page_title: Viz Media
section_title: Early history
hierarchical_section_title: Viz Media / Early history
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Logo de VIZ Media English: The VIZ Media logo.
context_page_description: VIZ Media LLC. is an American manga publisher, anime distributor and entertainment company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1986 as VIZ LLC.. In 2005, VIZ LLC and ShoPro Entertainment merged to form the current VIZ Media LLC, which is owned by Japanese publishing conglomerate Hitotsubashi Group, which includes Shueisha, Shogakukan and Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions. As of 2017, Viz Media is the largest publisher of graphic novels and comic books in the United States, with a 23% share of the market.
context_section_description: 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.
caption: Former Viz Media logo.
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