Viz

Present Titles:

Fushigi Yûgi (Yuu Watase) - runs monthly in Animerica Extra, seven collected volumes available
Banana Fish (Akimi Yoshida) - ran monthly in Pulp till its final issue in July 2002, running in Animerica Extra from December 2002, seven collected volumes available
Magical Pokémon Journey [Pocket Monsters PiPiPi Adventures] (Yumi Tsukirino) - ran monthly (square bound) - on "vacation" as Viz has published all that has been collected so far in Japan - more news when I get it, seven collected volumes available
[Shoujo Kakumei] Revolutionary Girl Utena (Chiho Saito) - runs monthly in Animerica Extra, two collected volumes available
Ceres: Celestial Legend [Ayashi no Ceres] (Yuu Watase) - running monthly as of June 2001, three collected volumes available
X/1999 [X] (CLAMP) - ran as a six issue series, then in Animerica, was running monthly in Animerica Extra but had to be suspended due to licensing issues, but Viz reacquired the license, future volumes are to be graphic novel only. The long delayed Volume 7 arrived May 2002, Volume 8 in August and the new Volume 9 in December, nine collected volumes available

Past Titles:

Promise and Since You've Been Gone (Keiko Nishi) - originally published as a comic book (called Promise), collected into Four Shoujo Stories graphic novel (out of print)
They Were 11 (Moto Hagio) - ran monthly, collected into Four Shoujo Stories graphic novel (out of print)
The Changeling (Shio Sato) - ran monthly in Animerica, collected into Four Shoujo Stories graphic novel (out of print)
A A' (Moto Hagio) - short stories, ran in Manga Vision, includes A A', 4/4 {Quatre-Quarts} and X+Y, collected into A A' graphic novel (available)
Love Song (Keiko Nishi) - short stories, ran in Manga Vision, includes Love Song, Jewels of the Seaside, The Signal Goes Blink Blink and The Skin of Her Heart, collected into Love Song graphic novel (available)
Plus One and Murasaki (Mitsuru Adachi) - Ran in Animerica Extra, collected in Short Program graphic novel (available)
Gundam Wing: Ground Zero (Reku Fuyunagi) - ran monthly, 4 issues, collected volume available
Chicago (Yumi Tamura) - concluded its run in Animerica Extra February 2003, both collected volumes available

Future Titles

Basara (Yumi Tamura) - running as bimonthly graphic novels - Summer 2003

History

Viz is the oldest and largest of the US manga publishers, and has been trying to publish shoujo since early on. Early attempts under a Flower Comics imprint apparently met with little success, the titles probably too obscure. Despite that they continued to publish shoujo titles, even as their bread and butter remained the works of Rumiko Takahashi. Several titles were serialized in Manga Vision, the first manga anthology in the US, and they also began to serialize CLAMP's X(X/1999), probably their longest running shoujo title to date.

Viz's shoujo output began an upturn with the debut of their new anthology Animerica Extra, with featured as its flagship title, the fan-favorite Fushigi Yűgi. Many recent acquisitions have been shoujo, including their two big announcements last year, Utena and Ayashi no Ceres. Some have complained at Viz takes too many liberties with translations, others say the opposite, their localizations are not overly liberal. They have listened to fan input, after overwhelming mail stating Chichiri's "no da" should be left alone in Fushigi Yűgi, they complied. They have acknowledged that they have been editing comic in their Viz Kids line, but the only shoujo title that applies to is Magical Pokémon Journey (and thus far the only "edit" has been a few name changes). The US arm of Shogakukan, many of their titles come from their Flower and Petit Flower labels, but they have published works from other companies, most notably Kadokawa (Asuka).

© 2000-2002 Mariela Ortiz (sapphire@wuv.org)
Revised: Tuesday, 28 January 2003