Chapter 299 - The Legends of Manga (1/2)
Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation
“Kodansha Comics?”
Meng Fan didn’t know much Japanese, but he could read most of the words on the business card Goro Takahashi gave him. Mr. Takahashi was an editor at Kodansha Comics. Given the style of the business card, he wasn’t an average editor either.
This was a pleasant surprise for Meng Fan!
Before and after he was reborn, his sisters sponsored him with many gifts on this trip. Before the rebirth, he was most interested in CV concerts and “meet and greets.” Now, he was more interested in visiting Shueisha Comics and meeting the comic artist Eiichiro Oda.
Of course, before the rebirth, he also loved manga and would have liked to visit Shueisha Comics and meet Eiichiro Oda. The visit, however, would just have been a regular visit.
Now, the purpose of his visit would be different.
If he was rewriting his life, what would he need?
Manga would undoubtedly be a big part of his new life!
He didn’t realize one of the hostages was an editor, and a senior one at that, from a comics publisher. This was fantastic news for Meng Fan.
Perhaps it was Good Luck +1 in effect? It was a big coincidence.
Kodansha Comics was one of Japan’s three largest comic publishers. The other two are Shueisha Comics and Shogakukan Comics. Together, the three manga publishers are known as the Gosanke.
Most of the Japanese comics popular with fans worldwide came from these three manga publishers.
Kodansha Comics is known as an advancing giant in the industry.
The publisher with the longest history, Kodansha Comics, is regarded as the boss of publishers (not just comics) in Japan. It has serialized “Attack on Titan,””GetBackers,””Fairy Tail,””Initial D,””Legend of the Dragon’s Son,””Vagabond,””Ghost in the Shell,””The Three-Eyed One,””SM,””Card Captor,””The Tales of Genji,””Parasyte,” and other well-known mangas.
Shogakukan Comics is a publisher known for comics for kids and teens.
As one of the largest comprehensive publishers in Japan, Shogakukan Comics focused on elementary school students as its audience early on. Based on the names of its comics, it’s obvious that it has published many children’s classics, some of which had even mesmerized grown ups, including: “Case Closed,””Pokémon,””Doraemon,””Urusei Yatsura,””Ranma ½,””Inuyasha,” and many more.
Shueisha Comics is a publisher with some of the most talented comic artists in the industry.
Shueisha Comics publishes many comic magazines for teens, the most well-known of which is Weekly Shōnen Jump, which has the highest circulation in Japan’s serialized comics. The magazine has released plenty of hits such as “One Piece,””Naruto,””Bleach,””Gin Tama,””Dragon Ball,””Yu-Gi-Oh!””Saint Seiya,””Slam Dunk,””Chibi Maruko-chan,””Food Wars!” and so on.
Other comic houses within Shueisha Comics have released legendary comics including: “To Love Ru,””One Punch Man,””Tokyo Ghoul,””The Prince of Tennis,””NANA,” and more.
The number of comic classics published and serialized by Shueisha Comics is simply countless.
Shueisha Comics was founded last among the three legendary publishers. In the beginning, it was an entertainment magazine under Shogakukan Comics; now, it holds its own in the industry.
Most comic artists hope to have a chance to serialize their work in a Shueisha Comics magazine, including many Chinese comic artists, Meng Fan among them. This is true despite the shrinking comics market in Japan in recent years.
This is just like how, for most actors, their dream is to be a movie star in Hollywood — including most Chinese actors such as Meng Caiwei — even though China is now the world’s largest movie market.
That’s not to say that without being serialized in Japan or entering Hollywood, one would give up on the Chinese market.