Toyota takes pitch to kids with manga

"The idea came out of a conversation at the Toyota motor show with a Toyota engineer working on the project," said Chris Rosamund, international development editor, Haymarket Network, which handles Toyota's contract publishing and produced and conceptualised the comic. Haymarket Network is part of the same group which publishes Media. The comic launched with the March issues of various magazines for children and young adults in eight markets in Asia. It was created to support Toyota's sponsorship of the 2005 World Exposition in Aichi, Japan, which opens on March 25. "Toyota was making a big investment in a concept vehicle -- the I-unit -- to inspire kids visiting the Expo and we thought it would be a challenge to publish a manga-style comic which would appeal to kids across a number of markets as well as effectively communicateToyota's committment to the expo and innovation," said Rosamund. The 32-page comic centres on Akira, a 12-year-old boy whose Toyota engineer father works on the I-unit vehicle. Toyota's branding runs on the front and back covers as well as inside the book. Manga artist Tetsuo Tanaka created the art work. Haymarket is distributing the comic with K-Zone from Pacific magazines in its Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Singapore editions; Catcha and Summit Media in the Philippines; Seoul Media group's IQJumps in Korea and finally with China Media Group's [V] magazines. Toyota will also hand out copies at the expo, which is expected to push the number of copies in circulation to 900,000.