Every week, dozens of new manga chapters arrive
to entertain all of us consumers Ju Jutsu Kaisen, My Hero, One Piece, Hajime no Ippo I can go on and on about the manga that I fervently wait for, be it weekly or monthly But something that often goes forgotten is what goes on behind that awaited weekly release The blood, sweat, and tears that manga authors–or mangakas– put into creating a mere 20 pages. But what is just 20 pages, a couple minutes out of our day for us readers, is a week of non-stop work, little
sleep, malnutrition, and stress for the author anime like Bakuman have shed light on
the life of a mangaka in a very realistic way and the sad truth is that being a manga
writer is essentially voluntary enslavement Meeting deadlines, living up to fan expectations, company expectations, and their own expectations as writers thinking up a plot Today I will go into the sad and dark reality of being a manga author and the extreme toll it's
taken on countless authors to this day After getting picked up by a big publishing
company like Shonen Jump, though you would expect it to get easier from there, this is far
from the truth for mangakas. There are no breaks The weekly schedule for most mangakas relies on
less than six hours of sleep every day A number that reduces usually the bigger and more popular
the manga is Eichiro Oda (yes ik it's the wrong picture lol) the author of One Piece and the biggest manga in the history of the world, is reported to on average sleep only 3 hours from 2am to 5am Another source claims that these three
hours actually consist of only 30-minute naps every four hours So, why is time so limited? Well, you have to imagine creating a short story from start to finish all within one week and all of the
processes involved After turning in the previous week's chapter on sunday, the cycle begins anew. Immediately. According to an anonymous mangaka's schedule, from noon on Sunday to 5am on Tuesday it consists almost entirely of storyboarding Deciding on panels, what characters appear in each, the story of the chapter, how it ends Essentially planing out its entire structure. The only break in that long period of time is two hours for sleep and one hour for breakfast – that is as long as
you consider meetings with their editors as still work of course. And you can tell from
the rest of the week just how packed it is coloring the panels, shading, working on the final manuscript, only three hours of free time exist in the entire week excluding eating and sleeping
which are the bare necessities But again, to return to the idea of voluntary enslavement that I mentioned earlier–because it does seem rather harsh– we have to remember that it is voluntary.
Mangakas, despite the terrible schedule, do this all for a reason Yoshiro Togashi, the author
of Hunter x Hunter, which is notorious for taking long periods of hiatus, stated that, "It has come to
the point where either the story concludes first or I die before that happens. But... I do intend
to finish it" that end game looks rather bleak considering Hunter x Hunter's current hiatus chart
lines with primarily breaks for the past years but we can never underestimate the passion of a mangaka Likewise, Oda told his current editor when he first joined to, "Die for One Piece" Mangakas are extremely dedicated to their craft Of course sleep deprivation isn't the
only cost of being a mangaka either Sitting in a chair for so long working on manga leads to numerous health hazards, they can develop diabetes, despite almost all mangakas being very skinny and almost frail Tendinitis can develop in their hands from drawing so long Something that is so common amongst mangakas that it isn't even an expectation that they'll get it
they just accept it as a way of life One of the members of Clamp, a female mangaka collective
who created Card Captor Sakura among other names, suffered from lumbar compression fracture in
2011 because she spent too many hours hunched over her chair and straining her back drawing Tagashi, the author of Hunter x Hunter also deals with aggravated back pain that prevents him
from consistently putting out chapters Other series like Vagabond and Berserk, despite being
some of the most highly rated manga of all time also suffered an early fate due to health concerns
of the authors This culture of overworking yourself isn't exclusive to mangakas however,
as the concept of Karoshi, "Death by Overwork" is very prevalent across all of japan. In 2016,
it was estimated that one in five workers were at risk of Karoshi This is so serious of an
issue in the country in fact, that the government passed a reform bill in 2018 that limited
overtime and fined violators for overworking Japan is a very collectivism-oriented country,
prioritizing their group's success over individual Kona Shiomachi made an illustration in response
to the 2015 death of an employee due to Karoshi the key line being, "If I move one step further
in front of the train, I wouldn't have to go to work tomorrow" The idea of Karoshi is reflected
in people dedicating themselves to their work and employers. To an extent that is often not
just prioritizing group success over individual but it comes at the cost of individual health
as well, be it physical or just mental well-being Kishimoto Masashi the creator of Naruto, while
the series was still being serialized never had the time to take his wife on a honeymoon despite
being married for 15 years Tite Kubo, the author of Bleach, once spoke in an interview at San Diego Comic-Con on how his appearance at Comic-Con was far from a vacation, as he had to draw any chapters he missed before he went on the trip Which considering the anonymous typical schedule
for our mangaka that we looked at earlier I have no idea how he was able to fit it all in,
just another testament to a mangaka's dedication And of course these problems exist
on the condition that the mangaka does make it Their manga makes it into Shonen
Jump, or another renowned publisher, and they get popular Because if they don't get popular
enough then they can't afford assistants, a valuable asset for any manga writer and have to
do all of the work themselves, filling in lines backgrounds, shading, all of it on their own. The
pay is also nearly criminal, the assistant to the writer of Prince of Tennis gave the figure at
about $100 per page, and though that could mean about $8000 per
month for a weekly author producing 20 pages a week, this is before taxes and hiring assistants
which will of course detract heavily from it Though it isn't necessarily terrible, relative
to the insane schedule they have and overwork it is certainly not comparatively enough, getting
an anime adaptation can also drastically improve the exposure and popularity of the manga, but then
as we see with one piece for example it is still far from easy Oda (wrong pic again my b) is one of the most hard-working
and overworked by extent mangakas out there No matter how big your manga, is it
is always rigorous and constant work And this all continues until your series finishes
whether it is of your own accord or not because it isn't just as simple as writing a chapter
of one big book, but instead creating a new story every week that has to attract consistent
attention and remain exciting and interesting Otherwise if the fans don't like
it, the company is quick to drop you after all there's no shortage of new manga
coming out in Japan they can always get someone else On the other hand, in anime like
Bakuman we saw how the company pressured the mangaka to continue the series despite the author
feeling like it reached its natural end already Sometimes companies will do this because the manga
is so popular that they can't afford to lose it which means that sometimes even the author of
the series themselves don't have full control over their own story However, this isn't a super
common occurrence we see authors like Tite Kubo who decided himself that he would draw Bleach
to the conclusion he wanted despite health concerns and critiques from the editors, which
is again another reminder that this "enslavement" is still voluntary at the end of the day When you look at everything put together, it's a rather unavoidable problem. Be it due to collectivist
cultural standards, Karoshi, meeting deadlines or just the mangaka's own desire to finish what
they started, the process of creating manga is difficult to say the least. We can only hope as
readers that the reward they get from working creating something that resonates with us fans
and succeeds is enough for them Manga is truly the life work of anyone creating it, and so we do have
to be grateful for everything they've done for us What do you guys think of all
this? Leave a comment down below As always, this has been the Anime Culture
Corner. I hope you enjoyed the video don't forget to like and subscribe for future
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