Animerica Extra

Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Template:Infobox magazine Animerica Extra was a monthly manga magazine published in by Viz Media. Established as a companion to the anime news and review magazine Animerica, Animerica Extra primarily published English-language translations of Japanese manga. The magazine shifted towards publishing shōjo manga (girls' manga) in 2003, before ceasing publication in late 2004, replaced by Shojo Beat the following year.

HistoryEdit

Animerica Extra was conceived as a sister publication to Animerica, Viz's general interest anime and manga magazine.<ref name="Book"/> Amid the anime boom of the 1990s, Animerica Extra and the Viz manga magazines Manga Vizion and Pulp were among the first English-language manga magazines to publish manga titles aimed at demographics outside of children's manga,<ref name="Book"/> and have been noted as being "instrumental in disseminating manga culture" in North America.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The magazine principally published English-language translations of manga, though it published non-manga content such as the short stories of Mitsuru Adachi, and feature stories on manga, anime, and Japanese culture.<ref name="AniEx1"/> Certain issues featured original cover artwork by manga artists, including Haruhiko Mikimoto<ref name="AniEx2"/> and Chiho Saito.<ref name="AniEx3"/>

Sales for the magazine were initially strong; in August 2001, ICv2 reported that Animerica Extra had grown its circulation month-over-month for over a year, and cited the magazine's growth as proof of uncaptured potential in the American shōjo market.<ref name="ICV21"/> Animerica Extra's readership was roughly 70 percent female;<ref name="Book"/> ICv2 additionally noted that retailers such as Mile High Comics were able to capitalize on the success of Animerica Extra to attract female customers to comic book stores.<ref name="ICV22"/> Following the cancellation of Pulp in 2002, the magazine's serialization of Banana Fish continued in Animerica Extra.<ref name="CBR"/> In July 2003, the magazine began publishing shōjo manga exclusively<ref name="ANN1"/> and began printing certain manga in its original right-to-left format, as opposed to the flipped artwork it had previously published.<ref name="ANN3"/>

In December 2004, Animerica Extra ceased publication.<ref name="ANN2"/> The magazine was replaced by the manga magazine Shojo Beat, which was published by Viz from July 2005 until July 2009.<ref name="ANN4"/>