Mario B. Long may be the perfect face for Nakama Press, Mad Cave's new imprint founded on cross-cultural manga storytelling with international creators. The Tokyo transplant grew up in Detroit inspired by anime and cult films, and his new book, God Tier, Vol. 1: Prey (June 17), is a melding of Eastern and Western storytelling traditions. Working in collaboration with Japanese artist Kuroi, Long created an epic adventure blending Greek mythology, anime, and real-world themes. It's the first in a multivolume set with book 2 out in August, and it represents exactly the kind of titles the new imprint with global appeal intends to publish.
You were born in Detroit but moved to Japan after graduating from college. What is it about anime and Japanese culture that led you to make this bold move?
I grew up in the Detroit metro area watching a lot of sci-fi and Kung fu films, and while I love my hometown, I found it to be a bleak place to live. Sci-fi/fantasy movies and comic books allowed me to escape the reality of my environment. I often dreamed of living in a massive futuristic city like the ones I saw in Blade Runner, Star Wars, and Akira. Now, of course those are all equally dense and depressing places, but they had flying cars, androids, and telekinesis, so it seemed like a good trade-off.
I eventually discovered Akira Kurosawa samurai films and anime OVAs (Original Video Animations) in the early 1990s before they were on mainstream TV. My best friend, Justin, and I would go to local comic-cons to buy VHS tapes of Dragonball movies in Japanese without subtitles. One day, when we were about 15, Justin’s mother signed him up to take a Japanese language course at a nearby community college. I didn’t have enough money to take the course, but I went along with him and eventually convinced the teacher to let me sit in the back of the class to eavesdrop on the lesson. That was the start of my journey into learning Japanese and my love for Japanese culture. At that moment, I set a goal of one day visiting Japan, although I never thought I’d end up living here for 20-plus years.
In many ways, God Tier is a personal story. Can you explain how your journey from Detroit to Tokyo informed the emotional and cultural core of the book?
Moving to another country away from all your family and friends is exciting but also can be lonely and stressful. You essentially pause your existing life and start a new one. Your family and friends back home go on without you so your old life becomes a kind of mirror world that you watch through your social media feed, video calls, and TV news while you’re away.
In God Tier, Pablo and his sister, Anna, the two central characters, leave home in search of help from the gods. Their family forms the emotional center of the story with Anna, her boyfriend, Miquel, Pablo, and their parents all having different ideas about how to survive the nightmarish situation they find themselves in.
They’re all pulled farther and farther away from their previous lives. I don’t want to spoil too much, but they eventually become so detached from home that it seems like they can only view their old lives through a mirror.
The pandemic played a big role in inspiring themes in the book. How did Covid-19 spark a dark fantasy combining Greek mythology, anime, and dystopian sci-fi about a divine war?
I was quarantined in a tiny apartment in Tokyo during Covid-19, and it was eerily quiet. But there was a lot of unrest, fear, panic, and anger at governments around the world. Protests and riots seemed to be happening all over the world then.
I wondered if all that negative energy was generated by one individual, an anarchist, who intended to break the world as we know it. A seemingly harmless, faceless person in a crowd who would ignite the spark turning peaceful protests into riots. This became my version of Typhon, the God of Monsters, a seemingly meek man in a gas mask who has the ability to amplify people’s negative emotions to turn them into the worst versions of themselves. Typhon isn’t a typical villain who wants to rule the world but someone determined to take down all forms of authority and place power in the hands of the people. Typhon is determined to kill the gods by using his ever-growing army of rioters, gangs, and monsters. Once his reasons for starting this “divine war” are revealed, I’m curious which side most readers will stand on.
How has your experience as a Black American manga creator living in Japan brought a unique perspective to the art?
I’m focused on telling the story and presenting it in the best way possible. I’m sure there are an uncountable number of things from my upbringing that influence me, but I don’t consciously bring any of it into my writing process.
I grew up during a time when I didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me in the films and TV series that I loved. I wanted to change that, so I studied filmmaking and writing in high school and college. I do make a point to feature a diverse cast of characters in God Tier and other stories that our studio produces, but I don’t think of myself as a Black American manga creator since I’ve seen how movie studios, publishers, and others can place creators in a box, often limiting their work to narrow target audiences. I'm proud of who I am and where I come from, but I want my books and games to stand on their own merit.
