Chapter 244

Duke read the magazine from the back, which was the front.

Katzenberg watched him from the other side of the car trying not to laugh at his boss.

“Other way,” Katzenberg said. “Right to left. The panels too.”

“I know that part,” Duke said. He had read some mangas in his past life, although they were pirated and also in a tablet.

Pretty different than his current situation.

The magazine in his lap was Weekly Shonen Jump, and it was as thick as a telephone directory.

(Pic of Weekly Shonen Jump size)

It was printed on cheap paper in black ink, with a few color pages at the front, and it costed less than a bowl of noodles.

170 yen, or around 0.77 cents on the dollar.

The Paramount office in Tokyo had sent a thin folder of summaries, typed in English by a young translator who had clearly stayed up all night.

Duke held the folder in one hand and the magazine in the other and compared the two.

They stopped on a red light, and outside the car window, Tokyo was waking up.

Men in gray suits crowded the platforms of the train line, and nearly all of them were holding something in their hands, whether it was a manga, work documents or a handheld it didnt matter.

What mattered was that it was not a Paramount product.

Well, he did saw some Walkmen, but he guessed those were probably bought from Panasonic.

In 1981, most Americans thought of comics as something still for children. There was no women, girls or adult markets as they were in Japan.

But in Japan, a manga was something a bank clerk read on his way to the bank.

He had tried to change this lkind of mindset, but Americans were ‘stubborn’ about not reading comics, unless it was an specific hero.

Surprisingly this was not always a thing. A great example is Jack Kirby’s Young Romance, which was extremely popular with women and girls alike.

But that market had sort of dried up after the 60s.

Duke turned the page.

A little girl with round glasses and purple hair was running through a village, carrying a large robot under one arm.

“Dr. Slump,” Katzenberg said, leaning over. “Biggest thing in the country. The TV show started in April.”

The artist’s name was Akira Toriyama. Duke read it twice in the folder and kept his face still. ‘Time to enter the market.’

The next story was about soccer, it had a boy kicking a ball across a field, and the ball left a long streak of speed behind it.

Duke smiled. Soccer was a minor sport in Japan, a thing for university clubs and a handful of company teams.

“This one’s new,” Katzenberg said. “It started this spring. Mostly popular with kids.”

Duke skipped the ones he didnt recognize.

By the time they reached the studio, he had read the covers of eleven magazines and understood the state of the manga business.

Basically the manga business worked by having a story in a weekly magazine.

If readers liked it, the chapters were gathered into small books.

If the books sold, a television studio turned it into a cartoon.

If the cartoon succeeded, a toy company put the hero on a lunch box, a pencil case, and a plastic model kit.

Duke pulled an analysis paper, that read ‘middle and junior high schoolers in Japan are estimated to be reading an average of 10 manga magazines per month.’

“Can we arrange a meeting with Shonen Jump’s parent company. We may have a deal to speak off.”

The car came to a stop before Katzenberg could respond.

MadHouse sat on a narrow street, in a plain concrete building squeezed between a noodle shop and a laundry.

Inside, as they walked through the stairs, they saw sheets of celluloid, the clear plastic that every frame of animation was painted on, stacked in the hallway in labeled boxes.

At the top of the stairs, behind a half-open door, a bearded young man slept under a desk with a coat for a pillow.

Beyond him a middle age man was snoring while sitting in his chair and laying his body on the desk.

People in the room were still just walking around working, as if those 2 were not around.

Masao Maruyama appeared from a side room and met them, he quickly closed the door

“You came Mr. Hauser,” he said, in careful English. “We thought you would send a letter.”

“I brought a letter,” Duke said. “It’s in my pocket. I’ll give it to you after the tea.”

Maruyama laughed and lead them to a private room where they were supposed to discuss matters.

“Mr. Katzenberg has an idea,” Maruyama said, with a smile that suggested he already knew what it was.

Katzenberg cleared his throat.

