Creator / Viz Media

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VIZ Media LLC is an anime and manga distribution company, co-owned by Japanese publishers Shogakukan, Shueisha and their production/licensing division Shogakukan-Shueisha Productions (ShoPro for short). Founded in 1986 by writer Seiji Horibuchi, VIZ Media is one of the oldest American anime distribution companies. It is a primary distributor of many popular shonen-oriented manga series (such as Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach and Death Note), which have also been serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump manga anthology.

An American version of the magazine, referred to by fans as "Shonen Jump USA", was published monthly between 2003-2012 before it was replaced by a weekly digital version. From 2005-09, VIZ Media also published Shojo Beat, a monthly shojo manga anthology. The folks at VIZ also managed to achieve linguistic immortality by coining the term "glomp" for use as a sound effect in their translations of Ranma ½ and Urusei Yatsura.

VIZ Media also distributes Anime on DVD and Blu-Ray as well with home video distributors Warner Home Video and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment (beginning in 2021) backing them up in North America. In 2009, they launched VizAnime.com, a Hulu-supported website for streaming anime from Viz's catalog. In 2012, VIZ launched Neon Alley, their very own 24/7 linear anime channel for game consoles and PCs. Neon Alley would eventually merge with VizAnime.com in 2014, after VIZ consolidated all its streaming anime under the "Neon Alley" brand.

In 2019, VIZ Media announced the VIZ Originals imprint, to help shed more light on the non-Japanese manga market. The imprint focuses on Animesque works by non-Japanese creators, much like Radiant, giving creators of the genre a better platform outside of Japan.

In 2024, they purchased the highly popular Web Animation series RWBY from Warner Bros. Discovery following the latter's shutdown of the show's original studio Rooster Teeth, thus securing their first very own in-house IP.

Not, repeat not, to be confused with British humour anthology comic Viz.

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Tropes:

• Ascended Meme:
  • One "holiday gift guide" video made in 2017 acknowledged the "Boruto's dad" meme started by Crunchyroll.
  • When JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders started airing on Toonami, VIZ made a promotional video with Patrick Seitz, DIO's voice actor, referencing popular DIO memes like "THE WORLD" and ROAD ROLLER DA.
• Bowdlerise: They do this occasionally, if inconsistently. Explicit nudity is the most likely to be scrubbed out, but violence is occasionally toned down as well. Their translations also very rarely use any harsh swearing, even when the Japanese script calls for it.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: VIZ owns the rights to several officially licensed Nintendo adaptations, such as Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Pokémon, and Splatoon.
• No Export for You:
  • At least with regard to streaming anime, anyway. For nearly a decade, Viz Media was the only major anime distributor in North America that did not provide any on-demand streams of its anime offerings to Canada, preferring to do business with the US-exclusive Hulu. Canadians can find a handful of their shows on Netflix, but often in an incomplete state. Not until Tubi TV began streaming several Viz titles—albeit to date not all of them—had the company attempted a proper work-around for Canadians, leaving them to just Keep Circulating the Tapes of Viz's titles for that near-decade. Viz Media still gets vitriol from north of the border as a result of this.
  • For some reason, some of the movies they've dubbed and released haven't gotten Blu-Ray releases in the US, even though they have the HD masters to put on digital services and it's been years since the Japanese ones were released. The main ones being the three Naruto movies and the first two Bleach movies. They finally released the first Shippuden movie on Blu-Ray in October 2017, so maybe they'll release the others.
• Production Posse: They used The Ocean Group in Vancouver a lot back in the day. Nowadays, most of their dubs are recorded in Los Angeles at Studiopolis (and sometimes Bang Zoom! Entertainment and/or NYAV Post) with the exception of the first season of Captain Tsubasa's 2018 remake, which was recorded in Miami at NM Miami Studio and The Kitchen Inc ^note  averted for the second season which is handled by Bang Zoom .

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