The obvious response is that Viz Media brought us Death Note.  Game over and cause to party right there.

However, if we can broaden our horizons for just three seconds, an even greater boon may be discerned. If you're reading from a Western nation then you have a lot to thank the company for in how it's spent those decades. Viz Media is probably the reason that you're here, or have even heard of Death Note. 

Even if only indirectly, with Viz acting as the trend-setter company that inspired others elsewhere to follow its lead, bringing Japanese pop culture into your local stores.

It barely seems possible that a time existed when the words 'manga' and 'anime' weren't mainstream in the West.  That outside Japan and its immediate neighbouring states, only Eastern ex-pats, Japanese Cultural Studies students, and a scattering of literary sci-fi geeks in any nation could have told you with any certainty what such alien terms described.  Or even hazarded a decent guess.

Yet in 1986, when Seiji Horibuchi - a Japanese ex-pat from Shikoku, then living in San Francisco - mooted to friends the notion that he could interest Americans in manga, anime and other cultural mainstays from his homeland, most people laughed.  They didn't think readers in the US would go for that at all.

Though obviously the majority first had to ask him what manga and anime were, before getting on with the general amusement and cynicism. 

Three decades later, we can say with great certainty that he wiped the smile off their faces.  Seiji's efforts through Viz Media - the company he founded to make good his idea and his dream - not only made him extremely rich, it secured a place for manga, anime and all else attached in the American heart and throughout the Western world.

Just in case you haven't already grasped the enormity of Viz Media's impact in the West, Roland Kelts is on hand to spell it out.

As an academic specialising in Japanese Cultural Studies, Kelts is an author; essayist; lecturer at Keio University, Tokyo (and the occasional TED Lecture too); journalist with regular articles and columns in such illustrious publications as Time Magazine, The New York Times, Newsweek Japan and The Guardian; and steering committee member of the Tokyo Think Tank Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation.

He also wrote the acclaimed JapanAmerica (see left), all about how Japanese manga, anime and other pop culture became so big in the USA.

In May 2016, his monthly editorial for The Japan Times was devoted to Viz Media's thirty years as the main instigator of that.

Entitled Viz's 30 Years Pack a Punch in the US (May 14th 2016), Kelts outlines how Seiji Horibuchi pulled it off - from unlikely beginnings in the 1980s through to the legacy left behind by the time he parted company with Viz Media to explore pastures new.

Comparing notes with modern day Chief Marketing Officer Brad Woods, Kelts explores how Viz Media played a key role in the changing face of manga interest and sales throughout the West; touches upon the ever-growing mainstream awareness of Japanese pop culture, and projects how that success may continue into the future.

He's rather excited about how titles like Death Note are discussed as commonplace, particularly within the glittering circles of Hollywood studios executives, telling us that, 'in all the years I’ve watched manga and anime become mainstays in American homes, I’ve never seen a moment quite like this.'

Looks like the high definition, formatted blu-ray Death Note Omega Edition will be appearing in British stores later this year.

Manga Entertainment announced at MCM London Comic Con that Death Note blu-ray for the UK is on its way. The company has just secured the licence to distribute in that format to the Britons, and the description certainly matched that of Omega.

The news was simultaneously proclaimed on Twitter via its official account (see right), though fans at the convention found out first.

In both venues, the product spec was unveiled as being the entire run of thirty-seven Death Note anime episodes on blu-ray.  Included are the two re-cut movie length features Death Note Relight: Visions of a God and its sequel Relight: L's Successors.

It's hardly the shock news of the century, but Platinum End Volume One is being planned for publication by Viz Media.  That was the major announcement of vague interest to us given at last week's Anime Boston convention.

Platinum End is the latest manga collaboration between Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, the duo who brought us Death Note.

It focuses upon the adventures of suicidal protagonist Mirai, who acquires the ability to see and interact with his guardian angel, whilst mid-fall.  Divine intervention saves his life, but eternity still beckons.  Mirai, it transpires, is just one of currently twelve human slated to become gods upon their eventual demise.  How and why this is a thing will have to await your reading of the manga itself.

The collation and publication of Platinum End as a single volume of manga will occur roughly concurrent with the Death Note live-action movie is released in cinemas.  Nothing like a nice bit of tie-in publicity all round! 

Look for both around the autumn (or Fall, if you're American) of 2016.  No set date has yet been released, but you'll be the first to know when we do.

Viz Media has teamed up with United Talent Agency (UTA) according to an announcement made on March 23rd.

It's a pairing which could spell drama in the shape of a US live action Death Note TV show.

