Forum - View topicMeeting chief editors from Shueisha, what should I ask?
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Aizen
 Posts: 28 |
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I'm on my college's Japan summer program and a friend of our teacher was able to get us a meeting with the chief editors of Shounen Jump Japan and Ribbon. She also said that we'll be able to ask them questions, but I'm at a loss as to what to ask. We go there this Tuesday, so I was wondering if people could share some ideas. I dont know how many we'll get to ask, or for how long, but I just wanted to have at least something going in. Anything would be appreciated.
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Truered
 Posts: 515 Location: Uni |
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How do you decide what is a marketable idea/story?
Difficulty/schedule of producing magazine? Do potential manga artist writers/artist (or both) contact them, or do they search for the best? Revenue related questions? What has been their personal favorite story? Do they themselves actually enjoy manga? Jeez it's difficult coming up with questions and I'm sitting here relaxing and flicking through the internets. |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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For both:
Due to low birth rate and increasing forms of attractions (video games and MMORPG, etc.), while Shonen Jump is still the most popular manga magazine in Japan (dormcat's note: Ribon is taking a beating right now), the sale numbers of manga magazines have reached an all-time low. Do you think if it's possible to return to the glory days of 1990s, when the weekly sale of Shonen Jump was over six million copies? If not, what would you do to keep those magazines running? For Ribon: In the past few years, many popular manga-ka have "graduated" from Ribon and end up in other manga magazines in Shueisha. Meanwhile, new titles serialized in Ribon have a significant younger target audience. What had made Ribon, a magazine running for over 50 years, to make such a change (although I do know one reason was the competition from Ciao of Shogakukan -- dormcat)? How would this path affect Ribon and the entire shojo manga market in a whole? A friendly reminder: NEVER mention that you've collected your background information about Shonen Jump, Ribon, or anything about Shueisha and its publications, from the Internet. Shueisha's executives HATE that.
I'm sure he'll tell you that everything he could say was already stated in their public annual financial reports. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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A question about how much influence editors and the magazine have over the content/story of a series would be interesting, ie can they make a mangaka draw a story out for longer if it's really popular.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Well, even I can answer that with just two words: Dragon Ball. |
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marie-antoinette
Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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Maybe ask in more general terms then. I'm interesting in how much is purely the mangaka and how much would be done in collaboration. |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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Do you choose a manga based on the story, or the writer's personality, or writing style? Would probably be something that I would ask.
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Aizen
Posts: 28 |
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So today I actually went there with the other people on my summer program and it was a lot of fun. We got to see the editing rooms of Weekly Shonen Jump and Cookie (the magazine Nana runs in), and they gave us free volumes of the US versions of some Shonen Jump titles.
But regardless, I'll post some answers they gave. In response to how they choose a new title or artist, they essentially said it was personal preference. The Shonen Jump editor gets about 150 submissions a month from people who want to be in the magazine, and then he, and others, just pick things they like and discuss. In response to editors influence, they said it varies but is generally low. If an artist is new, they will help them out more, and suggest plot ideas or help them develop their own, but as the artist grows more experienced, editors take more of a backseat approach. Their youngest artist was 14 years old, so they had to give her more guidance in the begining. I also asked if they often ask an artist to continue a manga despite what the artist may prefer. The editor of Cookie said that, of course he'd like for Nana to continue forever, but he has never asked and artist to continue if that is not what they wish to do. I also asked what they thought about scanlations and the like. Of course ideally people would buy their manga, but the editor of Jump said he can't really hate the people who are doing the scanlations, as they are still fans of the series. The thing he doesn't like is that because there are so many scanlators, they can give many different translations, and he can't assure the quality of all of those, and doesn't like the fact that they might give off an impression of a series that he does not want to give. I asked about fanfiction, and just what he thought. He said that he thinks it's great that people enjoy a series enough to create their own stories with it. However he says the people he can't forgive are the people who make doujinshi and then use it for profit. He feels that that is just money driven and does not really have the essence of fandom in it. I'm gonna assume he'd be fine with them being free, but I don't want to put words in his mouth. He also talked about editing in manga and anime, and how when they first started bringing stuff over, they were surprised by how harsh censorship is in the US in comparison to Japan. He said that the first time Dragonball was in the US, they had to draw the pants onto little Goku when he was without them, so as to not upset the censors. However, and he's relating this to the current US Jump and it's edits, once the circulation is large enough (right now, US Jump is apparently 300,000 and he wants to reach 1 million) it'll be so popular that they won't really have to worry about editing since people will be reading it anyway. So that with popularity, the magazine, like Goku as time went on, will become pants less. Finally he said that while he did have to go through a lot of manga, he particularly liked Rouroni Kenshin. He probably said more but that's about all I can think of. So yeah, hope some people will find this interesting. |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Geh, if I knew you'd visit Cookie then I'd give completely different questions. |
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Andrue
Posts: 79 |
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ask them if you can have any cardboard cut outs of goku or luffy. or even ichigo.
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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Thanks for passing along the info, I find the comments on scanlators kinda surprising, altho I wonder how much of that is "diplomacy". This comment surprised me though:
I'm kind of impressed there's someone that young producing work for them. |
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