This interview was originally found in the Dark Horse site, i know is a little late to read now (was released in 1995) but i think that are a lot of people that donīt know about it

Toren Smith Interview

Toren Smith is the most important American working with Japanese comics today. He founded Studio Proteus in 1986, and the first book he worked on, Legend of Kamui(from Viz), appeared in 1987. Since then he has co-translated over 16,000 pages of manga and has been instrumental, if not almost entirely responsible, for introducing American comics readers to a wide and wonderful variety of manga -- many of which remain incredibly popular to this day, like Masamune Shirow's Appleseed (now published by Dark Horse). He recently spoke with Michael Gilman about Studio Proteus, the future of anime and manga in the U.S. and the latest series from Dark Horse, You're Under Arrest! from Kosuke Fujishima.

Michael Gilman: What is Studio Proteus' role in bringing manga to the U.S.?

Toren Smith: We are a packager. What I do is I find comics in Japan that I like. Then I show them to publishers over here -- in the past that was Eclipse or Innovation, now Dark Horse and Fantagraphics. If they like them, then I make all the arrangements to get the rights and handle all of the work required to hand the publishers a camera-ready copy. Everything else is their bailiwick: promotion, advertising, solicitation, printing, distribution... all that fun stuff.

Gilman: I've noticed that you do the translation yourself.

Smith: I have a group of people working with me that handle translation, lettering, and retouching. I work on all of the translations myself -- kind of doing the final version, but I have people who actually do the initial translation for me.

Gilman: Does your Japanese-language background stem from your love of anime?

Smith: Yes. I learned what Japanese I know because of anime and manga.

Gilman: So everything you've picked up has been on your own?

Smith: Pretty much, which is a bad way to do it. It's a very poor way to learn a language as complicated as Japanese -- I don't recommend anyone to do it that way. That's why I rely on people like Fred Schodt.

Gilman: How long have you been a fan of manga and anime?

Smith: James Hudnall [writer of ESPERS] got me into it back about 1982 -- which is not that long ago. There were a lot of people in the U.S. who were big fans before that, but it wasn't until the beginning of the `80s that it really started to catch on -- and that was simply because of all the quality stuff that was coming out of Japan at that time. Probably the most important thing that drove the entire anime-fandom subculture in the U.S. is the advent of cheap, affordable VCRs.

Gilman: The latest property Studio Proteus is packaging for Dark Horse is You're Under Arrest! by Kosuke Fujishima, creator of Oh My Goddess!. Is this a follow-up series to Oh My Goddess!?

Smith: It was actually done before Oh My Goddess! in Japan -- at least part of it was. He did about the first three volumes of You're Under Arrest! and then he started doing Oh My Goddess! simultaneously. Then he finished off You're Under Arrest! at volume seven, but Oh My Goddess!continued on.

Gilman: What can you say about the story of You're Under Arrest! ?

Smith: Well, basically, we're looking at two policewomen in the Tokyo City Police... this is not what you would call a high-realism police drama. This is not Homicide: Life on the Street... this is more like Police Story. It's a buddy book, and it's playing off the different personalities of the two main characters -- Natsumi and Miyuki. The Japanese are fascinated with the fictional idea of strong women -- it does seem to appeal to them in a very strong way. Miyuki is the brains of the outfit -- she's older and more experienced than Natsumi, and basically a calmer personality. Miyuki's a superb driver and mechanical whiz -- she could repair a broken space shuttle with masking tape and paper clips. Natsumi is more impulsive. She's a world-class motorcycle driver, and when she gets upset she has enough strength to rip the doors off a car. If you like Oh My Goddess!, think of You're Under Arrest! as that series with the action meter cranked up to 11!

Gilman: You mentioned that there were seven volumes of You're Under Arrest!.

Smith: Yes. What we're going to do is run an eight-issue series and, if it's popular, there will more than likely be more. This is what happened with Oh My Goddess! -- it was initially scheduled to run only six issues, but it caught on very well, sales were excellent, and we decided to extend it.

Gilman: How long has Kosuke Fujishima been writing and illustrating?

Smith: He's been publishing work under his own name in Japan since about 1986. Before that he was an assistant to somebody, but I can't remember who. The first work of his that I'm actually aware of is You're Under Arrest!. If he did anything else, it's never been collected or on sale -- at least I've never seen it. Now that doesn't guarantee it doesn't exist, but no one's ever mentioned it to me.

Gilman: I assume you would know.

Smith: Someone at Kodansha probably would have mentioned it, like, "Hey! Do you want to publish this?" [laughs]

Gilman: As you mentioned, from You're Under Arrest!, Fujishima moved into Oh My Goddess!. Did he gain notoriety at this time?

