In 1977, American author and translator Frederik L. Schodt and three friends formed a manga-translation group in Tokyo, with the then-quixotic dream of introducing Japanese comics to a global readership. Schodt had arrived in Japan in 1965, courtesy of a father in the United States Foreign Service. He returned in 1970 to attend university after a short stint in the U.S. At the time, manga were everywhere in Japan, he says, and a lot more fun to read than textbooks.
Schodt became addicted to the gag-and-parody series published in boys¡¯ magazines. But one day a friend loaned him a copy of Osamu Tezuka¡¯s epic 12-volume ¡°Phoenix¡± ¡ª and he was stunned. ¡°It made me realize that the work of Japanese manga artists was sometimes approaching the best in literature and film,¡± he says.
So he and his translation team went straight to Tezuka Productions to get permission for their debut project. To their surprise, the artist, already a celebrity in Japan, known as ¡°the god of manga¡± for hit titles such as ¡°Astro Boy¡± and ¡°Black Jack,¡± greeted them personally and said yes.
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