45takesomethinglikeanime,whichissuperefficientfroman
encodingperspective,wecannowprovideanamazingqual-
ityvideoexperienceforanimetitlesonmobile.”Thismobile-
friendlinessdovetailsneatlywiththegenre’stargetmarket.
Netflix’shunthastakena two-prongedapproach.Oneis the
old-fashionedrouteofforgingpartnershipswithproduction
companiesandacquiringlicenses,includingonefora reboot
ofKodansha’sGhostintheShell. Theotheris producingitsown
animein-house;Netflix’sfirstoriginalanimeseries,Eden, is
scheduledtopremierebeforetheendoftheyear.
Thesecondpathis tremendouslyriskyforproducers,how-
ever.OriginalanimefilmsofthekinddonebyHayaoMiyazaki
(PrincessMononoke,SpiritedAway) cantakeyearsandtens
ofmillionsofdollarstoproduce,andtheycomewithoutthe
built-inaudienceofa successfulmanga.NaoAzuma,a spokes-
womanforNetflixJapan,saysfindingtalentalsohasbeena
challenge.“It’sa verynewtypeofplatformandsoit takescon-
vincing,”shesays.“We’rehopingthatthecontentwe’repro-
ducingis inspirationalforcreatorsandgivesthemsomesense
ofwhat’spossiblehere.”
Fornow,theincentivesfavorlicensing.WaltDisneyCo.-
ownedHuluis alsointhegame,armedwithanexclusivefirst-
lookpartnershipwithFunimationthatgivesit accesstoallthe
mostimportantplayersinanime.Theresulthasbeentopush
upthepriceforeveryonehopingtoacquiremangaproperties.
DeMarcosaysallthisactivityis a goodthingforcreators—
and by extension publishers—even if it’s made his job harder.
He’s been trying to innovate; for one recent deal, he skipped
the middleman and went directly to Shogakukan to acquire the
rights to Uzumaki, a manga by Junji Ito about a town cursed by
spiral shapes (found on boys who’ve transformed into snails
and women whose hair has come alive). Adult Swim agreed to
fund the project from scratch. DeMarco describes it as more of
a labor of love than a paradigm shift. Producing original anime
takes so much time, he says, “that we’d have to shut down for
three years in order to have enough shows ready to fill a whole
Toonami block.” It was worth it to DeMarco this time, though,
if only for the chance to work with a manga artist he reveres.
Manga publishers, for their part, are mindful that there
are limits to how much they can rely on anime. Two editors I
spoke with at a Kodansha rival, who requested anonymity dis-
cussing confidential business arrangements, pointed out that
these deals aren’t necessarily a dependable source of revenue.
“In the end, the pie gets sliced up so many ways that a pub-
lisher might get nothing out of it aside from a boost in comic
book sales,” one said.
If anime is driving Kodansha as it hunts for the next Attack on
Titan, Kawakubo, who’s charged with leading the search, isn’t
letting on. The process he describes for recruiting new talent
remains basically unchanged after decades: Editors seek out
published artists whose work they like, as well as newcomersscouted at Japan’s manga trade schools or in contests the com-
pany holds, and try to foster great work.
A hit comic, Kawakubo says, can’t be engineered—“the magic
is either there or it isn’t.” It starts the way Titan did, with tell-
ing a good story. “If you make a manga that’s not worth read-
ing, no one will want to make it into an anime series,” he says.
“And if you’re focused from the start on what might make a
good anime, or what the next trend might be, you’ll never
make anything worthwhile.”IN THE SPRING OF 2018, I MET WITH SHINZO KEIGO AT A
coffeehouse in the west Tokyo suburbs, not far from Studio
Ghibli, the shop where Miyazaki has been producing master-
pieces since 1985. Like Isayama, Keigo is 33, but his path to
becoming a professional manga artist was more typical. Starting
in 2008 hepublishedsevencomicswithShogakukan,including
a fewindiehitsthatweremadeintofilmsorTVprograms.It
wascreativelyfulfilling,butyeoman’s work for a modest wage.
I’d first spoken with Keigo a few weeks before, as he was
promoting a live-action TV show based on his most recent
work for Shogakukan, Tokyo Alien Brothers, which chronicles
the adventures of two slacker extraterrestrials sent to inves-
tigate life on Earth. It was envisioned, he told me over cof-
fee, as a kind of “reverse version of the Christopher Nolan
film Interstellar,” and it sold well enough across three stand-
alone volumes to catch the attention of producers at Nippon
Television Network Corp., which aired a live-action adapta-
tion of the manga in the summer of 2018.
Keigo was doing well enough at Shogakukan that he might
have carved out a long career there, producing respected,
adaptable hits that complemented to the company’s robust
Pikachu business. But shortly after we met, he announced that
Kodansha would publish his next series, Nora and the Weeds,
about a police detective and a mysterious girl who reminds him
of his dead daughter. “Working with Shogakukan was nice,”
Keigo told me the next time I saw him. “But Kodansha is the
kind of place you dream of being as a manga artist.”
After landing at one of the company’s second-tier maga-
zines, he’s gone on to do well, publishing a few Nora and the
Weeds tankobon and selling the translation rights to a publisher
in France, where he has a following. Still, he didn’t have any
illusions of becoming the next Isayama.
Then again, Isayama never imagined such a thing when
he began drawing Attack on Titan while working a part-time
job at an internet cafe. And although he’s giving up his series
now, he isn’t necessarily giving up his stature. The next Hajime
Isayama could well be Hajime Isayama. “I’ve actually floated
about five different ideas for new serialized manga, but so far
they’ve come to nothing,” he said. “I think I’d like to try doing
a more realistic manga, but I haven’t yet been able to produce
COURTESY KODANSHA. DATA: ORICON a manuscript that’s up to my own standards.”
“Theideaofaskinless,gianthumanoideating
people—you don’t have to work hard to sell me on that”