Note: This page cannot be credited to individual issues, for an easily filtered and organizable list of the manga on this site click here.

Definition

Though this debate of definition naturally extends to all regional artistic forms, in comics the distinction most often comes up with the difference between comics and manga (a similar conversation occurs with cartoons and anime). This page is not providing commentary about whether something "qualifies" as a manga artistically, not all Japanese-produced comics were historically considered manga even within Japan. A competing popular comic style in Japan called gekiga was once contrasted with manga but today these gekiga are often retroactively labeled manga. Manga has become the default word to refer to comics (although the word comic itself is also frequently used in Japanese) published in Japan. For the specification of this page, a Japanese individual producing a Japanese-language comic that is published outside of Japan is not part of this category but the many non-Japanese individuals who publish their original works through Japan-based publishers do qualify. The word manga could be used in Japanese to refer to non-Japanese comics but this page is meant to represent one country (Japan) while other pages may represent countries with their local language word for comic.

History

Like efforts to trace American or European comics back into the 1800's or earlier through newspaper strips and picture books that have little in common with conventional 20th century works, early Japanese manga has relatively little contiguous connection to manga of the 1950's and beyond outside of older individuals carrying over personal influences. Virtually all of the oldest publications and authors of what became the manga industry began in the post-war era, with the largest boom that had massive lasting impact only starting in the 1950's. Though some publishers can date back to the 1920's or earlier and some rare and now obscure publications do as well, they weren't known as manga publications and publishers back in those years. Rare and lasting examples of early manga included Norakuro but various types of illustrations that are more akin to "manga precursors" were more common. The long-running Sazae-san strip and the early career of Osamu Tezuka (known to English audiences as the Godfather of Manga) are two explicit examples of the modern manga industry being born directly in the wake of World War II, with their publishing beginning in 1946-1947. This period is also notable for marking a significant shift in the Japanese language when they adopted the hybrid reading direction that American translators were initially resistant to when manga was first being introduced in their region decades later. Although vertical Japanese text is still read in the traditional right-to-left direction (thus resulting in manga panel layouts also being read that way), horizontal text swapped to the Western left-to-right direction.

As manga was still taking off in the 40's and 50's, it was a common for manga to appear in places other than the traditional manga magazine that would become the norm by the 60's. Instead common publications included newspapers, general magazines or educational/literary magazines for children (which often mixed in some manga as a small portion of the overall magazine). Some of these early magazines would later convert to focusing on the manga content as trends changed. The most common manga-exclusive format that emerged at this time was the kashihon (rental books) which were able to be read by larger audiences who couldn't afford to buy them and reduce publishing costs by loaning them out to be read instead. Many of the biggest mangaka of the 20th century got their start with kashihon and many of the earliest published works of a creator like Tezuka were these standalone books. These publications varied between anthologies versus the single-author publications. Most of these kashihon publishers were restricted to the 50's and 60's, after which point the market had moved on to a new generation of modern manga magazines and began to publish more common collected editions of serialized material.

The 50's was still a time when the idea of manga being just one-term for a type of Japanese comic was held by various artists and the gekiga school for a different form of Japanese comics was founded. Other artists would use their own words to describe their work besides even these but besides "comic" itself, manga and gekiga were the most embraced terms used by official publishers for the next few decades. Most manga/gekiga publications of this time were still aimed at children with the earliest shojo manga and shonen manga magazines that are still ongoing today beginning in the 50's (Nakayoshi/Ribon or Weekly Shonen Sunday/Weekly Shonen Magazine). But there also began publications that lasted to the current era aimed at an adult audience like Manga Times (Manga Sunday also began in the 50's but was cancelled in 2013). Some of the many prolific creators that would define the 20th century and began their publishing career in the 50's (often the mid to late-50's) included Leiji Matsumoto, Takao Saito, Kazuo Umezu, Shotaro Ishinomori, Fujio Akatsuka, Fujiko Fujio, Tetsuya Chiba, Shinji Mizushima, Shigeru Mizuki, Goseki Kojima, Mitsuteru Yokoyama, Sanpei Shirato and Tsunoda Jiro. Although in time it became more common for male and female authors to publish in the magazines aimed at their own gender after a generation of female mangaka emerged in the 60's and 70's, in this early era it was still common for male authors to work in shojo manga and a number of the previously listed authors got their start there or published in both markets simultaneously.

