In 1977, American author and translator Frederik L. Schodt and three friends formed a manga-translation group in Tokyo, with the then-quixotic dream of introducing Japanese comics to a global readership. Schodt had arrived in Japan in 1965, courtesy of a father in the United States Foreign Service. He returned in 1970 to attend university after a short stint in the U.S. At the time, manga were everywhere in Japan, he says, and a lot more fun to read than textbooks.
Schodt became addicted to the gag-and-parody series published in boys' magazines. But one day a friend loaned him a copy of Osamu Tezuka's epic 12-volume "Phoenix" — and he was stunned. "It made me realize that the work of Japanese manga artists was sometimes approaching the best in literature and film," he says.
So he and his translation team went straight to Tezuka Productions to get permission for their debut project. To their surprise, the artist, already a celebrity in Japan, known as "the god of manga" for hit titles such as "Astro Boy" and "Black Jack," greeted them personally and said yes.