Japanese Batman by Jiro Kuwata Republished

"Bat-Manga" is out and for Batman purists it is like discovering the holy grail. Jiro Kuwata created a Japanese take on Batman and Robin when he licensed the characters when the television series was at its height in the U.S. "Bat-Manga!" is not the weighty, thinky "Secret History of Batman in Japan" that its subtitle suggests. Instead, it's an exhilarating pop-cultural artifact: This here is an alternate Batman, as interpreted in the '60s through an Asian filter. Kidd & Co. — photographer Geoff Spear, co-researcher Saul Ferris and translator Anne Ishii — have essentially renovated illustrator Jiro Kuwata's short-lived, long-forgotten Japanese take on the title, which hit the East in the wake of the campy TV series' international popularity.