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In Japan, Katsuhiro Otomo published the first Akira story in the December 20, 1982, issue of Kodansha’s Yangu Magajin (Young Magazine). Because of the success of the series Kodansha began to publish the magazine installments in paperback collections in 1984. With the Akira series running strong, the Epic Comics division of Marvel Comics in the United States began publication of the Akira series in booklets of sixty-eight pages each in 1988.

Tetsuwan Atom, the Japanese title for Astro Boy, was first published as Atom Taishi (literally “ambassador atom,” also known as “captain atom”) from April, 1951, to March, 1952, in the weekly magazine Shonen. In this manga, Atom had a supporting role. The story was later retouched and inserted into the Astro Boy series as a prequel and as an episode of the 1963-1966 animated television series. The first version of Atom was inspired by Mitchy, the androgynous robot from another manga by Tezuka (Metropolis), and by Perri, a robot character created by manga author Fukujiro Yokoi.

The inspiration for Amulet began at the end of Kazu Kibuishi’s studies in college and with an idea about two children moving into a mysterious puzzle maker’s house. After a short stint in animation, Kibuishi pursued a career in comics and went on to edit and contribute to Flight (2007- ), an anthology of comics by creators mainly from the animation industry, and published first by Image Comics and later by Random House. Gathering stories for the fourth volume of Flight, Kibuishi discovered he had a collection of child-friendly comics, which he decided to publish as a separate anthology called Flight Explorer, featuring an original story of his Web comic Copper.

Manga are comics and graphic novels produced in Japan. Since the 1990’s, manga has become part of the larger global culture thanks to the international popularity of titles such as Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon, Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball, and Natsuki Takaya’s Fruits Basket.

A wide variety of illustration styles is discernible in graphic novels. Although many are adaptations or modifications of the visual styles associated with comic books and strips, techniques proximal to the fine arts, such as painting and mixed-media collages, are also used. Graphic novels from countries such as Japan and Belgium have also influenced the styles of US artists.

Mangaka is the Japanese word for manga artist. A manga artist is a person who writes manga, a type of Japanese comic book. The majority of mangaka are Japanese, and many are academically trained in art or manga. Manga is often an apprenticed industry, with many mangaka learning from their predecessors before creating their own work. Manga artists exist all over the world, although the form is given particular artistic weight in Asian countries. Mangaka come to fame in a number of ways, but their success is primarily motivated by their talent and creativity. Manga publishers are constantly in search of new mangaka and sponsor contests regularly to discover new talent. If the response to their work is positive, mangaka may be able to serialize it for weekly or monthly publication in magazines. Others choose to publish in comic book or graphic novel form. Generally speaking, mangaka are often deemed most successful when they are producing copious amounts of manga in short spans of time.

KiyohikoAzuma’s Yotsuba&! was first serialized in the monthly seinen magazine Dengeki Daioh, published by Media Works, in 2003. The first bound collection of Yotsuba&! was published in Japan that same year.

In the summer of 2003, Kouno was a rising manga artist, and her editor at Futabasha’s Weekly Manga Action magazine suggested that she write a manga about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II. The September 30, 2003, issue of Weekly Manga Action featured Yunagi no machi (Town of evening calm), the first story of her project. In July, 2004, the two stories of Sakura no kuni (Country of cherry blossoms) were published.

20th Century Boys was originally published by Shogakukan in Big Comic Spirits, a weekly seinen manga magazine. Shogakukan also reprinted the series as a twenty-two-volume set. The last two books of the series were reprinted with the title 21st Century Boys. In 2009, an English-language version of 20th Century Boys was published in the United States by VIZ Media. VIZ originally licensed the series in 2005, but creator Naoki Urasawa requested the books be published after the English translation of Monster (2006-2008), as his artwork had undergone dramatic improvements.

By 2002, the four-woman manga artists’ collective known as Clamp (which includes Nanase Ohkawa, Mokona Apapa, Tsubaki Nekoi, and Satsuki Igarashi) decided to create a new series that would bring together some of their previous characters from other series. These characters were given new backstories, though, making them quite different from their originals.

