With the popularity of deluxe editions of manga in general and Berserk in particular on the rise, we talked to longtime Dark Horse manga editor Carl Horn about what makes these special editions special. We last talked to Horn (and his colleague Michael Gombos) in 2016 (see “Interview with the Dark Horse Manga Brain Trust”).

Berserk was one of your best-sellers in 2016 and is still going strong now (see “Full Year 2024 Circana BookScan”). Why are the deluxe editions so popular, and why are they doing so well in both the book channel and the direct market?
The deluxe editions of our manga may look fancy, but the idea behind them is simple—to offer fans a superior reading experience that is also great value for money. They deliver on this, and that’s why they have been so successful.

Our deluxe manga editions are of high quality and will last for years. They are not limited-edition items only for display, but are meant to be taken down from the shelf, read, and enjoyed, with a construction that allows you to appreciate the work of the manga creators as never before.

For example, a deluxe volume of Berserk that retails at $49.99 collects the content of three of the Berserk trade paperbacks that individually retail at $14.99 each, or $44.97 together. Basically then, you are paying about $5.00 more to read that same amount of manga story in the deluxe edition than you would in paperback.

But for that extra $5.00, you get several upgrades, starting with the biggest part of any printed book: the paper. Dark Horse’s deluxe editions of manga have pages that are 88% larger and of considerably finer quality than those in the standard trade paperback editions. In the deluxe editions, reproduction of the manga artwork is not simply larger, it is also better. Fine details in the linework become more visible; additional clarity is brought to the tone patterns. It’s manga in high definition.

Another upgrade included in our manga deluxe editions is of course what surrounds and keeps those pages together—the hard covers and sewn binding that not only makes the book itself much more durable, but again improves the reading experience. For example, it makes it easier to appreciate double-page spreads in the artwork; in a deluxe edition of a manga, both sides of the book will lay flat by themselves, whereas a trade paperback must be held open.

Finally, our deluxe editions offer a distinct physical experience. You can access anything on your smartphone, but what you see on that screen is everywhere and nowhere. Books are different. They exist, they claim space; they’re a piece of the world that belongs only to that book—and if the book contains some story or character whom you love, they are a piece of the world that belongs only to that love. And we get that completely, because of course the people who work at Dark Horse are fans themselves.

When Dark Horse designs a manga deluxe edition, we try through that design to express the spirit and the aesthetics of the individual manga, and we want to keep innovating in this regard. For example, the deluxe edition last year of Gou Tanabe’s H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness was our first to use a wraparound art motif, and our first to use gilding on the page edges. But neither new element was done simply for the sake of trying something different. Ominous tomes such as the Necronomicon and De Vermis Mysteriis are central to the Cthulhu Mythos, and I wanted the deluxe edition of the manga to itself evoke that sinister feel of a grimoire. Likewise, the metallic page gilding is silver because silver is a Mythos color—the Silver Key, the Silver Twilight.

I mentioned that our deluxe manga are a physical experience. That’s not only because of their size and weight, but because they have elements that can’t be expressed in online images, and can only be fully appreciated when a fan can actually look at and touch the real books—optical effects such as their use of spot gloss, metallic foil, or the contrast between the Pantone colors and the standard four-color inks, and tactile effects such as their use of textured case wraps, burnishing, or debossing.

Again, these elements are all chosen with the individual manga in mind—its mood, its iconography. We are fans of these manga; that’s why we licensed them. And with the deluxe editions, we are not merely repackaging them; we are engaging with these manga anew as fans, trying to express, through the design of these books, what they make us feel.

The deluxe edition of Planetes was a bit of a surprise (see “The Boom in Deluxe Editions”). That’s very different from the other series you have done deluxe editions of, like Trigun and Blade of the Immortal. Why this one?
I’m a bit surprised to hear that it’s a bit of a surprise ^_^ Our deluxe edition of Planetes is based on our two-volume trade paperback omnibus edition; those two paperbacks have had 23 printings between them, so it’s been clear for a while now that Planetes is a manga with an enduring and expanding audience. Of course, it all comes down to the fact it’s written and drawn by Makoto Yukimura, not only an evocative and dynamic artist, but a wonderful observer of how character drives narrative. I believe Yukimura-sensei will have the distinction of being the first manga creator to have deluxe editions out from two different English-language publishers—Kodansha, of course, has already begun to release their deluxe edition of his current epic, Vinland Saga.

Vinland Saga is historical fiction, a story of a past era that still fascinates us. By contrast, Planetes is science fiction set in 2075, but it portrays a realistic future that we can already see starting to take shape today with the new space race. Although Yukimura-sensei created Planetes over two decades ago, I think readers will see parallels in the manga to today’s controversies over the politics, philosophy, and private ambitions behind the development of space. Yukimura understands that human beings, being human, are going to launch their same old messes with them into that new frontier. The main characters of Planetes deal with that mess both literally and figuratively, as working-class astronauts who have the unglamorous job of cleaning up orbital junk, even as they struggle to stay connected both to their families and roots below, and their dreams and ambitions high above.

As with our deluxe edition of At the Mountains of Madness, the deluxe edition of Planetes is designed to express the spirit of the story. The concept of the book design was, “an astronaut’s everyday working life.”

The main protagonist of Planetes, Hachimaki, is a Japanese astronaut who works in Earth orbit, and the front cover of Book One pays tribute to the real Japanese astronauts who work today onboard the International Space Station. An image of Earth from one of the color interior pages of manga is visible through the window of an airlock door inspired by the look of the real one on Kibo, Japan’s section of the ISS. Spot gloss placed over the window and pressure gauge of the airlock door will suggest the effect of glass. This door is then set into a wraparound schematic of equipment panels and air vents; the pattern is debossed through silver paper, simulating a module interior that readers can physically feel. Finally, the Planetes deluxe edition will use a copper-gold page gilding whose color references the insulation foil used on the exterior of spacecraft. We submitted this design to Yukimura-sensei for approval, and we’re proud to say that he not only approved it, but praised it. We of course hope that those who know Makoto Yukimura’s manga through Vinland Sagawill also discover Planetes, his debut professional work, through this deluxe edition.

How is Shin’ichi Sakamoto’s Innocent doing for you, is it doing better in comic shops or bookstores? Is it finding its audience?
Innocent has done better in bookstores. But it has found its audience (I met some spectacular Innocent cosplayers in Texas last December), and the best indication of that is we are following it up with its longer sequel, Innocent Rouge, which will be four omnibus volumes compared to Innocent’s three (see “Dark Horse Licenses Sequel to Shin’ichi Sakamoto’s ‘Innocent’”). Both series are edited by Dark Horse’s Judy Khuu. It was her idea for us to release the manga in the first place, but at the time what surprised her was that, considering his brilliance, nobody had licensed any of Sakamoto-sensei’s work before in English. Now we’ve seen Viz release #DRCL to great critical acclaim, and they’ve also announced Sakamoto’s The Climber, which shows the increasing North American interest in this creator, who already has a high profile in Japan—his manga are serialized there in Shueisha’s Weekly Young Jump, home to other manga titles already well-known in English such as Gantz, Elfen Lied, Tokyo Ghoul, Golden Kamui, and Oshi no Ko.  

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