Amin Abbas Dubai

Japanese and translation company Phase 6 on Dec. 25 announced the official release of Dinosaur War Izenborg as the next Tsuburaya Productions’ show that it will be adapting into a comic book.

The original Izenborg show received attention in the 70’s for its unique combination of animation and live-action effects scenes.

To bring this sensibility into the modern era, American illustrator Matt Frank, also known as the “King of Kaiju” for his work IDW’s Godzilla, will team up with international manga artist Hiroshi Kanatani, creator of Coaraptor.

The artists will collaborate on each page, with Frank primarily handling anime-style characters and creatures, and Kanatani drawing the massive dinosaurs in a classic tokusatsu expression, realizing a fusion not unlike the titular Izenborg itself, which combined the disparate strengths of two heroes into a force to be reckoned with.

Frank exclusively told Arab News Japan that he is very excited about the new comic project, adding: “This is an idea that I struck upon about a year ago. I was brainstorming some other possible Tsuburaya Productions’ properties to adapt into comic format after how well Redman was received. I suddenly thought about the wild idea of splitting art duties between myself and Kanatani-san, since he draws with a lot of physical elements, and I can mimic the more anime-style elements digitally. It was a wild idea, and we never thought they’d go for it, but here we are.”

Frank expressed hopes that fans in the Middle East will enjoy the project.

“We are hoping to release the comic in Arabic, and the thought of sharing my appreciation for this strange and wonderful franchise with a new country of fellow enthusiasts is super exciting,” he said.

Dinosaur War Izenborg was dubbed in Arabic in the 80’s and has a big fan base in the Middle East till this day.

In 2017, a special Japanese-Arabic documentary under the title “The Return of Izenborg” was a collaboration between the Japanese company Tsuburaya Productions and Jarrah Alfurih from Saudi Arabia and Cultures Factory (an NLC company).

It is the first Arabic-Japanese production in the art of Japanese tokusatsu, which is a special live action effects category. This documentary was filmed in 2016 and aired on Dec. 15, 2017 on Middle Eastern channel Spacetoon. The documentary was translated back to Japanese by Tsubaraya and officially streamed on YouTube on Dec. 29, 2017.

The International release of the comic book is planned for fall 2021 while the Japanese release is planned for winter of next year.