A Conversation with KAZÉ at Anime NYC 2026

• Interview Location: Anime NYC 2026
• Interview Format: In-person, One-on-One

Anime Herald: The big question is “What’s in the pipeline?”

Josh Sippie: We have the original English language manga, SOL Sistah. We are all very excited about it, it looks amazing. There’s so much in the pipeline.

Anime Herald: Let’s talk aboutSOL Sistah. Do we know the estimated length?

Josh Sippie: We have it for two volumes. The creator has more planned after that, but for now it is two volumes.

Andrew Arnold: As it relates to our pipeline, you saw the title count and the plan. There are a lot of things ruminating where conversations are being had. It’s only a matter of time before you have that official list in front of you.

Anime Herald: You’re different from a lot of other small publishers, because you are attached to one of the largest fish around, HarperCollins. You can get into rooms other small companies can’t.

Emilia Sowersby: I think a part of it is being a part of HarperCollins, but also the other piece is KAZÉ. We have KAZÉ France and KAZÉ Germany. They have been well established for many years. That global manga publishing team has been working really closely with us to help us secure our first titles, which will be announced soon.

Anime Herald: What will make KAZÉ different from Seven Seas, Yen Press, Viz, One Peace Books, and other publishers that are here at Anime NYC?

Josh Sippie: It’s hard to pin it down to one thing. We’re going out there in so many diverse directions. I think it is exceptional storytelling. Series that tell a good story. I always go back to “The familiar, but different.” It’s something we recognize as fitting into the manga space, but it’s different. It brings a different perspective, or a different type of story. I say this all the time, there’s so much manga that hasn’t made it over here that we feel like we can contribute to that identity.

Anime Herald: What makes a superior story? How do you recognize one?

Andrew Arnold: That’s a really good question.

Emilia Sowersby: For me, I feel like a lot of storytelling is about perspective, and in the case of manga, what the mangaka has to say about their experience. That’s what is so great about manga. It’s an art form that originated in Japan, but it resonates with so many people in the US. It proves that it does not matter where you live or how you grew up or what kind of society you’re in. You can still find bits of human connection through the storytelling.

This Japanese kid who is going to this school that seems so different from mine. They have these social dynamics that are so different than mine, I still feel connected to the social experience that they are going through and the relationships that they are building. I feel like that’s the magic. When you find a good story, can you find bits of it that speak to you that goes beyond where you live and where you come from.

Andrew Arnold: Yeah. I think that’s the thing about comics in general as an art form. You immerse yourself into it in a way you wouldn’t with other forms of storytelling. For me, good comic storytelling is when the visuals, the dialogue, and the narration create something. It’s not drawings, or words on a page, it’s all one.It’s comics. It’s an immersive thing. The story could not be told in any other way.

Anime Herald: Building on that, manga is somewhat different from American comic books in that manga is generally black and white, and American comics are full color. Korean manhwa is generally full color as well. Will you be looking into Korean manhwa as well?

Andrew Arnold: Yes. We have a strong partnership with WebToon. We published unOrdinary. It was a Webtoon. We’ve done a little bit of it and we’re going to keep looking to do more.

Anime Herald: What is KAZÉ’s stance on machine-assisted translation?

Emilia Sowersby: We can definitely say no. As a company, and personally, we value the artform of translating and localizing manga, and works from other countries in general. That is not something that AI or machine learning could ever replace. The human footprint that goes into a project like that.

Josh Sippie: Storytelling is so human, so it should be humans who do the storytelling.

Anime Herald: Well said.

How much overlap should we expect between the titles published in America and the titles published in France and Germany? I will note that there hasn’t appeared to be much overlap between France and Germany.

Josh Sippie: There is some overlap. I think KAZÉ is #2 in France and #6 in Germany. They have such a robust list of titles, they are going to have access to titles that we won’t have access to. There will be titles that span across the different territories.

Anime Herald: What are your respective origin stories? How did you decide you wanted to work in publishing, and more specifically, in publishing manga?

Josh Sippie: I didn’t grow up reading books. I didn’t know manga, or comics, existed until I went off to college. I was never exposed to them. I found them through Demon Slayer. I fell so hard for it. That led into my love of both manga and comics. I realized that that was all I wanted to do. I wanted to work on manga and comics in some capacity.

I kept falling deeper and deeper, to the point where now I feel like everything I do has something to do with manga and comics in some way. I was always on the outskirts of publishing, trying to find my way in. I was a creative writing teacher. I worked in Barnes & Noble’s corporate offices for a bit, helping them get more into the comics and manga space. When this opened up it was like a dream job, and it still is. It all kind of funneled into where I wanted to be.

Anime Herald: I have to ask a follow-up question. I understand not being familiar with manga growing up, but American comics?