Junji Ito’s Uzumaki (whirlpool) was originally serialized in Weekly Big Spirits and Weekly Big Comic Spirits from 1998 to 2000. English translations of individual chapters were released in issues 5.2 to 6.8 of PULP magazine, a defunct publishing imprint of VIZ Media specializing in alternative, experimental manga series aimed at adult audiences. Yuji Oniki’s English translation of Uzumaki, published by VIZ, was republished in three bound volumes between 2001 and 2002. Because the English translation of Uzumaki is laid out in the traditional Western reading format, Ito’s artwork is printed in reverse, differentiating the artwork from that seen in the original Japanese iteration of the series. Like the majority of serialized manga publications, Uzumaki’s visual content is primarily black and white, although each volume contains introductory pages with full-color images.

In May of 2002, the Japanese shojo manga magazine Betsucomi, published by Shogakukan and targeting a young-adult female audience, published the first chapter of Yuki Obata’s new series, Bokura ga ita. In English, the title has been published as We Were There. The success of the series led to publication of the first tankobon book volume by Shogakukan in October, 2002.

Usagi Yojimbo originated in small-press comics of the 1980’s, first appearing in the anthropomorphic-animal anthology series Albedo Anthropomorphics. The series moved to Fantagraphics Books, which first included Usagi Yojimbo in its anthropomorphic-animal anthology Critters and later showcased the comic in its own series. The series rode the wave of success of black-and-white independent comics through the 1980’s, until changes in the marketplace led creator Stan Sakai to take his samurai rabbit to Mirage Comics for a full-color run. When Mirage folded after sixteen issues, Sakai moved his series to Dark Horse Comics, which began carrying the title in 1996. The character of Miyamoto Usagi has also appeared as a guest star in a number of other titles. In 2011, Dark Horse released Usagi Yojimbo: Yokai,the only all-original Usagi Yojimbo graphic novel.

RiyokoIkeda’s The Rose of Versailles originally appeared in the Japanese magazine Margaret, published by Shueisha, and was serialized in the magazine in weekly installments from 1972 to 1973. Although the magazine primarily publishes shojo, Margaret’s audience often includes adult women. The original Japanese version of The Rose of Versailles runs to seventeen hundred pages and was first published in tankobon form in 1972. The work has been published in an eleven-volume paperback edition and a five-volume hardcover set.

Ranma 1/2 is the third manga series by Japan’s accomplished and widely read manga artist Rumiko Takahashi. Itwas first published in Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine beginning in September, 1987. As with her two prior series, Urusei yatsura (those obnoxious aliens) and Maison Ikkoku, Takahashi tells the story of a vexed love relationship between unlikely, quarrelsome romantic partners.

Solanin is creator Inio Asano’s first manga to be translated into English. His other works have generally been a combination of slice-of-life, Magical Realism, and understated horror. As he notes in the afterword to Solanin, he drew the book when he was twenty-four, about the same age as his characters, having just graduated from college and feeling insecure about his abilities as a manga creator. The issues with which he was dealing at the time grew into the themes, characters, and plot of Solanin.

Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon was first published as Bishojo senshi sera mun (beautiful warrior sailor moon) in the monthly shojo manga magazine Nakayoshi beginning in 1992; it was collected in eighteen paperback volumes from 1992 to 1997. A fourteen-volume, newly bound edition was issued by Kodansha under the KCDX label from 2003 to 2004. For this edition, the English subtitle of the original series was changed from Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon to Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.

Slam Dunk debuted in 1990 in Weekly Shonen Jump and ran for 276 chapters until 1996. Shueisha, via Jump Comics, collected and published chapters in thirty-one paperbound tankobon volumes between 1991 and 1996. Shueisha reprinted Slam Dunk between 2001 and 2002 in twenty-four kanzenban volumes for its large-format Jump Comics Deluxe line.

Science fiction was a new genre for mangaka Keiko Takemiya when she began publishing Terra e. . . (To Terra. . .) in the pages of the Gekkan Manga Shonen magazine starting in January, 1977. By that time, Takemiya had established her reputation as a member of manga’s Year 24 Group, which consisted of innovative female artists born around 1949, the twenty-fourth year of Japan’s Showa era (Takemiya was born in 1950). Before To Terra. . . Takemiya invented, and subsequently specialized in, the shonen-ai manga subgenre, which featured young boys in love with each other and was targeted to young-adult female readers.

