How a Park Hyatt Meeting and Ai Yazawa’s “Yes” Brought Princess Ai to Life

According to TOKYOPOP’s account, the project began when Courtney Love reached out to the publisher out of a genuine love for manga. What started as a conversation about creating a manga together soon became a creative partnership. TOKYOPOP’s founder visited Love in the South of France while she was recording America’s Sweetheart, and the two spent a long weekend building the story—trading ideas, memories, and music while shaping the emotional core of a new heroine.

Love had one major wish for the project: that a major manga artist would design the character.

At the time, she was captivated by NANA and its creator, Ai Yazawa—a fitting name, as ai means “love” in Japanese. But approaching one of Japan’s most sought-after manga creators to design the lead of a new international project seemed like an impossible reach.

How Love Charmed Love

Then the impossible began to take shape.

Through the community around KERA magazine, an introduction was arranged. When Love traveled to Tokyo for the MTV Awards, she was staying at the Park Hyatt. Before the meeting, TOKYOPOP and Love prepared a presentation covering who Princess Ai was, why Love loved manga, and what they hoped the story could become.

Then they went upstairs to meet Ai Yazawa.

Wearing a kimono and bringing her signature charm, Love spoke about her love for NANA and her dream of creating a manga heroine unlike anyone else. The team shared the concept for Princess Ai: a girl between worlds, powerful and vulnerable, whose story would unfold through music, fantasy, romance, and rebellion.

Ai Yazawa Said Yes

Ai Yazawa agreed to the project. She created the original Princess Ai character designs—early pencils, finished art, and alternate poses that gave Ai her first unforgettable form. The designs went beyond an overall look, establishing a core identity: elegant, lonely, romantic, dangerous, and impossible to ignore.

That “yes” opened the door for a wider collaboration. Shinshokan came aboard to serialize Princess Ai in Wings, with Misaho Kujiradou bringing the main saga to life. A side story also found a home in KERA.

TOKYOPOP described the moment as “one of those rare moments when a wild idea stops being a wish and becomes a world,” thanking readers as the publisher revisits how the series began.

Source: LinkedIn