The story
Founding
Seiji Horibuchi, originally from Tokushima Prefecture in Shikoku, Japan, moved to California, United States in 1975. After living in the suburbs for almost two years, he moved to San Francisco, where he started a business exporting American cultural items to Japan, and became a writer of cultural information. He also became interested in publishing Japanese manga in the United States, though he himself was not a fan of Japanese comics until a visit to Japan in 1985 exposed him to Katsuhiro Otomo's single-volume title Domu: A Child's Dream. His idea came to fruition after he met Masahiro Ohga, then managing director of Shogakukan, in 1985 and shared his vision. Shogakukan provided Horibuchi with $200,000 in startup capital, which Horibuichi used in 1986 to found Viz Communications.
Viz Communications released its first titles in 1987, which included Legend of Kamui; however, sales were mediocre due to the specialist comic market being averse to venturing into new territory. To counteract this problem, Viz expanded into the general publishing business and began publishing various art related books in 1992. Into these titles, Horibuchi began publishing manga, calling them graphic novels so they would be carried by mainstream bookstores. The plan worked, and after several years, leading booksellers began to have dedicated shelves for manga titles. Sales also picked up when Viz Communications acquired the license for the comedy series Ranma ½, which became an instant hit.
The company continued to see success when it expanded into the anime distribution market, began publishing Shonen Jump, an English adaptation of the popular Japanese magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump. It also acquired another huge selling title, Inuyasha. In the late 1990s, Viz began making the push to move into the European and South American markets.
Shueisha co-ownership (2000–2005)
When Shueisha became a joint owner of Viz in 2002, both Shogakukan and Shueisha began to release manga exclusively through Viz. Shueisha's deal with Viz may have been prompted by competition with Raijin Comics, a rival manga publisher created in 2002 by editors and artists who had split off from Shueisha, taking their properties with them.
Some exceptions to this exclusivity exist, however: Shueisha permitted DC Comics's subsidiary CMX Manga to license Tenjho Tenge (although it was later re-licensed and re-released by Viz Media) and Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, permitted Dark Horse Comics to license Gantz, Lady Snowblood, Shadow Lady, The Monkey King, and recently Yasuhiro Nightow's Blood Blockade Battlefront and CLAMP's Gate 7.
Shueisha also permitted Udon Entertainment to license The Rose of Versailles, Seven Seas Entertainment to license Hayate X Blade, and will later permit Seven Seas Entertainment to license To Love Ru, Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs and Super HxEros, and permitted Tokyopop to license Kodocha, Marmalade Boy, and Digimon Next and Manga Planet to license Silver Fang -The Shooting Star Gin- and allowed Kodansha USA to license the Battle Angel Alita manga in America. Shogakukan permitted Tokyopop to license Corrector Yui (even though Viz Media licensed the anime) and Yumi Tsukirino's Stitch! manga (because Tokyopop had the exclusive rights to Disney manga in North America), Seven Seas Entertainment to license Dai Dark, Orb: On the Movements of the Earth, Polar Bear Cafe, and the Himitsu Sentai Gorenger manga and Digital Manga to license The Amazing 3 manga by Osamu Tezuka, Udon Entertainment to license the Infini-T Force manga (even though Viz Media licensed the anime), the now-defunct ComicsOne to license Wounded Man - The White Haired Demon, permitted Dark Horse Comics to license Crying Freeman (even though it was previously licensed by Viz), New Lone Wolf and Cub (however, this is because Dark Horse has the original series), The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and Mob Psycho 100, and permitted Hachette Book Group's subsidiary Yen Press to license Azumanga Daioh, Fate Rewinder, Silver Spoon, Karakai Jōzu no Takagi-san, My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, and Cirque du Freak (however for Cirque du Freak, this is because their sister company publishes the original novels. For Azumanga Daioh, Yen Press's license of the manga was a month before Shogakukan reprinted the manga in May 2009, resulting in a change of license holders from ASCII Media Works (when Yen Press announced the license) to Shogakukan (when Yen Press released it). The Yen Press edition is a newly translated and lettered version of ADV Manga's edition (taken from ASCII Media Works) as opposed to the 3-volume edition by Shogakukan. Yen Press has expressed interest in releasing the 3-volume edition although editor Kurt Hassler said he is not "sure this will be possible.", possibly because Shogakukan owns Viz and that they almost exclusively license their titles to them). In March 2010, Shogakukan began a partnership with Fantagraphics Books to issue a line of manga to be edited by Matt Thorn. In 2003, possibly in response to Shogakukan and Shueisha's co-ownership of Viz, Japanese publisher Kodansha formed a co-venture with Del Rey.
ShoPro merger and Restructuring (2005–2013)
In 2005, Viz Communications merged with ShoPro Entertainment, an American subisidary of Shogakukan and was renamed to Viz Media. Horibuchi became the new company's chairman. During the same year, Horibuchi started a related division, Viz Pictures, for releasing selected live-action films in the US to theaters and DVD.
On December 17, 2008, Viz Media announced that starting on April 1, 2009, Warner Home Video (now Warner Bros. Home Entertainment via Studio Distribution Services) would be handling the distribution of both its new and existing catalog releases. Viz itself is still the licensor and will do all production, while tapping the distribution powerhouse that distributes the works of other major companies such as Disney XD, Adult Swim, and Cartoon Network. Viz president and CEO Hidemi Fukuhara stated that he believes the partnership will help the company grow its anime holdings more effectively.
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On February 20, 2009, Viz Media laid off an unknown number of employees in order to help be more streamlined to face the current economic climate. On May 11, 2010, Viz Media again laid off a number of workers, 60 this time, again in order to try to become more streamlined. This time they released a press release claiming that none of their current product lines would be affected.
On April 2, 2012, it was announced that the senior vice-president and general manager of Viz Media Ken Sasaki would be succeeding executive producer Hidemi Fukuhara as president and CEO; Fukuhara will subsequently take up the position of vice-president at the end of the month.
Partnerships and expansion (2013–present)
In 2013, Viz began distributing titles to the Philippines. In 2014, it announced it would do the same in India with 75 Shueisha titles being released in that country; Viz titles had been distributed unofficially to that country prior to the announcement.
On July 3, 2019, Viz Media partnered with Crunchyroll to distribute select Crunchyroll licensed titles on home video and electronic sell-through in the United States and Canada.
In 2020, Viz Media saw a 70% growth in the U.S. market, in line with a 43% increase in overall manga sales in the United States the same year.
On July 3, 2020, Funimation announced that they would begin streaming the original Naruto series on July 6. More content from Viz Media started to launch in their catalog such as Hunter × Hunter, Sailor Moon R: The Movie, and two Berserk films.
On September 9, 2020, Funimation announced that they had reached a distribution partnership with Viz Media, with Viz Media titles being made available to stream on Funimation's website. The deal was made after select Viz titles were previously made available on Funimation.
On May 9, 2023, Viz Media launched a digital manga service called "Viz Manga", featuring licenses from Shogakukan and Shueisha that are not published on the digital "Shonen Jump" service, and has simultaneous English releases of ongoing manga.
On July 5, 2024, Viz announced on their social media channels that they had acquired RWBY following the closure of its original parent company, Rooster Teeth—several months prior.
From Wikipedia’s article on Viz Media, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4