It seems like a marriage of true minds: manga, the Japanese form of comics, and Shakespeare, the English bard.

After all, both frequently feature love-struck girls and brooding heroes. Then there are all the fight scenes.

Indeed, not one but two publishers - one American, one British - have launched manga editions of Shakespeare's plays.

British publisher SelfMadeHero has produced The Tempest, Richard III, Hamlet, Romeo And Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream since January last year, while American publisher Wiley Publishing came up with Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Hamlet and Romeo And Juliet this year.

Illustrated editions of Shakespeare's plays are nothing new, with graphic novel versions published as early as the 1940s.

But both publishers say that manga versions of Shakespeare tap into the rising popularity of the Japanese art form in the West.

Says SelfMadeHero's director Emma Hayley, 34: 'There are differences between manga and other forms of comic book Shakespeare. Manga is the sister of anime, or Japanese animation, and undoubtedly the popularity of Japanese animes such as Akira and Spirited Away in the West has boosted the popularity of manga.'

For their illustrators, SelfMadeHero taps on a British collective of manga artists called Sweatdrop Studios, while Wiley approaches the American manga artist community through a New York City agent.

Both publishers say that their aim is to make Shakespeare more accessible to young readers, and target their books at teens and young adults aged 13 and up.

Says Ms Hayley: 'A lot of children find Shakespeare difficult to understand. We hope the series will serve as an introduction. Shakespeare is well-suited to the manga medium as it is a good bridge between straight text and performance.'

Of course, the series editors have had to deal with issues of adaptation. Mr Adam Sexton, 46, who is co-author of the Wiley series, says that some plays lend themselves to the manga form more than others.

'I was worried that Julius Caesar would be difficult to adapt, because its mode is primarily rhetorical. Many of the play?s scenes consist of one character trying to persuade others of something. Macbeth by contrast, with its blood, magic and ghosts, is practically a comic book as written.'

SelfMadeHero's series editor Richard Appignanesi, 68, adds: 'What percentage of the original text is retained is hard to estimate because it varies according to the length of the original. I try for 50 per cent, but this is an arbitrary figure.'

Though both publishers decline to reveal sales figures, SelfMadeHero says that their first two titles - Hamlet and Romeo And Juliet - went into reprint in both Britain and the United States within six months of their launch.

Wiley says it will publish manga versions of The Scarlet Letter by American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain next year.

So do these manga-meets-Shakespeare books cut it with the young readers? Some manga fans here, such as student Flora Yeo, 21, who enjoys popular manga titles such as The Prince Of Tennis, say they are impressed with the quality of the books.

Referring to SelfMadeHero's version of The Tempest, illustrated by English artist Paul Duffield, Ms Yeo says: 'The drawings are really dynamic and make the characters look interesting. I am not a particular fan of Shakespeare, but this does tempt me.'

However, some younger readers who don't like Shakespeare or manga remain unconvinced. Jordan Miller, 15, a Secondary 3 student at Victoria School who studied Macbeth last year, was unimpressed with Wiley's Romeo And Juliet.

'I find that the pictures don't match the text. The illustrations are childish-looking, while the text is archaic and difficult for casual readers to understand,' he says.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Apr 13, 2008.