Haruki Ueno

Screen & Page usually looks at great anime that has made the transition to the manga page, but this week we're making another exception, this time for a North American animation that also made the jump to manga, Big Hero 6. Big Hero 6 is not an anime, and the presence of Japanese characters or an anime-derived aesthetic certainly doesn't make it an anime. But it is the highest-profile Disney animated film to get a manga adaptation, and the first to get its own promotional manga ahead of release. Plus, the title's journey from page to screen to page again --- a journey that never would have happened without the 1990s anime boom --- is fascinating.

The promotional machine for Disney's big, animated fall film Big Hero 6 has really started ramping up with the announcement of the various voice cast members and a brand new trailer. An odd quirk of the promotion for the film has been that it doesn't seem to mention Marvel Comics even one time, though the concept, characters and title come from a Marvel team that spun out of Alpha Flight and had a few mini-series over the years. Now it looks like Marvel's not even going to publish one of the comics that tie into Big Hero 6, a manga by Haruki Ueno. It's going to be in Kodansha's Magazine Special instead.