Interview Piece: Alexis Kirsch (Part 1)

The most unlikely interview of all! PirateBeck discusses the release of the One Piece manga in the US with none other than the editor of the title since the speed-up, Alexis Kirsch!

Hello and welcome to this months segment of PirateBeck interviews (I doubt I'll have anything new after July mind) where I sit down with a very special guest, Alexis Kirsch. For those of you fine folk unaware of his work, Alexis has been working in the industry for over 8 years, either being involved withe the editing, translation and the creation of manga in the United States of America. He's worked on several notable titles such as Welcome to the N.H.K, Bakuman, newcomer Toriko and, of course, our favourite series One Piece. The interview itself has been split into two parts, the first of which will be dealing with introductions and discussions of alterations that have taken place with the manga while part two will be dealing with announcements, revelations and discussing the futures of other well known titles. If you want to hear from Alexis himself, you can follow his thoughts through his twitter account @AlexisKJump. And now, onto the interview!

“According to an article featured on sigikki.com, you spent most of your childhood in Japan and later returned to the US to rediscover manga during college. What was it like experiencing classics as a youth and rediscovering them as an adult?”

It was pretty amazing. I had brought only back about 40 volumes of manga with me from Japan. All 36 volumes of Kinnikuman, 3 volumes of Dragonball and then some random things. I read these 40 volumes over and over for about 6~7 years before realizing I could buy more. The week before I left from Japan, the newest Weekly Jump contained the DB chapter where Freeza revealed his true form. What a cliffhanger! A few years later I was in Hawaii on vacation and saw a copy of Jump at the airport. I flipped through it to find Gohan destroying a bunch of Cell Jrs.(though I had no idea what was going on at the time) I can't believe I went so long before finding out what actually happened! Anyway, the feeling of rediscovering my childhood passion was incredible. Almost as good was getting a job and Viz and not having to buy Shonen Jump every week! Yay for company perks.

“Having edited and translated titles for both Viz Media and Tokyopop, as well as been involved in the creation of original titles through the latter, what was it like working for the two different companies during two different stages of anime and manga’s popularity in the USA?” 

So much has happened over the years, I'm in my 8th year as a manga editor and the job can be repetitive but I find an inner peace when I remind myself I am being paid to read comics! Doesn't get much better than that! At TOKYOPOP, my job involved 50% Japanese manga and 50% creation of original material. The latter being a lot more creative and requiring a personal relationship with artists and writers. That was a lot of fun, though challenging as well. It's not easy creating books but the satisfaction when it's finally published is very high. At Viz I focus almost exclusively on Shonen manga. Less creative but I get to work on my favorite series. The manga slump we've had over the last few years has been disheartening but hopefully things will improve.

“Were you a fan or interested in One Piece prior to working on it and, if not, how did become aware of its existence?” 

I had been reading Weekly Jump continuously since 1999 or so.(I think I only missed one or two issues over close to ten years!) I never bought the tankobon but I did read every chapter of One Piece in the magazine. I remember being annoyed by the flashback stuff in the Skypiea arc back then when I first read it. (Get back to the Eneru action!) But I was reading it the other day for our IPAD release and it brought a tear to my eye... Good stuff.

“Since Viz Media has been testing the use of alternate formats to that of print, what are your thoughts on the possibility of releasing the manga in a simulcast-like format online, similar to that what is being done with the One Piece anime?” 

An experiment like this is something Viz is interested in doing. Hopefully we can get something like this established in the not too distant future.

“How long have you been working on One Piece for?”

I started working on One Piece during the speed-up when we were doing 5 volumes a month among three editors. My first ones were in the late 20s. By the late 30s I was put in charge of supervising the speed-up itself. I am the sole One Piece editor since the speed-up.

 This is the first volume (chronologically anyway) you'll find Alexis listed as the editor

“When was the decision made to Speed-Up the release of One Piece similar to Naruto? Was it due to the re-licensing of the anime series, a suggestion made by Toei/Shueisha for the manga to catch up with its Japanese counterpart or something else entirely?”

