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
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