Dark Horse Manga is a Hero

Dark Horse announced some new manga licenses at their Anime Central panel over the weekend.  They included “Giganto Maxia” by Kentaro Miura of “Berserk” fame, a license rescue of “RG Veda” by Clamp (previously published by Tokyopop), and a “Danganronpa” manga based on the anime which was based on the videogame.  So far we’re well within what I’ve come to expect regarding new licenses from the publisher:  New works from established creators, license rescues, and anime spinoffs of dubious quality.

Then there’s “I Am a Hero” by Kengo Hanazawa.  A new series from a creator who hasn’t had anything published yet in the U.S.

…YESSSSSSSS!!!

For a good long while now I’ve been lamenting the fact that we haven’t been getting series like this from the publisher as they’ve been content to stick to the three types of manga I mentioned above.  It’s an approach that has a finite supply (when it comes to established creators and license rescues) and is creatively unrewarding (all those anime spinoffs…).  The “established creators” aspect is also no longer a sure thing as Kodansha’s American branch will be publishing Hiroaki Samura’s newest work later this year.  With the way things have been going, I’ve expected the company to further recede from the manga scene as they focus on managing their own backlist while picking through leftovers from others.

Then they announce “I Am a Hero” and I wish being wrong felt this good all the time!  It’s about a mentally disturbed mangaka who finds himself in the middle of a zombie outbreak in Tokyo.  He has two things that may allow him to survive:  A gun and a belief that he is destined to be a hero.  While the market for zombie comics is certainly saturated these days, there are a couple things that make this sound interesting.  One is the fact that we don’t get a whole lot of “mentally disturbed” protagonists, so it’ll be interesting to see how Hanazawa develops this aspect of the character.  The other is the fact that he has a gun.  Japan has INSANELY strict firearms laws, so the fact that he has one already sounds like it’d make for an interesting story while the “right time, right place” aspect of it is no doubt going to feed into his hero complex.  The fact that this is being mentioned at all, along with the stark cover of the first volume gives me the impression that we’re getting a more grounded take on the idea of a zombie outbreak in Japan.  You know, as opposed to “High School of the Dead.”

The series is also noteworthy for the fact that it represents the first manga from Shogakukan that Dark Horse has licensed since it began publishing manga.  This was said to be down to the persistent efforts of Asian Licensing Director Michael Gombos, so kudos to him.  It should be noted that Shogakukan, along with Shueisha, is one of the companies that is behind Viz in the U.S.  So there’s a possibility now that we could see titles that Viz has passed over for release in the U.S from Dark Horse in the future.  This is all speculation on my part, but we’ll see what kind of announcements the company has for us next year.

Getting back to “I Am a Hero,” Dark Horse will be publishing it in a 2-in-1 omnibus format with color pages.  The first volume is set to arrive next April.  Yeah, that’s a year away but I can’t wait!  Hopefully the series will be good and popular enough to allow the company to put out more new titles from lesser-known creators in the future.  This is what I want to see from the company and I’ll be putting my money where my mouth is once it shows up for pre-order on Amazon.  If you want to see more titles like this from Dark Horse, then you should think about doing something like that too.