█ As I said in the previous article, manga magazines are published on weekly basis. They are thick, compared with their american counterparts, reaching from 150 to 500 pages. The monthly ones contain even 1000 pages. They have colored covers, and inside advertising and announcements for other manga titles that may interest the reader. They are printed in black and white on some kind of cheap paper (depends on…

█ Almost everyone in Japan reads manga, so the publishers have to supply the goods, keeping their audience and drawing in new fans. There is a huge industry, with a huge hungry public. The biggest manga publishers are based in Tokyo. Four Japanese companies distinguish themselves as the largest publishers: Shueisha, Kodansha, Hakusensha and Shogakukuan. From the smaller publishers I can mention MediaWorks, Akita and Kadokawa. Usually, the…

█ This article begins a series of many about the manga and anime industry in Japan, the mechanisms of this industry, the people who work in this domain and the publishers they work for. I hope you find it interesting. To begin with, manga industry differs a lot from the comics industry. In USA, the characters become the property of the publishing company after the author signs the…