Comics One began with a business plan to sell manga direct to consumer via downloads from the Internet.  Whatever one may think about the eventual potential of selling comics in this way, the market for this kind of downloaded comic material is just not here at the present time.  Faced with a slow-developing market for downloads, Comics One turned to publishing in the conventional manner.  In a very short amount of time, Comics One has become a major publisher of translated manga titles from Japan, Korea, and China.  Rather than bother with single issue, 32-page comics, Comics One publishes in the Japanese manner -- trade paperback collections of several hundred pages in length, which retail for reasonable prices ($9.95 to $14.95 per volume).  Comics One publishes general release titles under its Comics One imprint and hentai (or erotic) titles under the Red Light Manga banner.

Starting rather late in the game, Comics One does not have a lot of extremely well known titles on its list.  Viz, Dark Horse, Tokyopop, and CPM have the majority of the 'A' list manga titles, but the world of manga is so immense that there is still room for Comics One to publish great manga, though American fans may not have heard of the titles and creators.  Case in point is Wild 7, a fast-paced, dynamic series by manga pioneer Mikiya Mochizuki.  Mochizuki published 48 trade paperback volumes of this series in the decade following the debut of Wild 7 in 1969.  Mochizuki began his career as an assistant to manga pioneer Tatsuya Yoshida.  Wild 7, which can be seen as a sort of Seven Samurai on motorcycles, became one of the most popular manga series during the 1970s, spawning both an animated spin-off as well as a popular live action television series.  Basically the Wild 7 is a group of cycle riding tough guys with criminal records, who have been granted a license to be judge, jury, and executioner.  They pursue various entrenched Yakuza types as well as the crooked politicians and corrupt businessmen, who aid and abet organized crime.