10 Years of 3x3 Eyes

1997-12-14
Happy 10-year birthday!
3x3 Eyes!

3x3 Eyes was first published in the Young Manga Pirate Edition in the 14th of December of 1987 by Kodansha. The story quickly gained popularity and sometime later, moved to the regular Young Magazine. The original story spanned 11 collected volumes (Tankoubon in Japanese), and was soon followed with another one, Legend of Trinetra, which is still being published and is already 15 collected volumes long (for a total of 26 3x3 Eyes Tankoubon).

The first set of 3x3 Eyes stories (collected volumes 1 to 11) was very popular in Japan, and much of it has already been animated in 7 OAVs. Legend of Trinetra (collected volumes 12~) did not live to the expectations of the more demanding fans, partially due to Yuzo Takada diverting much of his time and effort from 3x3 Eyes to newer projects, such as Blue Seed. Still, the latest chapters seems to have been steadily improving again and might soon reach both the plotline and drawing quality of the earlier 3x3 Eyes stories.

Meanwhile, this excellent story was being translated to a number of other languages, such as Italian, Spanish, Chinese and Korean. English readers are still behind due to a number of unfortunate circunstances, mostly due to the American comic market and its rather "unique" characteristics. Until this shortcoming is sorted out, fan-translations and learning another language will have to be enough for the more die-hard fans :-)

10 years later, 3x3 Eyes is still alive and well. Nearly 210 minutes of animation were produced, as well as numerous CD soundtracks, games for asorted playing consoles and personal computers, calendars, ufo-catcher dolls and other paraphernalia.

May it live for another 10 years!

Cover Ilustration: Young Magazine Pirate Edition 14 Dec '87 - Episode #1    © Yuzo Takada / Kodansha
3x3 Eyes is Copyright © 1987-97 by Yuzo Takada/Kodansha/Bandai Visual/Star Child/King Records
3x3 Eyes art Copyright © 1987-97 by Yuzo Takada/Kodansha