Kodansha is making big moves. Not only has the storied company recently opened Kodansha Studios to make live-action adaptations of their manga classics, but over in the good ol’ US of A, the appropriately named Kodansha USA is releasing the highly anticipated novel, Totto-chan, the Little Girl at the Window: The Sequel. Yes, novel; not manga, as the publisher is also moving in big ways into the prose market.
“Prose works are an important aspect of Kodansha’s foundation, legacy, and mission,” Kodansha USA Publishing President & CEO Alvin Lu told Comic Book Club over email. “Ultimately, it’s less about form than stories — ‘Inspire Impossible Stories’ is our core purpose. And while manga certainly qualifies as a unique phenomenon in North America, the outlook for Japanese literature outside Japan in a broader sense is definitely changing.”
To celebrate the release of the book, Kodansha is holding three events in New York City (listed at the bottom of this article). And in advance of those events, we talked to Lu about the turn to prose novels, why American publishers have had difficulty breaking into the manga market, and even got some recommendations of starter books for those manga-curious.
Comic Book Club: Totto-chan has been an enormous seller… What do you attribute the success to?
Alvin Lu: Tetsuko Kuroyanagi’s first book, Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window, really defined a certain spirit of the age—how Japan came to see itself in the 1980s, looking back on its rebirth since World War II. At the same time, it communicates something universal: the magic of childhood. Kuroyanagi’s story of her childhood is exactly the kind of “impossible story” that defines Kodansha, so its sequel, Totto-Chan, the Little Girl at the Window: The Sequel is something important to us. At the same time it is coming out at a time when the international audience is more attuned to Japanese culture than ever. It’s an auspicious moment for English readers to get introduced to Totto-chan.
Why prose novels at all, given manga is Kodansha’s bread and butter?
Prose works are an important aspect of Kodansha’s foundation, legacy, and mission. Ultimately, it’s less about form than stories — “Inspire Impossible Stories” is our core purpose. And while manga certainly qualifies as a unique phenomenon in North America, the outlook for Japanese literature outside Japan in a broader sense is definitely changing. For one thing, our Tokyo international rights team has been seeing great interest in our novels from U.S. publishers.
How has manga evolved in the United States specifically? It used to feel like an import, but now it’s a force in and of itself.
That’s nice to hear! Somewhat related to the increasing popularity of Japanese fiction I note above, I think the rise of manga in the past few years—since the years of the pandemic, in any case—is part of a broader cultural turn that includes not just anime, but trends like K-Pop and live-action Asian TV dramas, since streaming and social media have made Asian entertainment—some of the best produced on the planet—more accessible to broader audiences.
Back in August you made a deal with GlobalComix… There’s a lot of back and forth about digital versus print, but do you see one impacting the other, negatively or positively? Or is it all just “readers” and that’s what matters?
I would say that it’s a matter of reaching readers where they are — we haven’t seen signs that one delivery method takes away from another. People have their preferred ways to encounter the stories they enjoy—and some like to collect them in different formats—so it’s important we find ways to get to them. It’s one way to build a larger audience.
Similarly, what do you see as the give and take between manga and anime? How does one feed into the other?
Manga and anime go together. It goes back to the long history of how anime evolved as a way to bring manga stories to television audiences. It’s a unique relationship that goes beyond just “adapting” the comic into an animation or movie. I would almost consider them to be the same art form, or perhaps two different aspects of the same form. Nothing quite like it in Western entertainment.
Not to make you give up your secrets, but: why do you think American comic book publishers (Marvel, DC, etc) have had such a difficult time breaking into the manga market?
If you’re referring to the manga market in Japan, I think it’s a matter of the limited appeal of superhero stories—which certainly have an audience in Japan, just a smaller one than the broader range of stories that manga offers. As far as the manga market in North America, it’s usually posited as a question of how manga should break into the American comic-book market, but you’re right, maybe we should think of it now as the other way around.
Since our readers are often more coming from the side of American comics, what do you think are some good starter books from the Kodansha stable (I know every reader is different, of course)?
I happen to think Kodansha’s a great “crossover” publisher for fans who are used to reading American comics — our classic dystopian science-fiction fare, like Akira and The Ghost in the Shell, are a natural for U.S. comics readers. To that I’d add the work of Tsutomu Nihei (BLAME! , Knights of Sidonia, Tower Dungeon). I’d also check out Attack on Titan, of course, Parasyte, and Initial D.
For those more into the line, is there an under-the-radar book you think folks should be checking out?
Read The Darwin Incident by Shun Umezawa, Sketchy by Makihirochi, Tokyo Tarereba Girls by Akiko Higashimura, and Teppu by Moare Ohta.
Totto-chan, The Little Girl at the Window: The Sequel is in stores now. Check out a list of New York events, below:
Book talk with Translator Yuki Tejima at the New York Public Library 53rd Street Branch
Date: Saturday, November 22, 2025
Time: 11:30am – 12:30pm ET
Location: 18 West 53rd Street, New York
Admission: Free
More info: https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2025/11/22/person-author-talk-yuki-nejima-totto-chan-little-girl-window
Book signing with Translator Yuki Tejima at Kinokuniya Bookstore
Date: Monday, November 24, 2025
Time: 6:00-8:00pm ET
Location: 1073 Avenue of the Americas, New York
Admission: Free
More details coming soon.
Screening of Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window feature anime and panel discussion at the Japan Society
Featuring: Yuki Tejima, translator; Alexandra McCullough-Garcia, editor; Nathan Shockey, Associate Professor of Japanese at Bard College
Date: Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Time: Doors 6:00 pm, Screening 7:00 pm ET
Location: 333 E 47th Street, New York
Admission: $16 general admission; $12 students/seniors/persons with disabilities; $8 members
More Info: https://japansociety.org/film/
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