Response to “Ask John” Column

In the Ask John answer from last Friday, I suggested little possibility that the Basara manga would ever be licensed and translated for American audiences. Bill Flanagan, editor of Animerica Extra, was kind enough to alert me of the fact that shoujo and bishounen manga and anime are not quite as under appreciated in America as I may have thought.

“Don’t count Basara out. It’s one of the shojo manga series that we generally consider when we have room for a new comic in our lineup. At Animerica Extra, we’ve received quite a large number of requests for it, and that counts. It does have a heavy Moto Hagio (They Were Eleven) influence, but we’ve published Moto Hagio herself and Akimi Yoshida (Banana Fish), and both are very bishonen-style manga artists.”

“There’s no room in our present manga lineup, and there may be licensing problems such as ones that have prevented the publication of other potentially popular series (licensing is a vast and arcane specialty with which I, thank God, don’t have to deal, so I can’t give any details). I can’t make any guarantees, but it’s actually not an unlikely candidate at all!”