“I want to be clear that Michael doesn’t know about this yet,” he said.

“Why not?” Duke asked.

“Because he you know, doesnt really like Animation.” Katzenberg took a breath. “Michael would tell me to go back to LA and avoid getting caught up in drawings.”

“What’s the drawing?”

Oen of the founders unrolled a sheet of paper across the table.

It showed a young man in a black shirt with a S shield on his chest overlooking a city from a rooftop.

“Superboy,” Katzenberg said. “He’s a little obscure fpr general audiences, but he has a lot of popularity. We can also rely on the goodwill that the Superman movies have acumulated in this time period.”

It was true. The Superman films had filled theaters already, and talks of a Supergirl movie were already on their way in Paramount.

“What do you want to make?” Duke asked.

“A feature film,” Masao said. “Hand-drawn, with plans for 1983 or 1984.”

He thought of a small TV show from his old life, Smallville, about a boy who lived on a farm, and got his powers little by little.

It had not been a perfect series by any means, but it had a warm place in his heart, specially since he was so young when he watched it.

“I will first check out things,” Duke said. To be honest there were some DC heroes that he wouldnt mind pushing for them getting a animated feature.

Nightwing, Bronze Tiger, Wildcat, Static Shock, Batman Beyond.

‘Do any of these heroes even exist right now?’

They looked at him almost all at the same time. It wasnt a yes, but it was close enough.

Masao sketched a rough Superboy design on a napkin and pushed it across the table without looking up.

Duke folded it and put it in his pocket.

“I like it,” he said. “I’m not saying yes yet but let me think about it first.”

“Here’s what I want, Concept art and a twenty-page treatment, which is the whole story in plain words by spring.”

“And Michael?”

“You tell him. Not tonight, but when you have something.” Duke looked at him.

Katzenberg nodded slowly.

They drank the rest of the tea, and Maruyama walked Duke to the door with a hand on his sleeve, which was how people in Japan said things that could not be said out loud.

“Thank you for the visit,” he said.

____

At the hotel, lunch turned out to be a conference room.

Mr. Endo of Oriental Land arrived with a deputy and two briefcases and bowed deeply to the point that Duke worried for his back.

Marcus stood by the door with his arms folded observing everything.

Tea came, and nobody touched it, because nobody touched the tea until the senior person had. Duke also didnt like hot tea. Cold sweet tea was where the flavor was at

In Japan, the middle of a business meeting was not the place to say what you meant. Duke had to wait through 20 minutes of weather discussions and the excellent condition of Paramount films.

Then Mr. Endo came to the point, very gently.

“Oriental Land is very honored to have a friendship with Paramount. We have a large site, a trained workforce, and years of experience in the construction and operation of a major park.”

“It would be a natural arrangement,” he suggested sliding a paper over, “for Oriental Land to handle all of Paramount’s theme park interests in Japan.”

“All of them. The parks, the hotels, the restaurants, and the souvenirs.”.

Duke read the paper for a moment, as he counted silently to ten.

OLC would pay Paramount 10% of gross revenue of tickets, and 5% of gross revenue of Food, Beverage, & Merchandise. Also for every atraction, OLC would pay Paramount for consulting.

They would also take over all of the construction budget which they pledged to spend at least a billion on the Theme Park construction.

In exchange, they would get the licensing to every Paramount IP and acces to every future Paramount IP.

The theme park would also only be a license, and Paramount would hold no stock on the company nor equity on the park.

It was a good offer, for the people who made it.

It was exactly the deal they had offered to Disney, but Duke and Paramount were in a completely different position than Disney in terms of power.

Disney was very cash-strapped, while Parmaount was simply not.

“I’m very grateful,” Duke said. “It’s a great honor.”

He had practiced the next sentence in the car, and he said it slowly, with the right tone.

“It would be difficult.”

Mr. Endo’s face did not change, but a small silence settled over the room.

