Outlanders was written and illustrated by
Johji Manabe. As early as junior high school, he was creating fantasy and science fiction art including beautiful girls with swords and large, highly detailed spaceships.
Outlanders began as a project while he was in
vocational school. During his attendance, Manabe submitted some of his manga work to Tokyo-based publisher
Hakusensha. One of his stories was featured its
Monthly ComiComi magazine's readers contest in 1984 and
Outlanders began serialization in the same publication within a year.
Outlanders debuted in the January 1985 issue. Manabe felt he had been given ample time to conceptualize and frame the narrative.
Outlanders was his first attempt at
space opera, a genre of which he had long been a fan. The author took inspiration from numerous science fiction properties, specifically the original
Star Wars Trilogy, the
Lensman series, and
Flash Gordon. This is partly reflected in the manga's earlier chapters, which showcase considerable more violence than its remainder. Manabe simplified writing the plot as a war between Earth and the Santovasku Empire that would end with one winner and one loser, but did have some difficulty with getting the conflicts within each faction to "mesh."
Outlanders was adapted into an
anime OVA by
Tatsunoko Production for a December 1986 release. It was directed by Katsuhisa Yamada; was written by
Kenji Terada and
Sukehiro Tomita; and featured music composed by Kei Wakakusa. The anime condenses roughly the first half of the manga into a single 48-minute episode. Manabe detested the OVA, considered its staff incompetent, and felt the sexually explicit
ecchi scenes were overused. Manabe originally planned
Outlanders to be about ten
tankōbon volumes of collected chapters in length. He lost his motivation before this could occur, partially blaming the anime adaptation and claiming his relationship with the publisher deteriorated after the OVA's release. Hakusensha's release of the manga's eighth volume would be its last. An agreement was reached to release an
aizōban edition of the manga shortly thereafter and tensions between Manabe and Hakusensha eventually cooled. Dark Horse was unable to acquire the rights to
Akira, so they settled on
Outlanders as a second choice. Translator
Toren Smith pitched the license to the publisher at the 1988
San Diego Comic-Con. Smith had helped pioneer the sale of manga outside of Japan by convincing retailers to carry it in monthly issues that could be read in the left-to-right format to which many English readers were accustomed. Dark Horse partnered with Smith's
Studio Proteus beginning that same year to translate
Outlanders into English and publish it in its entirety. Unlike translators such as
Viz Media, Studio Proteus was an independent contractor who negotiated and obtained the rights to manga for multiple publishers, effectively making Smith's group a "co-publisher" of
Outlanders. Smith told
Amazing Heroes in 1990 that
Outlanders was his favorite manga to work on and read. Dark Horse writer and artist
Chris Warner performed part-time editorial work on the English version of the series beginning with its first chapter. Manabe himself became involved with the localization by redrawing some of the earlier panels to make them more in line with the rest of the story. The OVA was licensed for North American distribution by Dark Image Entertainment (a division of
U.S. Renditions) and dubbed into English by L.A. Hero Inc. (
Animaze) in 1993. The dub was directed by
Kevin Seymour (as Jenny Haniver) and translated by Trish Ledoux, the latter of whom also voiced the protagonist Kahm. This was Ledoux's first major voice acting role after only having performed a minor part in the film
Macross II.
CPM later purchased the rights to the anime with a DVD release set for the summer of 2005. However, it was delayed when the company decided to redub the OVA. A fan poll was conducted between September 23 and 28 of that year to cast the
voice actors of the four principle protagonists. The poll ended at over 20,000 votes with fans selecting Liza Jacqueline to play Kahm,
Rebecca Soler to play Battia, and
Sean Schemmel to play both Tetsuya and Geobaldi. ==Media==