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Flipped!: David Welsh Interviews Michael Perry Of Aurora
posted April 10, 2008
By David P. Welsh
Aurora is a relatively new addition to the roster of manga publishers, focusing largely on comics for girls and women. It's the American arm of Japanese publisher
Ohzora, and offers three imprints for its audience. The main Aurora line focuses on shôjo (comics for girls); the Deux imprint offers yaoi (stories of same-sex romance written by and primarily for women); and LuvLuv centers on more explicit romance stories for women. At a point when many manga watchers are wondering when the market is going to mature, Aurora seems poised to test the grown-up waters. I conducted an e-mail interview with Michael Perry of Aurora's Sales and Marketing office to discuss the publisher's origins, strategy and philosophy.
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DAVID WELSH: Aurora is the North American arm of Ohzora, a Japanese publisher. Could you explain how that relationship works? Will Aurora exclusively publish translated works from Ohzora, or will you be working with other publishers as well?
MICHAEL PERRY: Aurora Publishing, Inc. is a fully owned subsidiary of Ohzora Publishing, Co. To simplify that, it means that we are the American office of Ohzora Publishing, come to bring manga to America. We keep a close relationship with our parent company and have people at Ohzora Publishing that solely look to license manga for us to translate into English, which I believe would answer your next question: we do publish from other companies. Actually, our
Flock of Angels series is from
Asahi Shimbun, as well as our upcoming Nephilim, which will release in April.
WELSH: Part of your mission is "to develop the manga market for a more mature audience." That's really interesting to me, as there's always discussion as to how the market for manga in English will evolve, since it's still viewed primarily as a market for kids and teens. What makes Aurora think the time is right to make a concentrated effort to target older teens and women?
PERRY: Seeing as anime and manga has been around since I myself was a teenager, we are seeing the first 'generation' of fans entering into their adult lives. Many of these people are turned off by the upcoming anime and manga that is targeting the younger audience, as it no longer appeals to their level of maturity. Also, we believe there are other adults out there who might enjoy manga, but have not been properly introduced to something aimed at their level. We at Aurora would like to bring about more manga aimed at an older audience, to not only market to them, but more so to bring works that will suit their current interests. Nothing could be worse than losing manga fans due to the lack of mature manga brought to America!
WELSH: I've heard that some outlets, big chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble, are a little reluctant to carry manga with a mature rating or explicit content -- books that arrive shrink-wrapped, basically. Has Aurora encountered that at all in its distribution efforts?
PERRY: Barnes & Noble are reluctant to carry the mature manga, because they like to cater to a family atmosphere, and are afraid that kids under the age of 18 might unwrap the shrink-wrap and peruse the manga. We are understanding of this and do not look down at them for not wanting to stock those select titles. However, they still accept our other titles, and for that we are glad. Borders stocks our manga, along with
Amazon.com and others, so we are not worried about a lack of buying options for the readers.
WELSH: I was just curious if there's been any discussion at Aurora about the precarious state of Borders? It's one of the bigger purveyors of more mature manga titles, so I was wondering what Aurora's initial reaction has been to the possibility of big changes in the chain.
PERRY: Well, we really hope Borders can pull through and keeps themselves going. There are so many rumors flying around, and you just can't be sure which have any substantial backing to them, so we just hope that they will be able stay on their feet. Everyone should go buy a book or two at Borders to help support them! I would suggest one of our titles, if you are so inclined. [laughs]
WELSH: What about local comic shops? I've been pleasantly surprised at how well yaoi titles do in those outlets, though some seem to have been a little slow to embrace manga in general. How much of a part do specialty stores play in Aurora's distribution strategy?
PERRY: We love the local comic shops! However, it seems that they can be picky with what they choose. At times, they buy a large amount of our manga, at other times, only a handful. We would like to start getting ourselves out to those local comic shops and try to encourage them to hold more manga. Not just ours, but manga in general, to promote people to get interested in this art form. While we of course want our own sales [laughs], we must also think of the manga community in general, and try to get as many people to enjoy this art form as we can.
