Viz Productions Based in
Los Angeles, Viz Productions coordinates the licenses of Japanese material (manga, books, and film) to American film companies. Their goal is to involve the Japanese creators in the production and facilitate communication between all parties in the US and Japan. Viz Productions' first film is the live action adaptation of
All You Need Is Kill,
Edge of Tomorrow, starring
Tom Cruise and
Emily Blunt. Their second production was the American live-action adaptation to the supernatural thriller manga series:
Death Note, which was directed by
Adam Wingard and starred
Nat Wolff, as the film's lead. Viz also has many partnerships with various authors and celebrities, perhaps the most famous being the
cosplay film that debuted in the 2013 Tokyo Anime Festival with Kirata Uchiha, played by JadexRoyal. Winning multiple awards for the board including
Masashi Kishimoto, others include
Full Moon and
Last Quarter.
Films •
Edge of Tomorrow Television •
Seis Manos New People In November 2005, New People was officially formed as a sister company for releasing live-action Japanese films as theatrical releases in selected markets called Viz Pictures. According to Horibuchi, the company will focus on films that focus on the "Japanese 'kawaii (cute) and cool' pop culture." Viz Pictures renamed themselves to New People and no longer shares office space or employees with Viz Media. Viz Media no longer distributes DVD and Blu-ray releases of their products.
Entertainment complex In August 2009, Viz Pictures (now known as New People and a separate entity from Viz Media) opened a three-story entertainment complex in San Francisco called New People. The center piece of the complex is a 143-seat movie theater that screens anime and Japanese live-action films. The center also has a cafe, a store selling anime and manga related items, and clothing stores offering Japanese clothing items.
Neon Alley Neon Alley was a streaming service dedicated to anime and related programming established in October 2012. After moving streaming content from its own platform to
Hulu, the branding would be retired in May 2016.
Publications Animerica Animerica was a quarterly anime and manga
digest that initially started as a monthly
magazine featuring reviews of
anime and
manga titles, as well as related works. After a preview issue was released in November 1992, the magazine's first issue was released in February 1993 with a March 1993 cover date. The magazine originally featured articles and reviews on manga, anime, and related media, as well as manga preview chapters. In 1998,
Animerica Extra was launched as a manga anthology that eventually focused specifically on
shōjo titles. It was canceled in 2004. Viz changed the magazine's format in April 2005, with the new magazine really being two free publications of the same name. One is advertising-oriented and created specially for distribution at anime and manga conventions while the other is more general in scope and distributed through retail stores. Both versions have fewer and briefer articles and a lower page count. The last monthly issue of the original format
Animerica had a cover date of June 2005 (Volume 13, No. 6).
Animerica was one of the first professional anime and manga magazines released in the United States, and one of the most popular in the 1990s. In 2004, it had a circulation of 45,000 readers, but low sales and high competition from
Newtype USA resulted in the essential cancellation of the original magazine and its reformatting as a free digest.
Game On! USA Game On! USA was a monthly magazine that focused primarily on Japanese-developed video games, with an emphasis on the import scene. It served as the American counterpart to Shogakukan's
Game On! magazine. It was published in May 1996 and ran for 7 monthly issues before being discontinued that same year in November. The magazine had news and reviews and other articles about classic fighting games like
Street Fighter,
Samurai Shodown and
Virtua Fighter. Two video game-based manga series,
Super Street Fighter II: Cammy by Masahiko Nakahira, and
Samurai Shodown by Kyoichi Nanatsuki and Yuki Miyoshi, were serialized in the magazine. A one shot story based on
Battle Arena Toshinden, illustrated by the game's character designer
Tsukasa Kotobuki was published in the magazine as well.
Manga Vizion Manga Vizion, sometimes misspelled
Manga Vision, is a manga anthology introduced by Viz in 1995. It is believed to be the first manga anthology published in the United States. The premiere issue was dated March 1995 and featured three series:
The Tragedy of P,
Samurai Crusader: The Kumomaru Chronicles, and
Ogre Slayer. It ran for three and a half years until it was canceled in August 1998.
Pulp Pulp was a monthly manga anthology introduced by Viz in 1997. The magazine featured more mature titles, marketed at adults rather than teenage readers. Some of titles serialized in the magazine included:
Uzumaki,
Banana Fish, and
Dance till Tomorrow. The magazine was canceled in 2002.
Shonen Jump Shonen Jump is a
shōnen manga anthology that debuted in November 2002, with a January 2003 cover date. Based on the popular Japanese anthology
Weekly Shōnen Jump, published by
Shueisha,
Shonen Jump is retooled for English readers and the American audience and is published monthly, instead of weekly. It features serialized chapters from seven manga series, and articles on Japanese language and culture, as well as manga, anime, video games, and figurines. In conjunction with the magazine, Viz launched new imprints for releasing media related to the series presented in the magazine, and other shōnen works. This includes two new manga imprints, an
anime DVD imprint, a fiction line for releasing
light novels, a label for fan and data books, and a label for the release of art books. Prior to the magazine's launch, Viz launched an extensive marketing campaign to promote the magazine and help it succeed where other manga anthologies in North America have failed. Shueisha purchased an equity interest in Viz to help fund the venture, and
Cartoon Network,
Suncoast, and
Diamond Distributors became promotional partners in the magazine. Viz launched related "Shojo Beat"
imprints in its manga,
light novel, and anime divisions to coordinate with the magazine's contents. Targeted at women ages 16–18, the first issue of
Shojo Beat launched with a circulation of 20,000 copies. In May 2009, the magazine was discontinued after 49 issues, with the July 2009 issue being the last released. Viz stated the "difficult economic climate" was behind the magazine's cancellation, and that it would continue releasing the magazine's titles, as well as others, using the "Shojo Beat" imprint.
Haikasoru In January 2009, Viz Media announced plans to launch a Japanese
science fiction novel line called Haikasoru. The first novels were scheduled to be released in the summer of the same year, with four novels:
The Lord of the Sands of Time by
Issui Ogawa,
ZOO by
Otsuichi,
All You Need Is Kill by
Hiroshi Sakurazaka, and
Usurper of the Sun by
Hōsuke Nojiri. In addition, the imprint released an expanded edition of
Kōshun Takami's
Battle Royale. In 2010, the imprint release
Project Itoh's novel
Harmony, which later won a Special Citation
Philip K. Dick Award. The imprint is distributed to trade by
Simon & Schuster.
SuBLime In October 2011, Viz Media launched SuBLime as an imprint for
boys' love titles. The imprint was formed in collaboration with the Japanese publisher
Libre and its parent company
Animate to publish English-language boys' love manga for the print and worldwide digital market. Although the first slate of books announced under SuBLime are Libre titles, the imprint will potentially offer titles from other Japanese publishers in the future. On July 3, 2019, Viz Media announced that they had partnered with
Crunchyroll to distribute select Crunchyroll licensed titles on home video and electronic sell-through in the United States and Canada, as well as stream selected Viz Media titles on Crunchyroll. == Titles ==