Manga publisher Vertical, Inc., has been acquired by Kodansha and Dai Nippon Printing (each of which bought 46% of the company). Kodansha is the Japanese publishing giant, and Dai Nippon is the equally large Japanese printer.
Vertical, based in Tokyo and New York City, was founded in 2001 by former editor/reporter Hiroki Sakai, and publishes contemporary Japanese prose fiction and nonfiction and classic manga in translation. They publish about 40 books a year.
Vertical Marketing Director Ed Chavez told Publishers Weekly that with the sale, there are no plans to increase the number of titles published or the staff. The acquisition will provide capital and support for Vertical. “We do more than comics and manga,” Chavez said, “there’s fiction and cookbooks by big Japanese authors. None of this will change. We’ll have more support and flexibility to work on areas of our program—translating and editing genre fiction is expensive—that have been a little neglected.”
The deal has apparently been under discussion for several months: Vertical moved its offices to the Park Avenue South offices of Kodansha Publishing USA in December. At the same time, Kodansha is launching Kodansha Comics, a new US manga imprint based in New York that will take over the Kodansha manga licenses originally published in the Del Rey Manga. According to Chavez, Kodansha Comics will focus on “big-name manga properties”, while Vertical’s focus will remain classic manga titles and specialty manga series, “like the forthcoming Drops of God by Kami No Shizuka, a manga about wine-making, Chi’s Sweet Home, a popular comic manga by Konami Konata, and the outrageous cultural satire, Peepo Choo by American mangaka, Felipe Smith.”
Vertical is also planning to launch a children’s book line this summer, publishing two to three titles (pictures books and manga) aimed at younger readers.
Related articles previously published on SFScope:
Peter Mendelsund takes over as Vertical’s art director (30 April 2008)