Tatsuo Yoshida was a pioneer of anime but began his career as a manga artist. To build support for his second anime series, Mahha go go go, released in English as Speed Racer, Yoshida drew and wrote a manga with the same title. In developing his characters and initial episodes, Yoshida drew heavily on his earlier manga series featuring car and motorcycle racing themes, in particular Pilot Ace (1960-1964). Mahha go go go first appeared in Shueisha’s Shonen Book magazine in June of 1966 and ran until May of 1968. The individual episodes were collected in tankobon books by Japan’s Sun Wide Comics beginning in 1966. In 2000, long after Yoshida’s death from cancer in 1977, Fusosha reprinted all of the episodes in a two-volume box set.

Sanctuary is a manga series authored by Sho Fumimura (also known as Buronson), perhaps best known for his work as the writer of Fist of the North Star (1983-1988), and illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami, a professor of arts at Osaka University and lead artist for Heat (1999-2004). Sanctuary was initially serialized from 1990 to 1995 in Shogakukan’s semimonthly Big Comic Superior. Later, it was compiled and published in twelve volumes. Eventually, it was published as forty-six comic books and released in the United States in nine volumes by VIZ Communications (later VIZ Media) from 1993 to 1997. A bestseller in Japan, Sanctuary was successfully adapted into a live-action film and an animated feature.

MW was first published serially in the seinen manga magazine Biggu komikku (Big Comic), from September, 1976, to January, 1978. Since 1981, MW has been collected and printed in several different two- and three-volume Japanese editions. In 2007, American publisher Vertical published a single-volume hardcover edition of MW. A paperback edition was published in 2010.

Nobuhiro Watsuki established the world in which Rurouni Kenshin would be set in his first professional work as a manga artist, Crescent Moon in the Warring States, published in a special issue of Weekly Shonen Jump in the spring of 1992. Two subsequent stand-alone episodes under the title Rurouni, Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story, published in Weekly Shonen Jump specials in 1992 and 1993, acted as pilots for the series. In Rurouni, Watsuki established the character of Kenshin Himura and introduced prototypical versions of some of the series’ other main characters.

Monster was originally published by Shogakukan in Big Comic Original, a semimonthly seinen manga magazine. Shogakukan also reprinted the series in eighteen tankobon, or collected volumes. Beginning in 2006, an English translation of Monster was published in the United States by VIZ Media.

When Mai debuted in 1985 in Weekly Shonen Sunday, a male-leaning weekly, the series was notable for featuring a female lead character. The feature ran for fifty-three installments, ending in 1986.

One Piece was first published in Weekly Shonen Jump in August, 1997. The manga was based on one-shots published under the title Romance Dawn the previous year. Because of the series’ popularity, publisher Shueisha began to collect the weekly chapters into tankobon in December, 1997. Creator Eiichiro Oda initially intended to end the series in 2001, but both the popularity of the series and Oda’s enjoyment in writing it have compelled him to continue indefinitely.

Hayao Miyazaki spent almost thirteen years on the Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind series, which was first published by Tokuma Shoten in monthly installments in Japan’s Animage magazine beginning in 1982. The broad appeal of the film based on the manga led to the establishment of a new animation studio, Studio Ghibli, which Miyazaki founded with Isao Takahata.

Ode to Kirihito was serialized in the seinen manga magazine Big Comic, published by Shogakukan,from 1970 to 1971. The work was later collected and published in several different Japanese editions. In 2006, North American publisher Verticalmade this classic manga available to Western audiences in a single-volume paperback edition. Vertical reprinted Ode to Kirihito in two paperback volumes in 2010.

As a longtime fan of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet L’Oiseau de feu (1910; The Firebird), Japan’s “God of Manga” Osamu Tezuka aspired to draw a tale about the legendary Phoenix from an early stage of his career. His first attempt appeared in the boys’ comics magazine Manga Shonen, but he did not manage to complete the story. Another attempt followed in 1956 in the girls’ comics magazine Shojo Club. At the time, Tezuka had a passion for Hollywood-style romantic period epics; set in ancient times in Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the story reflected this sensibility.