Smith: Yes, Oh My Goddess! is where he really made his mark. You're Under Arrest! did okay, but it was Oh My Goddess! that people really went for. He also made some fairly significant changes in his art style about that time. If you look at the early issues of You're Under Arrest!, I sincerely doubt you will be able to identify him as the same artist. We are not publishing those early issues -- we're starting with the Japanese volume 5.

Gilman: Then this is not his earliest published work? So, if this is popular, the most we'll see is three volumes?

Smith: Yes. Fujishima was not very happy with the idea of publishing his early work. He felt that volume 5 was where his art really began to come into his own, and because of the nature of the stories there's no long ongoing series. In fact, the art is so different in the earlier books that people wouldn't even recognize the characters. That's no exaggeration, by the way.

Gilman: Do you anticipate Fujishima coming back to these characters if it takes off?

Smith: No. The U.S. market -- even for the most successful manga artist -- represents an insignificant fraction of his market in Japan, and there's no point in the artist spending any time at all doing anything specifically for the U.S. We've been very fortunate in that some of the artists we've worked with have actually been nice enough to do special covers, but they're doing that out of the goodness of their hearts -- trust me on this -- because these people are terribly overworked.

Gilman: With American comics, when an artist gets popular their earlier work becomes in demand. Does this happen with Japanese comics as well -- specifically Fujishima's work?

Smith: Absolutely. You're Under Arrest! certainly got more popular than it had been before Oh My Goddess!. It was popular enough that it had been an ongoing series for seven volumes -- at the time a pretty impressive run.

Gilman: How long of a stretch of time was that?

Smith: The first volume was released in November 1987, and the last in May 1992. So that's four and a half years. In any case, it was the success of Oh My Goddess!and the Oh My Goddess! anime that prompted the You're Under Arrest! anime, which Kodansha is putting a lot of money into. The animation quality is some of the best I've ever seen -- very impressive. AnimEigo will start releasing it here in the U.S. in September.

Gilman: And where did You're Under Arrest! appear initially?

Smith: Well, it was a little before my time, but they originally appeared in a magazine called Party -- I don't even think that it's being printed anymore.

Gilman: Do most of the features you do have both an anime and a manga background?

Smith: It hasn't always been the case. What we've discovered over the last couple of years is that -- if at all possible -- it's much better to have a tie-in. It increases sales enormously. In fact, according to the people we've worked with, it works both ways. It improves sales for the anime and the manga. We had considered doing You're Under Arrest! previously, but once we heard there was going to be video, we decided to hold off until the video came out.

Gilman: Does Studio Proteus do anything with the anime side of things?

Smith: We cooperate with several of the companies bringing it over. I personally don't do much of anything -- well, I did do the subtitles on the Venus Wars movie, and I recently worked on the script to the Ghost in the Shell movie, which is going to be fantastic, as good as Akira, and I'm not kidding.

Gilman: I'm sure you are finding new source material all the time. Do you have any other plans for bringing these other projects to the U.S.?

Smith: We've got no problems with that at all -- there's plenty of good material out there. We have enough series lined up and ready for work to start on them for us to keep putting out between five and six comics a month from now well into 1997.

Gilman: Such as?

Smith: We have a new Shirow series starting next year, a new Dominion series called Dominion: Conflict. Manabe fans will be delighted to know we plan a new series from him, which will start in March. And for everyone who misses LONE WOLF AND CUB, we've got a new samurai/ninja series with spectacular artwork. With the popularity of Ghost in the Shell, we decided to try another detailed cyberpunk story, Slickstar. And, of course, we'll be continuing with Legend of Mother Sarah and Oh My Goddess!, and Gunsmith Cats has a anime video series due out next spring. Unfortunately, I can't really talk yet about the other things we have lined up -- sorry!

Gilman: Then there is a healthy future for manga and anime in the states?

Smith: Yes, I think so. I was very much encouraged by the response of the retail community when I went to the San Diego Comic Con this year. I was not 100% certain that it would be a productive trip for me, but I was overwhelmed by the level of interest in manga displayed by the retailers. It was extremely gratifying for me. They seemed to be very interested in manga and anime. In fact, more than a few of them -- without any prompting from me -- made the comment that manga and anime were two of the major growth areas in their store.

Gilman: So can you say that, having been in this since `82, it's a genre that has never stopped growing?

Smith: Well, that wouldn't strictly be true. It had an initial peak when it was hip for a little bit, and then the sales dropped. Since that initial sales drop in about 1989, however, regardless of what has gone on in the industry our sales have gone steadily up. They seem to be absolutely immune to any sort of market distraction at all -- which certainly makes the future of manga look pretty good.