Go, Read: ICv2.com Interviews Viz Media’s Seiji Horibuchi

The hobby business news and analysis site ICv2.com has an interview up with Viz Media founder Seiji Horibuchi. As they point out and as the initial drift of the conversation puts on display, Horibuchi is also the founder and CEO of the entertainment complex business New People. The interview is in three parts: 1, 2, 3.

Horibuchi is the kind of figure where if he chose to spend the entire interview talking about knit scarves and his favorite reality TV stars a chat with him would still probably be worth reading, by which I mean how someone in his position looks at things is important in addition to whatever force his views have in and of themselves. I thought compelling his matter-of-fact take on digital publishing and was intrigued by his explanation that it's harder to break properties when US TV channels are more interested in building proprietary content than bringing in anime. Although I'm not entirely convinced that the light novel will ever hit hard with US audiences, I do take note of Horibuchi's prediction that a property springing from that format could become a major hit across several media.

I also like that the description of Horibuchi in the Viz wikipedia entry has him "living in the mountains" for two years in the 1970s, the phrasing of which brings up all sorts of odd images that couldn't possibly conform to reality.
 
posted 5:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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