Mai, the Psychic Girl

Mai, the Psychic Girl, known simply as Mai (舞) in Japan, is a manga written by Kazuya Kudō and illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami.

The main character is Mai Kuju, a 14-year-old Japanese girl with powerful psychic abilities. She is being pursued by the Wisdom Alliance, an organization which secretly strives to control the world. The alliance already controls four other powerful psychic children, and it has hired the Kaieda Intelligence Agency to capture Mai.

English release
Mai, the Psychic Girl is one of, if not the, first manga series to be fully published in English. It, along with The Legend of Kamui and Area 88, were published in North America by Eclipse Comics and Viz Comics in a bi-weekly comic book format starting on May 26, 1987. As it was one of the forerunners of manga popularity in the West, Mai was chosen for localization due its middle-ground artwork: neither "too Japanese or too American". It was present in the "flipped" format that was the norm with early localized manga. Mai proved popular enough that second printings were needed of the first two issues. .

The series was later re-released in three volumes as Mai, the Psychic Girl: Perfect Collection.

Film adaptation
In the late eighties and early nineties, work was begun on a film adaptation. It was to be directed by Tim Burton and feature music by Sparks, but the project fell through, even though Sparks had completed work on the soundtrack. Burton has since gotten the rights back, and is reportedly wanting to make it "a priority".