WELSH: Following up on that, tell me a bit about Aurora's Luv Luv imprint, which specializes in "Ladies Comics." Tell me about the kind of josei manga that Aurora will be delivering, because I think there's a default definition of josei as chick-lit in comics form, but isn't it broader than that?
PERRY: Luv Luv Press is our new line that just started this January, with our debut release of
Voices of Love by Kanae Hazuki. Through our Luv Luv Press imprint, we will bring 'TL' manga, otherwise known as josei, to America. This is a whole new line of manga aimed at ladies who are 18 years old and up. Our manga depicts relationships in their full physical and emotional state, with nothing held back! As previously stated, all of these are 18+, due to the explicit content you may find within its pages. We are very hopeful for this new genre in America, as it is something never before seen by women in America, yet we believe it will be very appealing to this market. Not only manga lovers can get into these, but romance novel readers as well, as it would fit perfectly into the genre, only in a manga form. Josei, as introduced into America currently, has been mainly a chic-lit style, but in its true form, josei would be more accurately portrayed as a romance bordering on the erotica (in some volumes). All of our stories will stir the emotions of our female readers, while giving them that "fantasy romance" in a real-life setting.
WELSH: Along the same lines, what distinguishes the main Aurora imprint from other shôjo offerings? As you look through books to potentially license, what are the qualities that make you say, "This should be part of the Aurora line"?
PERRY: For our shôjo line, we try to look for manga that will appeal to the current readers in America. We like to keep our options broad, and therefore have brought real-life [
Walkin' Butterfly], fantasy [
Flock of Angels], and horror [
Nightmares for Sale] shôjo through our doors. We want to be able to appeal to every shôjo reader out there by bringing various types, while maintaining our standards to meet the current market.
WELSH: Deux is your yaoi imprint. I think that whole category of comics took people by surprise, and it's really seen a boom over the past few years. Again, what makes a yaoi manga right for Deux? What can yaoi fans expect?
PERRY: To start, it wasn't yaoi that was right for Deux, but that Deux was right for yaoi. As our American market is riddled with our fujoshi [yaoi-lover] fans, it was our intention all along to being about a line of yaoi manga. We were very pleased to introduce as our debut manga the classic
Hate to Love You by Makoto Tateno, which was a big hit with the yaoi fans. We have brought other classic manga such as
I Shall Never Return by Kazuna Uchida, and more contemporary manga like
Seduce me After the Show by Est Em, which we are very excited for its release (also in April). We have also been bringing a variety of yaoi manga that we believe will appeal to both new fans and our loyal veterans. Another exciting title coming out will be
Tomcats by Mashiro Minamino (June), which will keep the readers laughing through the whole manga, and
Two of Hearts by Kano Miyamoto (August), which is a very heart-warming story. We are also looking forward to going to
Yaoi-con this September, where we can mingle with our loyal yaoi-lovers!
WELSH: This will be Aurora 's first major comic convention season coming up. Any special plans for major events like the New York Comic-Con or San Diego?
PERRY: Actually, Aurora attended
Anime Expo and a few other conventions last year, but this year we have more to offer, for sure. Right now we do not have specific plans to attend either, but don't be surprised if we happen to pop up there... so keep an eye out!
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Aurora Publishing
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three Aurora covers selected by David P. Welsh; logo supplied by Michael Perry
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David P. Welsh has loved comics since his parents first used
Archie and
Casper to sedate him during long trips in the family station wagon.
He's worked as a reporter and editor for daily and weekly newspapers, and later sold out for the glamorous world of public relations. Prior to relocating to
The Comics Reporter, he wrote his Flipped column for
Comic World News for just over three years. He's written articles on comics for print outlets and a variety of other web sites.
He lives in West Virginia, which he says has gotten a lot easier since the Starbucks and Barnes & Noble opened up.
You may e-mail David with questions or commentary You can write to this site about David's columns
Please bookmark his site, Precocious Curmudgeon.
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