The 60's was a much fuller emergence of the manga industry that continues to this day with multiple weekly manga magazines for the shojo (Margaret, Shōjo Friend), shonen (Weekly Shonen Jump, Weekly Shonen King) and adult male (Weekly Manga Action) markets and many monthlies besides (still including kashihon and mixed magazines where manga was not the sole focus). By the 60's there also began a trend of more gekiga magazines which helped reflect this difference between gekiga and manga at the time, although non-manga magazines generally used the word comic in the title there was some variance and no strict rules (Young Comic, Play Comic, Comic Magazine, Big Comic). A title didn't necessarily dictate the contents explicitly. Like the kashihon trend before it (where a lot of gekiga artists came from), the gekiga trend as a distinct market began to give way through the 70's and instead it was replaced in many ways by the modern seinen market, with that and the smaller josei market mostly taking off in the 80's (Young Magazine, Weekly Young Jump, Be ・ Love, Young You). Although there is a lot more nuance historically and even in contemporary manga, this allowed for the modern division of manga into the four demographic categories of shojo/shonen/seinen/josei. Even outside niche demographic groupings there were very popular and successful manga outside this four-way framework like the popular CoroCoro Comic being one of many magazines aimed at even younger audience than standard shonen/shojo. Notably josei was the only one of the four to never sustain a weekly manga magazine and the weekly shojo magazines either ended or slowed down to a twice-monthly rate in the 80's and 90's while shonen magazines began to gain a larger and larger female fanbase.

Although anthologies have remained the way almost all manga are first published (in contrast to the American and some European industries that shifted away from that decades earlier), the circulation of physical manga magazines peaked in the 90's and 00's when Weekly Shonen Jump and then Weekly Shonen Magazine which had been the highest-circulating manga magazines both collapsed in their total circulated readership (quickly losing millions before stabilizing into the slow decline that continued for the industry into the digital era). However, virtually all notable sales records for collected manga that were first published in these magazines came from the 90's and beyond. It had become the expected norm for most serializations to be collected on their own, whereas even some of the most famous creators of earlier decades could have numerous works that were never reprinted or only restored decades after the fact for completionist collections.

In the 10's the manga industry embraced the digital era which has seen a massive rise in sites from the major manga publishers that still function as curated anthologies but serialize their manga for free digitally before later collecting them physically. Some major authors and magazines were more resistant to going digital with some holdouts still existing but over the course of a decade, most major works are now easily available digitally (although it's common for digital versions of physical magazines to get delisted after a certain time).

Notable Creators and Series

Although a full list would quickly become excessive, some of the most famous authors and works not mentioned above include Rumiko Takahashi, One Piece, Takehiko Inoue, Mitsuru Adachi, Meitantei Conan, Crayon Shin-chan, Akira Toriyama, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, Hana Yori Dango, Glass no Kamen, Berserk and Go Nagai.

Translation Industry

The Japanese comic industry has grown to surpass the American industry as the most exported internationally (with Japanese comics outselling American in America itself) but Japan does also import translated comics from other countries to limited success including European, American, Korean and Chinese comics. Publishers with significant translated output include Shogakukan-Shueisha Production (American comics) and Kadokawa Shoten (Korean manhwa).

List of Publishers

Major Active Publishers

• Shueisha
• Kodansha
• Shogakukan
• Akita Shoten
• Kadokawa Shoten
• Leed Publishing Co., Ltd.
• Shōnen Gahōsha
• Hakusensha
• Square Enix

Niche Active Publishers

• Shinchosha
• Tokuma Shoten
• Coamix
• Ichijinsha
• Takeshobo
• Houbunsha
• Shodensha
• Asahi Sonorama
• Mag Garden
• Shinshokan
• Fukkan

Inactive Kashihon Publishers

• Seirindo
• Hinomaru Bunko
• Wakagi Shobo
• Togetsu Shobo
• Akebono Shuppan
• Central Bunko
• Sato Pro
• Angel Bunko
• Sanyosha
• Tokosha

Inactive or Mostly-Inactive Publishers

• Ushio Shuppansha
• Ohta Shuppan
• Koike Shoin
• Kobunsha
• Jitsugyo no Nihon Sha
• Kisō Tengaisha
• Mushi Production
• Chūōkōron

Publishers with Limited Manga Focus

• Bungeishunjū
• Sanrio
• Yomiuri Shimbunsha