Basilisk Broadens its Fanbase

This story originally appeared in PW Comics Week on January 16, 2007 Sign up now!

by Kai-Ming Cha, PW Comics Week -- Publishers Weekly, 1/16/2007

What's on television, coming to the big screen and read all over? Basilisk, the franchise based on Futaru Yamada's 1958 novel, The Kouga Ninja Scrolls.

Thanks to a steady and accessible stream of content including manga, an anime series, a live-action movie and a novel, Basilisk is building its fan base in the U.S. Del Rey Manga released the first volume of the five-volume series in May 2005. The following month, Shinobi: Heart Under Blade, the live action movie based on the same story, made its rounds in the film festival circuit, touching down in New York City and Seattle. In August, Funimation released volume one of the anime on DVD.

But Basilisk's biggest push is due to the cable channel, IFC. Once the channel began airing the series last October, sales of the manga jumped. "Retail orders have increased by about 20%," said Dallas Middaugh, associate publisher of Del Rey Manga.

What really sets Basilisk apart is that manga aimed at adult audiences rarely crosses over to so many platforms, with all of its many versions being successfully licensed in the U.S.. Dronen uses the term "polymorphic content" in describing Basilisk's cross-media appeal, a term most commonly used to refer to children's entertainment. Dronen uses Yu-Gi-Oh, the anime, card-game and manga, as an example and adds that for adults, "We haven't seen much outside of that."

The Kouga Ninja Scrolls, Basilisk and Shinobi all tell the story of two warring ninja clans, Iga and Kouga, who possess supernatural martial-arts skill. On the eve of the two sides resolving their history and unifying through the marriage and love of heirs Oboro of Iga and Gennosuke of Kouga, the two are ordered by the shogun to fight to the death. The narrative is best described as a somber "teenage mutant ninja lovers" or the X-Men version of Romeo and Juliet in feudal Japan.

Del Rey and Funimation have been cross-promoting their various products: the manga and novel are mentioned on Funimation's Basilisk DVD's. Likewise, ads in the back of Del Rey books will promote the anime series and movie.

Volume five of the six-volume anime on DVD comes out in February, with IFC resuming broadcasting the Basilisk story on February 5. Meanwhile, volume three of the manga was published in December, with volume four slated for February and volume five wrapping up the series in May. Last month, Del Rey published The Kouga Ninja Scrolls, the novel by pulp-fiction writer Futaro Yamada that laid the groundwork for its contemporary adaptations. "It's a fun adventure and historical novel," said Del Rey manga marketing manager Ali Kokmen. "It's not a history book, a romance or action novel, but it has those elements."

Funimation will premiere Shinobi at New York Comic-con next month, with Del Rey giving away copies of The Kouga Ninja Scrolls to the first 50 visitors to their booth. Funimation has six additional screenings across the country, another sign that small screen time has created "more of an awareness for property," said Dronen "It makes it easier for us to market the live action movie." Shinobi will also be featured at San Diego Comic-con this summer.

Middaugh, whose introduction to the story line was through the manga, said that reading the manga adaptation spurred him to read the novel and believes it will do the same for other readers. "It's spectacular," he said of the manga. "The art is gorgeous. You can appreciate it as a manga for an adult audience."

"Good stories can be told in all sorts of media," said Kokmen of manga's overall polymorphic potential, pointing out that the manga Air Gear by Oh! Great has recently been adapted into a musical in Japan. "I don't think Air Gear will ever come to Broadway," he said, but "I think that sort of thing should happen more. If that's something that children's storytellers have acted on historically and others are moving onto it now, that's a good thing."

He points to Trainman as another franchise for mature audiences that has shown promise. Three of the four manga series were licensed and released by Del Rey, CMX and Viz Media. Viz Media has licensed the live-action movie and screened it last summer at San Diego Comic-con and the Asian-American Film Festival in New York. The DVD release is scheduled for February. Del Rey plans to release Trainman the novel in April of this year.

Whether Trainman will find the same success as Basilisk remains to be seen. In the meantime, IFC seems happy with the reception its anime lineup has received and has added another Funimation license, Gunslinger Girl, to its mix.

"It's nice to see another home for anime besides the Cartoon Network," Kokmen said.