Viz Media

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Viz Media, LLC (Viz meaning Visual), headquartered in San Francisco, California, is a major American anime, manga and Japanese entertainment company formed by the merger of Viz, LLC, and ShoPro Entertainment. The company is commonly referred to as "Viz", the same name used in previous incarnations of Viz LLC.

Viz also produces a manga and anime review magazine, Animerica; as well as an English language version of Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump (shōnen manga) magazine, and a shōjo manga monthly called Shojo Beat.

It formerly published Animerica Extra, a monthly manga anthology (which was converted to shōjo partway through its run), and Pulp magazine, an adult-oriented monthly manga anthology that featured story lines inappropriate for younger readers, though not pornography (see seinen, josei).

It is jointly-owned by Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, and licensing house Shogakukan Productions (ShoPro), a Shogakukan subsidiary.

Contents

Please see the category Viz Media for anime and films.
Please see the category Viz Media manga for manga.

Among the most common criticisms of Viz Media is that concerning its policies of Western localization; readers familiar with the original Japanese manuscripts have noticed serious liberties in the translations, as well as heavy art edits that are seen as detracting from the manga's quality.[1] Numerous manga have several translation inconsistencies due to a frequent rotation of translators, and changes such as "panel swaps" from Japan's "right to left" reading format are maintained because Viz affirms such a format allows its products to be more accessible.[2] Viz's ongoing popularity has not provided any incentive to change its policies[3][4], and little was done to address reader complaints until Tokyopop emerged as a serious competitor between the years 2002–2004.[5]

Additional complaints focus on Viz's strict policy of censorship; a number of panels in popular titles like Dragon Ball and its latter portion, renamed Dragon Ball Z to avoid confusion, were subjected to this treatment.[6] Much of this censorship occurred after the previously mentioned titles were published in relatively unedited form. Viz's argument was that the increased censorship (from a "T" for "teen" rating to an "A" for "all audiences") allowed it to distribute manga in more popular marketing venues (such as Wal-Mart) and to earn greater profits from the marketing of its titles.[7][8]

The VIZ Media company has come under fire for following the FUNimation company's lead in the publication of the series Case Closed (Detective Conan) by altering the main characters' names from their Japanese names to more Western style names.[citation needed] To date VIZ shows no sign of returning the names to their original forms.

When Shueisha became a joint owner of Viz Media in 2002,[9] both Shogakukan and Shueisha began to release manga exclusively through Viz. Shueisha's deal with Viz may have been prompted by competition with Raijin Comics, a rival manga publisher created in 2002 by editors and artists who had split off from Shueisha, taking their properties with them. Since 2002, most Shueisha manga have been exclusively published in the U.S. exclusively by Viz. There are exceptions; Shueisha permitted DC Comics' subsidiary CMX Manga to license Tenjho Tenge and Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, and permitted Dark Horse to license Gantz. In 2003, possibly in response to Shogakukan and Shueisha's co-ownership of Viz, Japanese publisher Kodansha formed a co-venture with Del Rey.[10] The strong ties between Shogakukan, Shueisha and Viz have been criticized. Shueisha and Shogakukan's influence in Western markets puts pressure on other affiliated companies, like Hakusensha, to license their titles to Viz Media (Viz holds all but four licensed titles from Hakusensha). This control of the market has also been cited by fans as a cause of inconsistent quality, typography, accuracy, and art cleanliness in Viz titles. Small and mid-size American manga publishers, including CMX, Dark Horse and Tokyopop, have reduced access to Shueisha, Shogakukan and Hakusensha titles; as a result, they generally license titles from small and mid-size Japanese publishers such as Kadokawa Shoten, Mediaworks, Futabasha, Mag Garden, Shinshokan, and assorted yaoi and adult specialty publishers.

Viz has a history of dividing its manga into different brand imprints for different audiences, such as the "Shojo Beat" and (now-defunct) "Shojo" brand for shojo manga, the (now-defunct) "Action" brand for non-Shueisha shonen manga, the "Shonen Jump" brand for Shueisha shonen manga, and the "Shonen Jump Advanced" and "Viz Signature" brands for manga for older readers.

Recently, Viz Media has come under fire for its policy of "rotating" manga in its monthly magazine, Shojo Beat. Two titles, Kaze Hikaru and Count Cain, were removed from Shojo Beat's monthly serial, on the claim that Viz "periodically switch[s] out stories to keep the magazine fresh" [11]. Readers[Who?] of the magazine question Viz's integrity, as this move forces them to purchase the tankōbon for discontinued titles, which are released at approximately three-month intervals.

In addition to the above, Viz has also published online magazines (the now-defunct J-pop.com).[citation needed]

  1. ^ Rosenfelder, Mark (July 1996). What the translators did to Ranma. Zompist. Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  2. ^ What Manga Right to Left — Will It Fly?. ICv2 (2002-03-08). Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  3. ^ Pokemon is America's best-selling comic book. Anime News Network (1999-06-24). Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  4. ^ Manga Trade Paperback Sales Exploding. ICv2 (2002-03-10). Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  5. ^ Manga Trade Paperback Sales Exploding. ICv2 (2002-03-10). Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  6. ^ Viz Unleashes Uncensored Dragon Ball. ICv2 (2001-03-11). Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  7. ^ Viz and Shueisha To Launch Mass Market Boys Magazine in US. ICv2 (2002-06-10). Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  8. ^ Interview with Viz Management, Part I. ICv2 (2002-08-13). Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  9. ^ Shueisha Buys Equity Interest in Viz. ICv2 (2002-08-02). Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  10. ^ Random House Preps Manga Releases. ICv2 (2004-06-23). Retrieved on 2006-09-30.
  11. ^ Godchild Not Returning to Shojo Beat. ANN (2006-08-19). Retrieved on 2006-10-18.

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