Otomo Katsuhiro’s manga “Akira” Vol. 1 has achieved its 100th reprint, which is the first in Kodansha Comic history. This achievement was obtained after 36 years since its first release and also 2020 is the setting of the work. At the same time, comments from Otomo have also been released.
“AKIRA” is a worldwide famous representative work of Otomo Katsuhiro which had obtained a nomination in The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award, as well as an award in Grand prix de la ville d’Angoulême, and others.
The setting takes place on “Neo Tokyo”, which was re-developed due to the Tokyo Olympics in 2020. In reality, there is an over-lap with the actual Tokyo, and it has become a hot-topic due to it being a “premonition”.
After the initial release in 1984, it had undergone several reprints and had achieved its 100th reprint on Sep. 25, 2020.
The selling price has remained the same despite the bookmaking cost for this single book and the continuous reprint with the same specification caused a few problems to arise.
The first is the deterioration of the production art. As the reprint after the 60th reprint has to be messy, the production art was stored as a data after going through high resolution scanning.
Then, there is a problem with the cover’s color. The previous reprint has a fine coloring but as the number of reprints increased, the coloring has started to change and from the 70th to 80th reprint, the packaging looks like a pirated version. After that, the coloring was adjusted back to 3 to 4 year back.
Also, as the manufacture of the paper used for the comic main content has stopped, the 100th reprint will be using a different paper instead.
The 100th reprint of Vol. 1 is scheduled to be available at storefronts on early-Oct.
