Collection of short stories to get limited hardcover release via Kickstarter

The new North American publishing company Kansai Club Publishing has announced that it is releasing Osamu Tezuka's The Crater manga in English. ANN has confirmed this announcement with Tezuka Productions. Kansai Club's release will mark the first time the manga will be available in English.

The Crater is a collection of 18 short stories that originally ran in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shonen Champion magazine in 1969-1970. Kansai Club will only print 2,000 copies of the book in a large hardcover format, and the release will include three art prints inspired by the manga. The book will retail for US$34.95.

Kansai Club is not planning to release the book through physical or online retailers. The publisher will launch a Kickstarter campaign to take pre-orders for the book. Any copies not sold through Kickstarter will be sold at the company's booth at Florida's Supercon convention on July 5. The Kickstarter campaign will also include other exclusive extras, and will also allow for international shipping.

The Crater will mark Kansai Club Publishing's debut as a publisher. The company, which is comprised of two people, describes itself as follows:

Kansai Club Publishing L.L.C. is an American publishing company that specializes in importing and translating Japanese literature and Manga from the 1940′s to the 1970′s. Our organization is small, intimate and comprised of a close-knit group of individuals who genuinely love good Manga. Our singular goal is to expose the American public to classic, obscure, rare, visually pleasing, emotionally taxing and often archaic Japanese Manga that have never before been published in English.