Viz Media - Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer)
Viz Media LLC, often referred to as "VIZ," is a U.S.-based manga publishing company and distributor of anime and other entertainment media. It is the largest publisher of comics and graphic novels in the United States, where it holds a 23% market share. Viz Media distributes anime and manga worldwide, working closely with publishing giants Simon & Schuster in regions such as the United Kingdom and Canada, Diamond Book Distributors in locations worldwide, and Warner Home Video for anime distribution.
Since 2016, Viz Media has published the manga Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) , and in 2019 helped broadcast and distribute the first series of the related anime adaptation , with a film titled Mugen Train recently released and the second series currently in development.
History
Viz Media was founded in 1986 by Seiji Horibuchi, who had emigrated from Japan nine years earlier. It wasn't until 1987 that the company began publishing manga in the United States, with one of its first releases being "Legend of Kamui." However, at that time, the Western market simply wasn't ready for Japanese manga, which led to difficulties for Viz Media in its early years. To survive the difficult early years of its business, Viz Media had to pivot to publishing general art books, and then manga, which Horibuchi renamed "graphic novels" to appeal to Western booksellers. It was the release and popularity of the Ranma ½ comic manga series that began to change Viz's outlook.
Building on this success, Viz Media branched out into anime distribution in the 1990s and first launched Shonen Jump magazine for Western audiences. By the end of the century, Viz Media had begun expanding into South America and Europe.
The next ten years saw Viz Media's success skyrocket, with manga and anime becoming part of the Western mainstream. Deals with giants such as Warner Home Video, BBC, and Cartoon Network allowed Viz Media to cement its position as the largest comic book and graphic novel publisher in the United States. Viz Media's major US successes came from releases such as Inyuasha, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer).
Manga Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer)
Viz Media first published Kyoharu Gotoge's Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) manga series in 2017, and the series is still ongoing, with the 18th volume being its most recent release. The shounen manga series has made waves worldwide since its initial release, and it is estimated that by early 2019, the series had sold over 3.5 million copies, and by December of that year, it had skyrocketed to over 25 million copies in print; its sales were surpassed only by the legendary long-running manga series One Piece.
The manga series has received widespread praise from its readers and has even been recognized as one of the most recommended comics in Japanese bookstores over the past year. Its well-executed action scenes and strong visuals have made the series particularly popular with male viewers, but the cute female characters and goofy moments largely come from Zenjitsu Agatsuma, helping to expand Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) audience.
Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) Anime series
Through its affiliation with the online service Crusty Roll and also Hulu , Viz Media was also instrumental in bringing the first series of the anime subtitled Anime Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) to Western audiences via online streaming. The series was produced by the popular studio Ufotable Production , and a film adaptation soon followed, with the second series currently in development. In October 2019, the English dub adaptation of the series premiered on Adult Swim in the United States.
The anime was, as many expected, received as well as the original manga release and dominated the 2019 season. Newtype Anime Awards None Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) won awards for Best TV Anime, Best Theme Song, and Best Character Design, and voice actors Natsuki Hanae and Akari Kito won Best Voice Actor and Best Female Voice Actor, respectively. Their main characters, Tanjiro Kamado and Nezuko Kamado, were also recognized as Best Male Character and Best Female Character.
The anime adaptation of Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) was praised for its high-quality animation and fluid action and fight scenes, which visually set the series apart from other releases of the year. One of the few criticisms of the series came from fans of the original manga, who found that the anime's timeline was slightly confusing and muddled by odd pacing and oddly placed flashbacks.
Despite its release at the end of an incredible decade for anime, Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer) has been considered by many to be at the forefront of the greatest anime of the 2010s. With a plethora of products, merchandise, and brand collaborations to build more anticipation for the upcoming second season of the anime.