Josh Sippie: It’s remarkable. I went to Borders all the time, but I always went for the DVDs. My parents don’t read. My dad brags about never having read a book in his life. I hated books for so long. I didn’t get the point of them. I feel like I am making up for lost time.

Emilia Sowersby: I was born in Japan. I lived there until I was four. I grew up on Japanese anime. I watched Sailor Moon, Doraemon, all the kid anime classics. I really loved them. I feel like they are part of what fostered my passion for storytelling. When I moved to the US, I lived in Las Vegas, and Colorado. It was a very different scene. I think, in high school, I was one of three Asian kids in the school. It was all about football and cheerleading. That was the vibe. I found myself a little bit on the outskirts. Not in a way that was social. I didn’t feel like an outcast. But in terms of my social interests, I definitely was.

I feel like what brought me and my friends together were our shared passions. D&D, video games, anime. Those kinds of fringe interests (at the time). Through that, I made some of my closest friends, who are still some of my best friends today. I feel like I have always associated my interests and hobbies with my deepest friendships and the people who I have grown most connected to. It’s something that’s personal. It’s part of my life, it’s not just my work.

In terms of my work, I interned at HarperCollins during COVID. That was my first foray into publishing. It was fully remote. I started out in romance. That was really fun. Then I moved into children’s publishing for a time. Then, I found myself back at HarperCollins years later. I’m very happy to be here.

Andrew Arnold: I think I met Josh at NYCC. I met Emilia prior to her returning to HarperCollins at a SCBWI potato party (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). That’s part of our origin story as a crew.

My origin story is that my dad would read me Norse mythology at night. I loved the history of Odin, Thor, Loki, and all the relationships and drama. When I saw Thor was in this other thing called a comic book, I checked it out. I fell in love with comics. I was growing up in a suburb of Houston. We didn’t have a lot of access to anything other than superhero comics, so that is what hooked me.

When I went to college, a small liberal arts college outside of Austin, I discovered there were other forms of comics out there. I read Watchmen, Maus, From Hell and all of those. I realized comics didn’t have to be superhero stories. At this point I still wasn’t quite familiar with manga. It was a thing I would see at Waldenbooks and Borders. I was focused on superhero stories. I went to grad school to study comics. I was studying to become a full-time cartoonist.

I realized that idea was a little scary. Being a full-time author. My mom and dad encouraged me to get a full-time job that provided all the benefits that one might want and need. I decided to try and get a job in comics. I was fortunate enough to get a job at DC comics. I worked in the ad sales department. Then I moved over to Macmillan where I worked in marketing and publishing, before getting moved over to design. Eventually I found my way as the art director at First Second Books.

After that, I had the opportunity to come to HarperCollins and curate the list that would become HarperAlley. We’ve seen a lot of great things happen with HarperAlley over the course of the first six or seven years of our existence. We’ve been fortunate enough to expand our programming in a number of ways. Now, with the KAZÉ partnership, we’ve been able to build this new initiative, which we are so thrilled to do. I’ve worn many hats over my time, but it all started with a little guy reading mythology.

Anime Herald: I love that. Over the Summer I had the chance to learn about actual Norse mythology, not what we get from the comics. The basic theme was that Thor was a dick.

Andrew Arnold:(Laughs) Those gods always are. Yet, I still loved him. He had a cool hammer and could summon lightning. That’s all it took.

Anime Herald: What do you look for in terms of titles? What is a hook that catches you?

Andrew Arnold: For me, it always starts with the art. The art has to hit me. Art that sucks you in and you just want to keep looking at it over and over again. That’s what I love about comics. If I fall in love with something with beautiful art, I can keep doing it, one page after another.

Emilia Sowersby: I agree. The art definitely has to be really strong. I think that is a prerequisite for anything I want to work on. In terms of story, I feel like whenever I fall in love with something, there is a discrete moment where I feel it shift. A moment where I have to put the book down, “Oh my gosh, I get it.” I get so excited, I get chills. If a story can make that moment come to life, I know it has something really important to say. That’s the high I’m chasing.

Josh Sippie: Art definitely, but I also look at character relationships. I’m a sucker for quippie banter and dialogue. Whenever I can fall in love with a character and root so hard for them so quickly. Like with Hell’s Paradise, the moment I met Gabimaru, I thought, “I get this guy.” Everything about him related. It came through in the way he engaged with his world. I find it remarkable how you can know so much about a character so quickly. Whenever a story does that, I’m hooked.

Andrew Arnold: I do love when you fall in love with a character. You want to cry with them, laugh with them, you feel what they are experiencing. I love that about comics too. They immerse you in it. You get to see the way the characters are responding to what is happening on the page, through a visual image, not just a description. I feel like character development is one of the things that really matters to me as an editor.

Josh Sippie: I think manga does that so well. They let you sit in emotions for so long. When it works, it really works. When they hit all of those emotions, you feel it all with them.

