The popular manga Astro Boy is coming to the United States.
Californian publisher Digital Manga Inc. has announced that it has acquired the U.S. rights for the entire catalog of Osamu Tezuka’s work, and plans to bring everything into circulation for American audiences.
Tezuka is likely best known in the U.S. as the creator of Astro Boy (or Tetsuwan Atomu to give the series its original title, which translates to “Iron-Armed Atom”), but his accomplishments go far beyond that. With an output estimated to be somewhere in the realm of 150,000 pages of comics spread across more than 700 manga volumes, his other creations include pre-WWII-era political drama Message to Adolf; Buddha, a memoir of Gautama Buddha; and the epic, unfinished Phoenix, a series about reincarnation that spans the length of human existence from the distant past to the far future.
Additionally, Tezuka headed-up Mushi Production, an animation company credited with pioneering television animation in Japan (Alongside original series like Astro Boy, Kimba the White Lion and Princess Knight, Mushi also animated Frosty the Snowman for Rankin Bass; yes, you’ve likely seen some of Tezuka’s work without even knowing it).
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