God Tier is the flagship title for Nakama Press, Mad Cave’s new imprint for global storytelling. How does your work represent the imprint’s mission?
Our creative and production team is based in Tokyo, but many contributors are based in the U.S., South America, Australia, and other countries. It’s a truly international project with all team members dedicated to producing the highest quality books possible. This aligns well with Nakama Press and other Mad Cave books made by a diverse group of storytellers focused on developing character-driven stories.
To bring your vision to life, you worked with manga artist Kuroi and the Sakura Phoenix studio. How did that cross-cultural collaboration work, and how did it influence the final version of the book?
Working with Kuroi and Pablo Rey on this project continues to be a great experience. They both worked tirelessly for years on layout and line work. Kuroi did colors and shading and also oversaw the grayscale balancing for each print version page. I speak and write Japanese but the scripts were provided to them directly in English, so there was a lot of back and forth between us to ensure they understood the characters and locations. As time went on, I was able to minimize individual panel directions as the artist starts to make the world his or her own and populate it with details not explicitly called for in the script. There are some characters that I initially envision as tertiary who have their roles expanded once I see how the mangaka (manga artist) expanded on my script and basic notes.
I founded Sakura Phoenix Studio in 2020 to not only tell my own stories but also help artists like Kuroi and Pablo Rey gain exposure to larger global audiences. Our studio also works to help creatives from other countries find an audience and expand here in the Japanese market.
God Tier has been years in the making. Why did this project take so long, and how unusual is that?
I started writing in 2020 and soon after assembled the production team with the help of Chihiro Seko as producer and Kuroi as art director. We published in Japan as a tateyomi (vertical scrolling) digital manga series and had to release one new Japanese language episode every week. We kept this schedule for 52 consecutive weeks. It was a tough schedule, but our team eventually found our rhythm and never missed a deadline.
At the same time, I produced an original card game that ties in with the manga. Hopefully, we’ll be able to announce release details for the tabletop game around the time God Tier, Vol. 3 releases next year.
It’s common for big manga titles to have teams of artists working on them to meet the demanding weekly deadlines, but we are unique in that we are a foreign-owned and managed manga and game production studio based in Tokyo.
God Tier, Vol. 2 will be released just two months after the first volume. How quickly did that one come about, and did you always know there would be a second volume?
Yes, the series is plotted for 10 volumes. It will take a lot of support for us to reach the finish line, so we appreciate every reader who joins our community. God Tier’s story is told in a big world with lots of room to grow. I ask readers to give the series a chance and promise they won’t be disappointed in the end.
It took us three years to produce the 300-plus pages featured in God Tier, Vols. 1 & 2. Our process now is more efficient, and we’re able to produce high-quality content in about half the time without using AI.
What is it about manga that you find so compelling? And do you find it to be an especially good genre to help promote youth literacy, a cause you’re passionate about?
Manga allows grand stories that would cost a fortune to produce in live-action. I hope we get to TV at some point, but reading a manga allows the reader to fill in the spaces between panels with his or her own imagination. I love films, TV, and anime, but reading manga or any other graphic novel is its own unique experience.
There are some limitations to the graphic novel medium: panel size, the amount of dialogue that can be contained within panels without covering up too much of the artwork, book page counts, and so on. But these limitations also help creators tell stories as efficiently as possible. It’s similar to some of your favorite films that were made on a shoestring budget. Constraints can foster creativity, improve productivity, and often lead to innovation.
I believe comics are a great way to promote youth literacy, as I read hundreds of comics as a kid. I should note that God Tier is intended for mature readers, as some portions are not suitable for children. This is a story inspired by Greek mythology with visual depictions of all manner of scandalous behavior by the gods and mere mortals alike.
How have anime, cult films, and mythology influenced your work?
The scripts for the God Tier manga series are similar to film or TV scripts in that I often detail camera angles and shot composition for the mangaka, but it's a delicate balancing act since too much direction and the mangaka may feel stifled and unable to add his or her own unique style to the book.
One day, I’d like the manga to be used as storyboards for TV or film adaptations, so many of the panels in God Tier are composed like shots you’d see in a movie or TV production. Japanese manga can have lots of extreme angles and hyperkinetic action sequences. God Tier is a hybrid between film, manga, and western graphic novel styles. My hope is that the next generation of writers, artists, and filmmakers enjoy God Tier and are inspired to make their own stories in the same way that I was inspired by earlier movies, anime, and myths that I enjoyed.