That isn't precisely what has been said, but it's pretty much the way that everyone's been looking, when they hear the news.

Viz Media publishes Death Note manga and anime in the Americas.  The company owns its copyright there, hence may adapt the content how it will.  UTA specializes in producing live-action media for entertainment.

It doesn't take L to put two and two together there.

It's finally out! Takeshi Obata's book of artwork - Blanc et Noir - in the English language!

We've been promised this by Viz Media for quite some time. Now it's actually upon us - in a limited edition run of only 10,000 copies available for pre-order. 

That's just 10,000 editions of Blanc et Noir to serve the entire English speaking world.  Expect a rush on.

Takeshi Obata's art book is officially out on May 3rd 2016. But early bird buyers can snatch a copy now - or at least a guarantee that they'll eventually own one - via retailers like Amazon.

This special edition print of Blanc et Noir: Takeshi Obata Illustrations includes three laminated double-sized posters alongside 132 pages of exquisitely illustrated Obata artwork - the vast majority of which is Death Note, including several of the posters.

These are the kind of full colour, highly detailed pieces that the mangaka would have pulled off, if he'd had infinite time to dedicate to each panel. It's a glimpse of Death Note as it could have been, if it was literally Takeshi Obata's life work.

The artist himself chats for a further twelve pages in explanatory commentary about his pics; ten shares his expertise in a How to Draw tutorial.

I do want. It's beyond 'sell my granny' territory. For this you can have my entire extended family, the missus and both of my kittens too. Gimme!

And naturally, we've already shoved it into the reference section of the Death Note News books and manga shop.

Viz Media has announced a February 2nd 2016 publication date for the first volume in its collection of School Judgment: Gakkyu Hotei manga chapters.

The series has been running in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine since December 2014.  Penned by Nobuaki Enoki, it features artwork by Death Note creator Takeshi Obata.

School Judgment: Gakkyu Hotei's (improbable) storyline takes place within the walls of Tenbin Elementary School, where crimes, misdemeanours and quarrels occur on a regular basis - and their resolution by-passes all teachers and education authorities.

Instead, the country's top lawyers are drafted in to settle matters via frequently tense courtroom battles.  Said lawyers just happening to be fellow students at said secondary school.

Because that's the way this manga rumbles, and why not?

Chapter one - thus volume one - opens with a murder in the school, with Tenbin Elementary pupil Tento accused of being the killer.  Can his classmates get him off?  Wild, young attorney Abaku Inugami gives it his best shot.

February 2nd will see the launch of Takeshi Obata's School Judgment: Gakkyu Hotei in both paper and digital form.

It's already available for pre-order on Amazon US (along with the second volume too!), plus Amazon UK.

As well as the print version appearing in bookshops, the manga's first volume can be read via the Viz Media app, Kobo, Kindle, Nook, iBooks, comiXology and Google Play.

All are published under the Shonen Jump Imprint and the recommended retail price is currently $9.99 (US), $12.99 (CAN) or £6.99 (GB).

I'm a little late on this one, but there's still a day left to vote in Manga Entertainment Ltd's weekly poll.

It's asking whether we would like to see Death Note released on Blu-Ray, and spells out the reasons why this might be a preferable thing to, say, DVD or streaming the anime online.

Read what they have to say and vote before midnight tonight on their website.

This isn't just a random internet poll by the way.  Manga Entertainment Ltd has close links with Viz Media - which owns the North American rights to the Death Note anime - and its subsidiary Manga UK is the largest distributor of Japanese anime in Britain.

In short, this poll might be your big moment to influence wavering policy. Or it might be a subtly disguised heads up that it's going to happen anyway.  Only they're going to create the circumstances to state that we demanded it outright via this poll.

Either way the poll is there, vote if you will, don't if you won't.

Death Note: The Complete Series collects all of the Death Note anime in Blu-Ray format for the first time.

This is without the bells and whistles accompanying the limited edition Omega Edition.

It's merely all thirty-seven episodes awaiting an almighty binge watch.

Fans can hear the dialogue dubbed in English,  Spanish, French or Portuguese, or hear it in the original Japanese, with all four of those alternative languages provided with subtitles.

As with Death Note: Omega box set, those looking for Blu-Ray Christmas gifts for Death Note fans are being thwarted here too. The Complete Series has also seen its release date postponed until March 1st 2016.

Though Welsh Death Note fans could always exchange Blu-Ray gifts for St David's Day, if that ever became a thing.

In the meantime, there are more Blu-Ray Death Note Christmas gift ideas over in our store, though they tend to towards the live-action movies rather than anime.