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Digital Manga's Wonder 3 Kickstarter Fails to Meet US$46,500 Goal

North American publisher Digital Manga Inc.'s Kickstarter campaign to publish Osamu Tezuka's Wonder 3 (Wonder Three) manga failed to meet its US$46,500 goal on Thursday. The campaign raised US$39,172, or 84.24% of its goal.

The campaign had additional stretch goals to publish Tezuka's The Film Lives On manga, as well as a dual language "Leo Edition" of the Jungle Taitei (Kimba the White Lion) manga, and the Goast Man manga.

Digital Manga's Kickstarter campaign to publish Tezuka's 13-volume The Three-eyed One manga and seven-volume Rainbow Parakeet manga failed to meet its US$380,000 goal last year. Wonder Three was originally included as a stretch goal in that campaign. Digital Manga president Hikaru Sasahara said that he originally wanted to use Kickstarter to fund 50-70 books a year, but has switched to a goal of 20-30 volumes in order to lower the cost of publishing including licensing fees, advanced royalties, labor, and other expenses. He added at the time that he would like to launch a new campaign for one to five books almost every month, with a week or two in between each campaign.

Thanks to Daniel Zelter for the news tip.