Naruto Viz-sion

Last night, we took part in an event that would have been nearly impossible before the advent of digital projection. Viz Entertainment released its American version of the first NARUTO movie --NINJA CLASH IN THE LAND OF SNOW -- in theaters across America for one night only, before the company releases it on DVD. Had the company struck that many prints of the 35mm film, it would have spent umpteen amounts of moolah for a single showing. But with digital projection, the movie just had to be downloaded (or perhaps DVD'd) to theaters nationwide.

Before-and-after promo pieces featured both the Japanese voice actors and the American ones. We could see that several of the younger Naruto fans were startled to see that the title character, a rambunctious 13-year-old boy, is played by a woman in Japan; and by Maile Flanagan, another woman, in the US of A. Believe it!

Ninja-ing the Bestsellers List

Not that long ago, English translations of Japanese manga were mere curiosities -- particularly those that were "unflopped," that is, printed from back to front, with the panel flow running from right to left (requiring a bit of mental retraining to read) as in the Japanese original. Such translations probably sold, at most, a couple thousand.

Flash-forward to today, and the Los Angeles Times' So Cal bestsellers list for fiction paperbacks. Ensconced at Number 6 is the latest English-translated volume of Naruto, the fantasy ninja manga currently being printed in the American version of SHONEN JUMP magazine, and the animated version of which is playing Saturday nights on Cartoon Network. I can't recall many, if any, American graphic novels (apart from collections of newspaper comic strips) that have acheived the same rank.