Old Boy,written by Garon Tsuchiya and illustrated by Nobuaki Minegishi, was initially serialized in Japan by Futabasha in its magazine Weekly Manga Action from 1996 to 1998. The series eventually had seventy-nine chapters, and these were published in eight books, or collected volumes (tankobon). Volume 1 was released in May, 1997, and Volume 2 in December, 1997. Volumes 3 through 8 appeared in 1998, with the culminating volume released in October. The series was very popular in Japan, and its popularity was later enhanced by a successful and award-winning South Korean film based on the manga, which appeared in 2003. This led Dark Horse Comics, an American publisher, to purchase the rights for an English version in 2005. The first volume of the English translation appeared in July, 2006; Volumes 2 and 3 were released in the latter months of 2006, and the remaining Volumes (4-8) were published in 2007. The editor of the English version is Chris Warner, with Darin Fabrick as collection designer and Kumar Sivasubramanian as translator. The film version continued to produce interest in the manga, and Futabasha rereleased the series in five volumes in June and July, 2007.

Oh My Goddess! was first serialized in the magazine Afternoon in 1988 and then in graphic novel form by Kodansha. The English translation of the series was initially published by Dark Horse Comics in 1994. This translation was flipped to allow for right-to-left reading; thus, the artwork had to be flipped also. This caused certain inconsistencies. The demand by North American manga readers for an authentic, uncut manga resulted in a change in the middle of the series. According to Dark Horse Comics, Oh My Goddess! is the longest-running manga in the United States.

Ai Yazawa had published a number of well-received shojo series since her debut in 1985, most of them in the magazine Ribon, marketed toward nine- to thirteen-year-old girls. Nana began in Ribon’s sister magazine Cookie in 2000; Cookie is aimed at an older female audience.

Fullmetal Alchemist, written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa, was first published in one of Enix’s monthly manga magazines, Shonen Gangan. (The publisher merged with Square, becoming Square Enix in 2003.) In the almost nine years that it ran (the story was serialized from July, 2001, to June, 2010) Fullmetal Alchemist comprised 108 chapters, not including the gaiden (bonus) stories included in some of the collected volumes. Almost immediately after its initial serial publication, it was gathered into twenty-seven tankobon volumes beginning in January, 2002.

The Naruto series is based on a pilot that appeared in the August, 1997, issue of Akamaru Jump. In 1999, Naruto began to be serialized in one of the most popular manga magazines in Japan, Weekly Shonen Jump. Both of the magazines are published by Shueisha. Naruto’s creator, Masashi Kishimoto, has remained in Artistic control of Naruto by writing and illustrating the entire series throughout its long run. Naruto quickly became one of the most popular manga franchises in both Japan and the rest of the world. In the United States and Europe, the series has been published by VIZ Media in Shonen Jump magazine as well as in volumes since 2003.

Gon, a black-and-white series by Masashi Tanaka, was first introduced to the Japanese public in 1991 in the thirty-ninth issue of Kodansha’s Weekly Morning magazine. The tremendous success of the comic resulted in its trade publication by Kodansha beginning in 1992. In the early 1990’s, dinosaurs were prevalent in popular culture, from the zany children’s television character Barney, a purple, anthropomorphic Tyrannosaurus rex, to the fiercely realistic dinosaurs in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film Jurassic Park, an adaptation of the novel by Michael Crichton. This public interest in dinosaurs extended to comics, and in 1996, Paradox Press (DC Comics) began publishing the first U.S. version of Gon. The pages of the manga were reversed so that the comic could be read in the standard Western left-to-right reading order. The series included a color issue, Gon Color Spectacular, published in 1998. Later, in 2007, this highly popular series was published in its original format (reading right to left) by CMX (WildStorm, also an imprint of DC Comics). Kodansha Comics USA began to reprint the series in 2011.

Takao Saito published his first manga, Baron Air, in 1955. In order to spread out the massive amount of work associated with a first-class manga, he founded a manga production studio with seven colleagues in 1958, which became Saito Production in 1960. That year, he and his studio created a four-issue James Bond manga, which inspired Saito to develop a series about a master Japanese assassin. The first Golgo 13 story was published in the January, 1969, issue of Shogakukan’s Big Comic magazine. As the magazine was on sale in November, 1968, that year is sometimes given as the beginning of the series.