We really wanted the US Jump magazine chapters to be closer to the Japanese release. In order to get approval on that, we were asked to speed up the GN release. Seemed like a good idea but working on five volumes a month was pretty rough!

“Has the Speed-Up been a success? Do you think it brought in many new fans or do the sales figures suggest otherwise?” 

I haven't seen any detailed analysis but it seems like it's been successful beyond what we anticipated. This was one of my first projects when I started at Viz and the editors working on it thought it was a pretty bad idea. I mean, who can afford to buy five volumes every month? But then the books would come out and all five volumes would be in the top 50. One Piece has a devoted fan base and they really came through and supported every volume. I don't know if it created new fans but the new volumes seem to be selling better and better. Volume 56 had the best first week sales ever and hopefully we can do even better on Volume 57.

“What’s it like having to work through other companies, such as Sheuisha, FUNimation, Toei Animation and previously 4kids Entertainment? Do challenges often arise, such as being forced to use terms like “Haki” instead of translating it into something like “Ambition” or “Willpower”?"

With One Piece, it's actually been great. Because of the anime streaming being ahead or close to the manga release recently, I usually receive a names/term list from Funimation/Toei and offer my input. Most of the spellings they come up with are kept unless I have a good reason for changing it. I don't follow the anime release so I'm not sure if they adopt my suggestions or just go with what they originally had. I hope there are not too many differences but some are unavoidable. I just kept Haki as is because...I couldn't come up with a good translation. "Ambition" and "Willpower" really don't make any sense.

“Although you weren’t around during this period, why were certain terms, like the “Tweet-Tweet fruit”, carried over from the 4kids translation of the series instead of the original terms being used?” 

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time to match the anime?

“Since translation and spelling errors have been corrected in later re-printings, will terms like “Haki” be used throughout (such as in volume 25) and will names be corrected, as “Shiryu” was later revealed to have been “Shiliew”, as per Oda writing it out in English in chapter 596?” 

We're going to keep the spellings unless we determine that it's a huge error to leave things as so. Haki will remain as will Shiryu. Oda's spellings can be a little inconsistent but we usually stick to them when they are seen before we come up with our spelling. I'm waiting to hear word on "Big Mom." It was spelled one way in a guide book and another way in the volume. We could change Zolo back to Zoro but it would just cause too much confusion at this point so we're leaving it as is. Perhaps if we ever did a super special edition, we could change it back.

 Although spelled out in English as 'Shiliew', his name will remain as 'Shiryu' in future chapters.

“Considering the release of future volumes/chapters, how many chapters are normally completed in advance of the monthly Shonen Jump magazine? Is it any than the selection needed for volume based releases or roughly the same amount?” 

It's actually a rush every month. One Piece is usually the series where the chapters come in the latest. This is because we are so close to the Japanese release. With One Piece, we don't get the materials until after the tanko is released in Japan so this causes a bottleneck where we can't do the work until the last second. I'm quite surprised there aren't more mistakes in the series and that's a testament to the team we have working on it. Going from four chapters to three chapters an issue helped a lot with this and we have a little bit more of a buffer now.

“You did say in the reply to one of my messages that you thought I’d be asking something like “why do you hate Zoro so much?!” Speaking of which, I informed a friend of mine of this interview and they asked “How often fans come up to you and go "Why do you put 'Zolo' when everyone knows it's SUPPOSED to be 'Zoro'?!"?” Does it happen often?” 

It's mostly the same people bugging us about it over and over. However, it doesn't seem as bad as the people asking over and over about Monster DVDs…

“What effect do you think the 4kids Entertainment dub has had on the release of the manga? Have things changed in recent years or does its presence still affect the series from being the success story it is throughout Europe and Japan?"

I think this affect is way overblown. I don't think there would be any difference had another company done the anime early on. Something about One Piece just makes it hard to reach mass penetration.

The interview will continued next week at the same time. Be sure to arrive at 8pm to find out about the future of the companion books, why "Paramount War" was chosen and how likely a "Super Special Edition" with Zoro is! Look forward to seeing more posts from me, PirateBeck, coming to a blog near you soon!