Professional Manga

In Japan, brand-new manga is usually released as one of several different stories in magazinesized anthologies, tailored to a specific gender, age group or subject matter. The best of these serial stories are then collected later in digest-sized books called tank–obon. These books are the most familiar format to us stateside. In fact, there’s really only two magazine anthologies published in the U.S.: Shonen Jump and its sister Shojo Beat, both from Viz. Both of these reprint only the most popular series from Japan. The vast majority of the huge U.S. manga industry consists of tanko–bon. Instead of reprints of stories that we’re already familiar ...