First published in Young Magazine in 1989, Ghost in the Shell is the creation of writer and illustrator Masamune Shirow, famed for manga cult classics Appleseed (1985-1989), Black Magic (1983), and Dominion (1985). Ghost in the Shell is considered a seinen manga, targeting Japanese businessmen between the ages of eighteen and thirty. The English translation was produced by Dark Horse Comics, which released the first full volume of the collected work in 1995. The manga proved popular in the West, where it attained such a cult status throughout the 1990’s that second and third volumes were released in 2003 and 2005; the latter contains an addendum of four chapters that were originally intended for the first volume.

Having finished work on his previous series, Dr. Slump (1980-1984), manga creator Akira Toriyama sought to create a parody of martial arts shonen manga that featured a comedic martial artist and reversed shonen conventions. The result was the long-running manga Dragon Ball, which was serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1984 to 1995. The series was later collected into forty-two tankobon. In 2003, VIZ Media began to publish Dragon Ball in the United States, releasing the first sixteen volumes as Dragon Ball and Volumes 17-42 as Dragon Ball Z, in keeping with the titles of the popular animated television adaptations.

Rumiko Takahashi’s Maison Ikkoku (the house of the fleeting moment) was serialized in the weekly manga magazine Big Comic Spirits, published by Shogakukan, from November, 1980, to April, 1987. The series was successful enough to be collected in tankobon volumes before its serialization was finished; it was published in fifteen volumes under the Big S Comics label between May, 1982, and July, 1987. Between September, 1992, and June, 1993, Shogakukan released a ten-volume edition of the manga.

From 1980 to 1984, Akira Toriyama’s Dr. Slump was serialized in the Japanese comic magazine Weekly Shonen Jump, beginning in issue 5 and concluding in issue 39. It was Toriyama’s first breakout hit, inspiring a 243-episode animated series, a series of animated films and direct-to-video specials, and a vast array of merchandise, including toys and video games. The cast appeared briefly in Toriyama’s even more successful follow-up, Dragon Ball (1984-1995). Other than Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump is the work most identified with Toriyama.

Lupin III, with stories and artwork entirely by Monkey Punch (Kazuhiko Kato), debuted in serialized form in August, 1967, in Weekly Manga Action, published by Futabasha. The series ran in ninety-four installments, until May, 1969, and in thirty-six chapters (as The New Adventures) in 1971-1972. Futabasha periodically collected chapters of the series in tankobon. Power Comics published the series in fourteen Japanese-language volumes in 1974-1975, and Futabasha’s Action Comics reprinted Lupin III in eleven volumes in 1984-1985. An additional twenty-four-page story was originally published in March, 1970, as Lupin the Third Gaiden.

Lone Wolf and Cub was originally serialized from 1970 to 1976 in the Japanese magazine Manga akushon (manga action), published by Futabasha. This manga magazine, first published in 1967, was one of the earliest magazines to publish seinen manga aimed at adult male readers. Writer Kazuo Koike researched the samurai feudal culture and everyday life of commoners during the Edo period and authentically re-created the historical setting in this epic manga, working in collaboration with self-taught painter and manga artist Goseki Kojima. Koike made his name with this work, earning the respect of other creators and artists. The immense popularity of the Lone Wolf and Cub series led to a series of film adaptations, television serials, and even theatrical plays within Japan.

Hirohiko Araki launched JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure in 1987 in Japan’s Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. The first five parts of the series, consisting of 594 chapters later collected in sixty-three volumes, were published in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1987 to 1997. Strictly speaking, these first sixty-three volumes are the only ones published under the series title of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. However, as Araki has used the same characters, ideas, settings, and background in later works, he has, in fact, continued the JoJo story under different titles. For that reason, the series is considered to be ongoing.

