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Digital Manga Launches Kickstarter to Publish Tezuka's Storm Fairy Manga
posted on by Karen Ressler
Digital Manga Publishing launched a Kickstarter campaign on Tuesday to translate, localize, and publish Osamu Tezuka's shojo manga short story series Storm Fairy (Arashi no Yōsei). The one-volume book is a collection of three short stories.
The project seeks to raise US$14,200 by July 16. If funded, the volume will be slated for November 2015.
The project has two stretch goals. The first, at US$26,000, is to reprint Unico with better quality color and paper than the company's 2013 release. The second, at US$31,500, is to print Crime and Punishment, which Digital Manga released digitally earlier this year.
Digital Manga also used Kickstarter to raise funds to print Tezuka's Ludwig B, Captain Ken, and Alabaster manga. Most recently, Digital Manga met its Kickstarter goal to publish Clockwork Apple, and met stretch goals to publish Brave Dan, and to reprint Barbara and Swallowing the Earth.
Digital Manga's Kickstarter campaign to publish Tezuka's 13-volume The Three-eyed One manga and seven-volume Rainbow Parakeet manga failed to meet its US$380,000 goal last year. Digital Manga president Hikaru Sasahara said that he originally wanted to use Kickstarter to fund 50-70 books a year, but has switched to a goal of 20-30 volumes in order to lower the cost of publishing including licensing fees, advanced royalties, labor, and other expenses. He added that he would like to launch a new campaign for one to five books almost every month, with a week or two in between each campaign.
