the West - specifically through the licensing, importation, and preparation of anime (Japanese animation), manga (Japanese comic books) and related merchandise for North America's mainstream and niche markets. In this capacity, DMI serves as a catalyst for the spread of Japanese pop culture institutions into the global arena. The company's imprint lines include DMP (its mainstream imprint), DMP Platinum (its classic manga imprint), JUNÉ (its boys love imprint), 801 MEDIA (its adult boys love imprint), DokiDoki (its exclusive co-publishing imprint with Shinshokan Publishing), DH/DMP (a co-publishing venture with Dark Horse Comics, Project H (its Seinen Hentai manga imprint) and DMG (a new forefront for its digital distribution initiative).
For more information about Digital Manga Publishing, visit http://www.digitalmanga.com as well as:
http://www.dmpplatinum.com/
www.dmpbooks.com
www.junemanga.com
www.digitalmangaguild.com
https://www.emanga.com/tezuka
https://www.akadot.com/
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