InuYasha, written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi, was featured in the Japanese magazine Weekly Shonen Sunday from November, 1996, to June, 2008. Tankobon volumes of the series were published by Shogakukan from 1997 to 2009. After initially trying to serialize the story in English, VIZ Media began publishing paperback versions in North America beginning in 1998. At first, the English-language versions were “flipped,” reading left-to-right; this practice was done halfway through the series. VIZ originally published the first-edition graphic novels with the subtitle “A Feudal Fairy Tale” but dropped it in the subsequent editions. In 2009, VIZ Media started reprinting the series in large collections called VIZBIG Editions, collecting previous volumes. The VIZBIG Editions featured larger pages than before to provide a closer look at both the Artistic details and the beautiful color artwork pages.

Author Yumi Hotta got the idea for Hikaru no go after playing a game of Go with her father-in-law in the 1990’s. Her idea won the Story King Award of Shueisha’s manga magazine Weekly Shonen Jump. The magazine teamed her with the up-and-coming manga artist Takeshi Obata. Hotta wrote the story for Hikaru no go, and Obata did the major artwork. As is common for manga art production, Obata was assisted by a creative staff, and the twenty-two support artists are credited in the final volume of the manga. They include Hotta’s husband, Kiyonari Hotta, with whom she had worked on a four-panel manga about horse racing. Yukari Umezawa, a young Go master, supervised the drawings of the moves and board positions of the many Go matches featured in the manga. She was also assisted by a staff of twelve Go players and the Japanese Go Association.

Jiro Taniguchi was born in Tottori Prefecture and grew up in Kurayoshi, where A Distant Neighborhood is set. In the early 1990’s, Taniguchi decided he wanted to draw something other than action manga and created Aruku hito (1992; The Walking Man, 2004), a work presenting the simple explorations and observations of a man as he strolls through his neighborhood. One publisher, Shogakukan, suggested he create more works in this slice-of-life style. Taniguchi followed this work with Inu wo kau (1992; raising a dog), a collection of five short stories about his recently deceased dog. After publishing Inu wo kau, Taniguchi wondered if he could write similar stories about families. He toyed with an idea he believes everyone has considered at some point: returning to the past to revisit friends and family while retaining one’s present memories. Taniguchi noted that he wrote A Distant Neighborhood to experience what might happen if he actually did return to the past.

Blade of the Immortal was first published in Kodansha’s Afternoon magazine in 1994. It was picked up by Dark Horse Comics and released in pamphlets in 1996 and then collected into graphic novels, the first one appearing in 1997. The last pamphlet-style comic is issue 131 (November, 2007). Thereafter, Dark Horse Comics released only the graphic novel format.

The character of Black Jack originally appeared in the comic Tezuka Osamu’s One Man Theater Production, written to celebrate manga creator Osamu Tezuka’s thirtieth anniversary as a cartoonist. When readers clamored for more, Tezuka created the long-running comic Black Jack, a series of short, black-and-white stories. Published in the weekly manga magazine Shonen Champion between November 19, 1973, and October 14, 1983, the 243 stories in this fast-paced medical drama average twenty pages each and are independent, self-contained adventures with no detailed plot continuity between episodes, although there is continuity of characterization. The first 230 stories were published consistently through 1978, while the last 13 appeared sporadically over the following five years. The series was collected in book form on several occasions, with a definitive collected edition, edited and arranged by Tezuka, published beginning in 1987.

A forty-eight-page prototype of Kentaro Miura’s Berserk debuted in 1988. In November, 1990, the first volume of the manga was published in Jets Comics, an imprint of Hakusensha. After Volumes 2-4 (1991-1992), Hakusensha began serializing Berserk through its Young Animal division. As of September, 2011, Miura had completed thirty-six volumes, and the series continues to appear in individual volumes of eight to ten episodes each, published twice a year in Jets Comics collection. Young Animal releases episodes every two weeks, on the second and fourth Fridays of every month.

Osamu Tezuka began Dororo toward the end of his work on Astro Boy (1952-1968). The Dororo manga began as serialized chapters in Weekly Shonen Sunday, a boys’ manga magazine, in August of 1967 and ran into July of 1968. The final four chapters of the series were published in Boken-o, a rival shonen magazine. Dororo ended abruptly, with a final chapter noticeably shorter than previous chapters. Tezuka reportedly wanted to wrap up the series quickly so he could begin work on the science-fiction series Norman (1968; also called Prince Norman) for another publisher.