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Tezuka: God of Manga Documentary Film Launches Kickstarter Campaign
posted on by Alex Mateo
The upcoming feature-length documentary on Osamu Tezuka titled Tezuka: God of Manga launched its Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign on Wednesday. The project streamed a trailer:
As of press time, the project has raised US$10,726 of its US$49,999 goal. The campaign ends on November 13.
Backer rewards include an Astro Boy T-shirt, a Blu-ray Disc or DVD of the film, a Black Jack giclée print by by manga artist Yūko Shimizu, a set of lithograph prints, a Tezuka color manga cover, and a Supporting Producer credit.
The film is scheduled to complete in 2028, the 100-year anniversary of Tezuka's birth. The backer rewards and film on Blu-ray Disc and DVD are slated for distribution in July 2028.
Director Jason Andrew Cohn and the Bread & Butter Films production team comprising Camille Servan-Schreiber, Jinko Gotoh, Glen S. Fukushima, and Roland Kelts are producing the documentary.
The documentary will feature interviews with manga and anime creators such as Katsuhiro Ōtomo (Akira), Riyoko Ikeda (The Rose of Versailles), Naoki Urasawa (Monster, Pluto), Gō Nagai (Devilman), Yoshiyuki Tomino (Gundam), MADHOUSE co-founder and anime producer Masao Maruyama (Tokyo Godfathers), anime director Rintarō (Metropolis), fantasy author Ada Palmer (Too Like the Lightning), Samuel Sattin (Unico Awakening), and Jorge R. Gutiérrez (The Book of Life). The documentary will also feature interviews with leading manga scholars such as Fred Schodt (Manga! Manga!) and Helen McCarthy (The Manga Bible).
If the crowdfunding campaign succeeds, the producers will schedule interviews with artists Paul Pope (THB) and Ronald Wimberly (Prince of Cats).
Tezuka was born in 1928 and he died in 1989. Arguably best known as the creator of Astro Boy, he has been called the “Godfather of Anime and Manga” due to his prolific output, pioneering techniques, and pervasive reimagining of genres. Although he is often referred to as the "Walt Disney of Japan," Helen McCarthy, author of The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga, wrote Tezuka "was more like Walt Disney, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Tim Burton, Arthur C. Clarke, and Carl Sagan all rolled into one incredibly prolific creator.” According to Tezukainenglish.com, "Over the course of his 40-year career, Tezuka created more than 700 volumes of manga, encompassing an estimated 150,000 pages of drawings. He also produced another 200,000 pages of storyboards and scripts for nearly 500 episodes of a variety of popular animated T.V. series and numerous award-winning short and feature-length animated films."
Source: Press release
