Today we have to talk about manga. It is no secret that manga has been burn up the charts,

especially with the youth audience, the last 10, 15 years. And manga shows no

signs of slowing down whatsoever. We go back to when manga first burst into the Western

comic book scene. Titles like Akira, Appleseed, Dominion, Ghost in the Shell, They broke down the door and paved the way for Naruto, for my Hero Academia, for Attack on Titan.

It is so fun looking at the history of manga and anime and how it is shaping comics, movies,

the culture, and all that is yet to come, we finally get to manga today on

an all-new Robeservations.

Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Robeservations. I am your host, Rob Leifeld.

Thank you so much for listening. Let me give you a little background

on your host. I have been working in comic books for 37 years. Hired at the tender age of 18

years old, currently 55 years old, yep, you get 37 years. So excited to have taken this journey as a professional

in the comic book industry, but the podcast begins my journey at seven years old, pulling these

comic books off the spinner rack, watching the incredible worlds that they have inspired.

The comic books of my youth have been the bedrock for almost every single film that you've seen coming out, Infinity War. I was a professional when that comic book was coming out. The characters and the stories in the Scarlett Johansson solo movie, Black Widow, that stuff came out when I was a teenager.

Master of Kung Fu called Shung Chi in the films that came out a couple years back.

The Shung Chi film, he was blowing up when I was a kid in the 70s and carried all the way through the 80s. The Eternals launched, 1976. I was there. I was pulling that off the spinner rack by the genius

that is Jack Kirby. So much of these films, so much of what you're seeing is stuff that happened

when I was a customer, when I was a fan, you know, mowing lawns, doing my best to save as much

as I possibly could to buy as many

comic books as I possibly could.

Fortunate enough again, at 18 years old, to break into the business to make it my career.

I can't wait until I'm in the business 50 years, 60 years.

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