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Digital Manga Launches Kickstarter to Publish Tezuka's Wonder 3 Manga

North American publisher Digital Manga Inc. launched a Kickstarter campaign on Wednesday to publish Osamu Tezuka's Wonder 3 (Wonder Three or The Amazing Three) manga. The campaign aims to raise US$46,500 by October 30.

If the Kickstarter is successful, Digital Manga will print the three-volume series in hardcover, with over 200 pages in each volume. As of press time, the Kickstarter has earned US$16,008.

Digital Manga describes Wonder 3:

Wonder 3 takes place in an alternate Earth in the year 196X and the world is overrun with war and violence. The Galactic Federation consisting of all the advanced species of the universe convene to decide the future of Earth, but due to a lack of information they decide to send an elite team, Wonder 3, to observe human species for one year and determine whether or not humans are worthy of saving. Upon landing on Earth, the three members of Wonder 3 – Bokko, Nokko, and Pukko – disguise themselves as animals and come across the two Hoshi brothers who defend humanity in their own way. With a time limit of one year, what can Wonder 3 learn from the Hoshi brothers about life on Earth?

Pledge rewards include wooden collector's coins, baseball shirts with the Wonder 3 logo, a Moleskine journal with optional name embossing, and cel art.

The Kickstarter also includes a stretch goal to print Tezuka's The Film Lives On single-volume manga. Digital Manga will print the manga if the campaign reaches US$55,900. Digital Manga describes The Film Lives On:

The single volume stand-alone manga is about friends Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojiro pursuing their dreams of becoming animators, but they soon have a falling out. Musashi falls in love with a woman named Otsu, but her yakuza family disapproves of their relationship, so they burn over 500 cels of Musashi's animation and damage his eyesight in the process. Despite all his tribulations, Musashi perseveres through adversity to make his animation truly “alive.”

Tezuka launched the Wonder 3 manga in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday magazine in May 1965, where it ran for a year until May 1966. Mushi Productions produced a 52-episode television anime adaptation of the manga in 1965.

Digital Manga also used Kickstarter to raise funds to print Tezuka's Ludwig B, Captain Ken, and Alabaster manga. Most recently, Digital Manga met its Kickstarter goal to publish Storm Fairy (Arashi no Yōsei), and met stretch goals to publish Crime and Punishment, and to reprint Unico.

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 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.