Anime Herald: What is the time lag between a signed contract to publish a book and a physical release?

Emilia Sowersby: There are a few steps we go through from when we sign the contract to when the book comes out. After we sign the contract, we get the files from the publisher. Typically we’ll localize it and hire the translator/localizer to get our English edition ready. Then we will go through our in house routing process of being copy-edited, checked by all the people who need to check it. Once we are happy with the final product that we have, then that final file will go to the printer. Usually we try to get the file to the printer two to three months before the release date so that the printer has enough time to print to book.

That’s for final files. Before that there are months of developing the files and localizing them.

Anime Herald: What is something you would like our readers to know about the publishing industry?

Andrew Arnold: I would say it is a close-knit community. I feel like we all know each other, which I think is really cool. There’s a level of competition, but I think we’re all supportive of each other too. I think it is a supportive industry.

I think it is a very passionate industry, especially as it relates to comics and manga. At the end of the day, I think of the person on the other side of the world who is making this book. All the hours they poured into it. The love that comes from that. I feel like I see that love every day when I see the pages come in. I think that translates into all of our passion for the work that we do. I think that makes all of us very caring. We want all of these books to get out. We want the readers to get them and fall in love with them as much as we have. I think it is a very passionate industry.

Anime Herald: I was not expecting that. Good answer.

Emilia Sowersby: It is definitely not an industry you find yourself in accidentally. You have to deliberately go after that. Because of that, the people who are in it are extremely passionate about what they are working on. They have dedicated a large portion of their life to what they are working on. They are good people to be around.

Josh Sippie: I was going to say something similar, how much we love these books. I keep referencing SOL Sistah because it is the one title I can reference. Being able to meet the artist in person was so cool. Meeting this person who’s art and story I love so much. We care so much about the books and creators.

Anime Herald: It sounds like no one in this industry took the path of least resistance. It wasn’t easy to get where you are. You had to want it.

Andrew Arnold: I would say so.

Emilia Sowersby: You have to want it, for sure.

Andrew Arnold: I think you also have to be patient. If it isn’t going the way you thought it was going to go, “It’s alright. Just a little roundabout.”

Josh Sippie: I hated how much I wanted it, because I wasn’t getting it yet. When I got there it was everything I wanted it to be.

Anime Herald: What is an example of a manga published in the past few years that has impressed you on a technical level? The kerning, the printing, the binding.

Andre Arnold: Listen to you, talking about kerning. I wasn’t expecting us to talk about the lettering in such detail. I was a designer for a long portion of my career. Hearing someone speak the lingo.

I was saying earlier to the team, The Summer Hikaru Died. When you look at all of those books lined up. The packaging, I find it so awesome. The different colors, with the characters. It is deceptively simple. It is not simple to do so all. I find it so well crafted.

Emilia Sowersby: I would say the Fruits Basket box set. I think it won an award for Best Production Design at the American Manga Awards. I thought it was a thoughtfully made package that ties into the story. It ties into the story and is very colorful and inviting. It gives new life to such a beloved series.

Andrew Arnold: I love Kodansha’s Vinland Saga deluxe editions. The leather-bound books with the viking runes. It’s so cool. Even though I’m not reading it, I like holding it because it is really cool.

Josh Sippie: The idea of a book as an object, having a beautiful object. That is something we all take pride in. We all believe in making a book of the utmost quality. Hopefully in the future, that is something we can talk about with our KAZÉ books.

Anime Herald: Do you have any questions for us?

Emilia Sowersby: How did you get into this industry?

Anime Herald: I was originally known for writing a yearly NFL preview. I still do that. I got into anime through FLCL, and then Baccano! I’ve been writing about anime for over a decade. I regularly go to Japan. I like the industry and I’m passionate about it.

Josh Sippie: What are you most excited about the industry?

Anime Herald: The fact that it is becoming mainstream is something I view as a double-edged sword. At the American Manga Awards,Jan Mitsuko Cash’s speechabout the rates they pay for translation hit home for me. I know a lot of these people, and how hard they work.

Andrew Arnold: The pay isn’t what it should be?

Anime Herald: It’s not great. There are a lot of reasons for that, but when you see the explosion of the industry, it’s starting to stretch people thin. If you are publishing twice the number of titles, but don’t have twice the number of workers, you get how the math works.

Andrew Arnold: Yeah.

Anime Herald: It’s an industry that I think is in a bubble. There is going to be a crash. You can’t have this many people working this many hours at that level of pay. It’s not sustainable. I worry about that.

On the other hand, I love that we now have second generation anime fans. Second generation manga readers. Their parents read anime to their kids. It’s not like the kids have to find anime at 1 AM on Toonami. Anime is in their homes already. It becomes mainstream, and that is how culture changes. But again, it is a double-edged sword.

Anime Herald: Thank you very much.

KAZÉ: Thank you.