In Japan, nobody ever said no. They said it would be difficult, and every person at the table knew what those words meant.

It took Mr. Endo a moment. Then he laughed slightly surprised.

“Mr. Hauser seems to be familiar with Japan etiqutte,” he said.

“I know a few phrases,” Duke said. “I’ll be saving the rest for our next meeting.”

They parted with bows and mutual good wishes.

The negotiation wasnt done yet, of course. If they were truly interested they needed to offer better terms for them to agree to license their IP’s.

___

At three o’clock, the delegation from Osaka arrived.

They had come on the bullet train, three hours from Osaka to Tokyo, and they walked into the room in a quiet line.

Governor Sakae Kishi came first. He was a calm, gray-haired man in a dark suit, behind him came three officials from the city and the prefecture, carrying folders.

The last person through the door was a woman in her late 30s, in a tailored navy suit.

She was ‘full figured’ with a long hair style and a strained shirt on the chest area. Her name card said Mrs. Taniguchi, a Deputy Director of the Planning Bureau.

Duke’s smile froze for half a second.

Marcus started studying the ceiling with interest.

“Don’t,” Duke said quietly.

‘Is this on purpose? well, I dont complain…’ Duke glanced, without moving his head, at the lamp on the side table.

Mrs. Taniguchi bowed. If she noticed the exchange, her face gave no sign of it.

He decided it was a coincidence, and he also decided to keep the lamp.

They sat. Tea came, and this time everyone drank.

Governor Kishi spoke first, through an interpreter.

Osaka, he said, was a city of merchants. It had always made things, and traded them, and paid for its own matters.

The truth, he said, was less comfortable.

Osaka had debts. Old roads, old bridges, etc. There were plans for a large new airport on the water, and a plan for the waterfront, and a plan for the railways.

Each plan was necessary, and each cost more than the city had.

“What Osaka needs,” the Governor’s interpreter said, “is a reason for the world to come.”

“A park, built with a name the world already knows, would be that reason. It would bring visitors and jobs. It would justify the rail and the road. It would help the city to pay for the things it has to build anyway.”

Duke listened without interrupting.

The proposal came next, and Mrs. Taniguchi presented it herself, in a slightly japanese accented English.

“Osaka is willing to create a company,” she explained. “Osaka Paramount Planning Inc. It would be small at first, a handful of people and a desk, whose only task was to study the project. Where could it be built? What would it cost? Who would pay?”

“The land belongs to the city,” she said. “The infrastructure is the responsibility of the prefecture. For the rest, we hope to work alongside Paramount.”

She paused for a second.

“We have also had a conversation, informally, with the national government’s development bank. They would be glad to be helpful to a project of this importance.”

Duke understood what had just been said, and what had been left out.

“This is a generous proposal,” Duke said. “Osaka honors me.”

He took out a legal pad, because it helped him think.

“I’ll tell you what I can do, and what I can’t. I can’t promise a park. I have a film to make in January, and Congress to talk to. I can’t give Oriental Land everything, or Osaka everything, but I do know I won’t rent my name to anyone.”

The interpreter translated, and the room was quiet.

“But I can support a feasibility study. Paramount will join it with a small share and two people. We’ll look at the land, and the cost, and what a park should be. If it makes sense in a year, we’ll talk about something bigger.”

“A study,” Governor Kishi said.

“A study. Nothing signed that we can’t walk away from.”

The Governor looked at him for a long moment, and then he smiled.

“A very sensible decision,” he said.

Mrs. Taniguchi wrote something on her pad and underlined it twice.

They shook hands at the door.

When it was Mrs. Taniguchi’s turn, she held Duke’s hand a moment longer than necessary.

“I look forward to working with you, Mr. Hauser,” she said. “I understand you like to listen.”

Duke kept his face still and neutral.

The door closed. Marcus waited for a moment before speaking.

“Interesting coincidence,” he said.

“Go and find me a different lamp.”