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Digital Manga's Kimagure Orange Road Kickstarter Campaign Ends
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Digital Manga Inc.'s Kickstarter campaign to publish Izumi Matsumoto's romantic comedy manga Kimagure Orange Road ended on May 10 at 6:00 p.m. EDT. The campaign successfully raised US$154,097 from 938 backers. It achieved all its stretch goals, which will allow Digital Manga Inc. to publish all six 3-in-1 omnibus volumes for the manga.
The campaign launched on March 31. Digital Manga Inc. plans to re-translate, re-edit, and re-letter the series.
Campaign rewards included: digital or print editions of the manga, bookmarker magnets, a pub glass, USB drives, beach towels, sunglasses, eco bags, wall scrolls, signed soundtrack CDs, stickers, reproduction prints, reproduction shikishi boards, posters, and an artbook.
Other add-on merchandise included: a set of seven posters; a USB drive; a "beach bundle" that includes a beach towel, sunglasses, and an orange eco bag; a large limited wallscroll; a pub glass; a set of three different stickers, bookmarks, and canvas illustrations.
The original Kimagure Orange Road manga series ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump magazine from 1984 to 1987. The 18-volume story followed a boy with supernatural powers as he dealt with a love triangle between two girls in his high school.
The manga inspired a popular 1987-1988 television anime series, two movies, and various anime videos. AnimEigo released the television anime series, the first movie, and the later video anime series, while ADV Films handled the second movie, Kimagure Orange Road: Summer's Beginning.
Matsumoto announced in 2012 that the company Hivelinx would distribute the series in English for NTT Solmare's Facebook app "ComicFriends," as well as for Kindle and Apple iBooks. The manga's first volume then arrived on Kindle in 2013. Digital Manga Inc. then listed plans to publish the manga on its eManga website in 2014, and announced later that year that it planned to release new volumes digitally on a weekly basis.
Thanks to Daniel Zelter for the news tip
