Wonder Three

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Daniel
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Wonder Three

Post by Daniel »

Originally written by davemerrill on 2015/10/20, 14:13:11 PDT :

Wonder Three :

Hey, Digital Manga's Kickstarter of Tezuka's WONDER THREE aka The Amazing Three is in the final stretch of funding and could use your help!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/di ... oject_link

I've thrown some money at it, because while I'm not wild about DMP's crowdfund-only approach to Tezuka's work, I want to see this in print. This particular campaign seems to have stalled out halfway to the finish line, and I think it's due to a number of factors -

1. there's Tezuka crowdfunding fatigue after so many campaigns from DMP, largely for projects people aren't interested in. So many third and fourth-tier Tezuka projects have sucked up a lot of the oxygen, it's hard to get attention to what people are going to see as yet another Tezuka project.

2. donation tiers get really pricey really quickly. I chose the first tier that gives me all three books in print and it winds up costing me 100 with shipping. Basically I'm paying twice what I would if I bought the things in a store.

3. DMP seems to barely realize that millions of Americans saw The Amazing Three. The show's decade on American television is a publicity hook that they aren't using at all. Their pitch instead is to try to somehow associate Wonder Three with sentai programs, which is a you go figure, to be sure.

I hope it makes it, though I'd love to read this one in English have it on my shelf.




Originally written by Akage on 2015/10/20, 22:37:09 PDT :

Re: Wonder Three :

What frustrates me regarding DMP's Kickstarters is that they spend so much time on the Tezuka stuff and ignore the other thing they're well known for - yaoi manga.

Their last yaoi Kickstarter ended in March and was for Ayano Yamane's Finder series. It managed to reach its goal. I supported the 100 tier, so that gave me all 8 books including the extra that was a stretch goal and a bracelet and keychain. It was almost equivalent to what I would have paid for each title had I bought it off their website. DMP mentioned in September that there was another KS on the way, but no additional information was provided.

I've supported various KS projects, and you rarely, if ever, get your money's worth. You sometimes get unique rewards, like the sketch tiers that some projects offer, but sometimes this is half-arsed. For example, I supported one project and inquired, before the project ended, if I could request a particular artist for the sketch reward and was told that this would be fine. Over a year later, well past the expected arrival date of my backer rewards, I contacted them regarding the reward. It was at this point that they told me that the artist I requested would not draw. I had to request another artist to draw, and even then, when I received the sketch, it was on a medium sized board 4x5 variety instead of a standard sized shikishi 9x10 .

The worst KS company I've dealt with is AwesomeJapan and advise anyone not to pledge on their projects. Their communication is poor and they'll either guarantee you something that they'll be unable to fulfill later on, or they'll ignore your question until it's too late for you to modify your pledge.




Originally written by Daniel on 2015/10/21, 07:46:32 PDT :

Re: Wonder Three :

I suspect that most users here would be happy to see more Tezuka stuff, myself included.




Originally written by davemerrill on 2015/10/21, 12:12:40 PDT :

Re: Wonder Three :

I supported DMP's Captain Ken KS and got both books and some goodies, and it was more or less what I'd pay retail. Overall it was a satisfying experience. The W3 KS, on the other hand, asks for more money and delivers less .

Compare this to what Akage was saying upthread about their Finder KS - 100 for eight books and a keychain... With shipping, the W3 KS is costing me 100 for three books. Something doesn't smell right.




Originally written by Akage on 2015/10/21, 16:05:09 PDT :

Re: Wonder Three :

I suspect it may boil down to the rights and how much DMP is going to pay just for licensing fees. Some companies, like Sekai Project, will show the breakdown of where the funds are going on their KS campaigns, but I'm guessing that this isn't the case here. The rights to print and reprint yaoi titles is usually a lot less than the rights to reprint anyone Tezuka. If I recall correctly, DMP farms out their printing to some company in Canada, and their base fee for the Finder KS reprint was 8K.

Most companies using the KS platform usually will tell you that the purpose of KS is to support their project and thus not to expect to get your money's worth in the form of reward tiers. Sometimes it gets really absurd. For example, the Muv-Luv campaign has a colored sketch reward tier of 4K. When several people who went to Anime Expo complained that Maxima was just charging 60 at the con, they commented that that was just an at con special price.
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yusaku
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Re: Wonder Three

Post by yusaku »

I really do not understand why such a popular manga creator like Tezuka would need crowd funding. Tezuka's work is well known and it should not be an issue getting his work into print because he had so much work out there for decades. I think the publisher should just go ahead and do a small print run and make the sales. However, I could understand they want to capitalize the project, but a stalled funding project should not stop the work going into print.
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Re: Wonder Three

Post by AVHodgson »

Most anime fans, sadly, only kind of respect Tezuka for what he did for manga and anime. They've probably heard of Astro Boy or Kimba but never watched it... Ergo, little of Tezuka's stuff has been released in English.
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Re: Wonder Three

Post by llj »

Plenty of Tezuka stuff is in english. Vertical has published a small truckload of Tezuka manga to great response. A list of Tezuka manga in english:

http://tezukainenglish.com/wp/?page_id=493

The thing with Tezuka though is that he's done SO MUCH (his page output dwarfs that of even Jack Kirby's) that you can't possibly get every single thing he's done released in english, and some of them are harder to market than others.

It's true that younger anime/manga fans today probably don't give a toss about Tezuka, generally, but his stuff is very popular and respected with alt-comic fans who buy stuff by Chris Ware, Dan Clowes, etc,.
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Re: Wonder Three

Post by Akage »

Part of the problem with DMP's Tezuka kickstarters is how long it takes them in the fulfillment department. One of my friends supported their last successful Tezuka campaign and complained that she didn't receive her digital rewards until she pestered DMP, waiting to ask until long after the physical rewards had been sent out. I've read comments from other supporters who refuse to support any more fundraisers until they've received their previous rewards.

DMP has another yaoi manga Kickstarter going on now. While it is geared towards a release of some of Sakira's titles, they're also doing reprints of several older titles, including Hinako Takanaga's "The Tyrant Falls in Love". Some of these volumes easily fetch $60+ a piece on E-bay. The Tezuka and yaoi KS are handled by two different people and I have no complaints with the yaoi fundraisers.
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Re: Wonder Three

Post by usamimi »

Yeah, I'm not a fan of how DMP seems to be so Kickstarter happy lately. Esp for titles that they could easily just publish because we KNOW people will buy them. I mean..making another print run of Unico a stretch goal for another title?? People will buy Unico! Just print some more, there's no reason to dangle it like a prize to get something else more money... :roll:
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