The Business: We Have A Route To Tokyo

Not all of us in NewPub want our books to make the media leap to anime, but for those of us who do the problem's always been the established infrastructure. It's been clear what the funnel into the machine is: the manga. Novels (light or not) or original creations become manga, and they work their way through the manga publishing scene as they have for generations now. This machine acts as a more-or-less real-time and constant A/B test mechanism to measure audience interest, and those that consistently hit the markers indicating viability for the leap from manga to anime get picked up and adapted.

There are exceptions and variations, but this is the norm and has been for longer than I've been alive. This system works, works as intended, and reliably deliver well enough even when things aren't doing so well. Those who can make the work environment work for them have become very well-known, and some even become as wealthy as the corporate officers who manage the corporate resources required to turn one's creative invention into mass-market entertainment.

It's also a machine notoriously hard for foreigners to penetrate without equally-strong backers or the favorable attention of a player in that game. Netflix and other Western companies getting in at the production level has been a thing for years now, with the commission of Season 2 of The Big O being one of the best examples of the big backer route. While adaptations of Western novels have happened, those works were already classics when that happened; I know of no example akin to Scott Lynch's Cinderella story happening in anime. Japan's been very good about growing their own cotton, so to speak.

The rise of Webtoon and other companies like it changed the game. This form of comic publishing is meant for smartphone and mobile users first and foremost, akin to people reading novels via the Kindle app. It's serial in the way that comic books used to be, and the few remaining comic strips still are, but the flow emphasizes the vertical due to technical limitations. It is not a surprise that this caught on with younger and more mobile users, especially in Asia.

One of the breakout successes is a Korean title (manhwa), Tower of God. Gigguk explains.

This Korean webtoon series got noticed in Japan and is now adapted into a series. You can see for yourself below.

This is a big deal because this show has found an audience and is a success. Nevermind being one of Webtoon's success stories; this show's successful adaptation shows that we in NewPub now have a route to Tokyo that is actually viable and practical to pursue. Why? Because we now know that there are eyes on this comic-publishing alternative, eyes looking for fresh properties to adapt, and they are open to foreign-created properties. (Yes, there are other eyes in film and TV looking here now, but that's beyond this post's scope; Vox Day is putting Arkhaven properties up at Webtoon now, and they are also finding success, success that grants leverage in film and TV deals.)

If Nick Cole and Jason Anspach were so inclined, they could contact a mangaka and get going on a Webtoon manga adaptation of Galaxy's Edge going that could lead to an anime adaptation in short order, especially if a Japanese version were available. "KTF" is a universal thing, after all, and their brand of science fiction plays very well in both the medium and the target audience. (Seriously, anime is starving for well-done seinen stories with plenty of action and GE delivers.)

And if Nick & Jason can do it, so can Brian. If Brian can, the rest of us in NewPub can if we're so inclined. We have, if we want it, a route to the anime industry- and to people who don't hate either us or their own people. It won't be easy, but is is practical and viable. The choice is yours to make, but I cannot resist the opportunity to work towards a near future where AniTubers are losing their shit over anime adaptations of our work (and the inevitable requests from them for interviews and podcast appearances).