This is a day in the life of a mangaka
This is Reiji Miyajima
34 year old manga creator
also known in Japanese as a mangaka living in Tokyo
and this is how he starts his day
He has a wife and kids but they don't stay with him in this apartment
as he rents this place out as a separate office
So he can focus on creating manga
as sometimes he requires complete silence to work
Plus he sometimes uses this office apartment
as a place to sleep when working late
like last night
By design his apartment office is only a short walk away from his home studio
It's typical for mangaka in Japan to work from their home
In Reiji's case
The first floor of his home is used for the office while the upper floors are for family use
So firstly in the morning, he always cleans the first floor bathroom since his home is also used as an office
It's important for him to provide a clean toilet or his assistants
All right, so it's about 6 o'clock in the morning and he's about to come through into the office
Good morning
You're up so early
What time did you sleep last night?
So this is a studio office all the extra desks are assigned to his assistants who'll be arriving later today
He built this house about five years ago and had this area designed specifically for his manga studio
It's a bit nicer and more modern compared to your stereotypical mangaka studio in Japan
So he creates the manga called
Kanojo Okarishimasu
which translates to renting a girlfriend
popular love-comedy rensai in a japanese weekly shounen magazines since 2017
Rensai means it's been turn into a comic series in partnership with the publisher
Most of all mangaka (?) are Rensai satus as it signifies that the manga is popular enough for a weekly mass audience
But as soon as a manga is no longer popular
Publishers will usually cancel the series so manga can have the pressure to continue to produce and deliver high quality manga every week
Today's Wednesday
And it's a critical part of the weekly publishing schedule as reiji's last full day before he needs to submit a genko
Which in Japanese means a final completed draft of the weekly manga to his publisher Kodansha
It's also launch day for his latest manga in the Weekly Shonen magazine
So in the morning
He usually draws a colored illustration to post on his Twitter account to promote the new release
you draw everything digitally?
I heard that many Mangaka have trouble making their weekly deadline, especially paper-based ones
But you seem so calm today, So that must make you that fastest mangaka in Japan right?
So did you study how to draw?
So he did learn in school
But he believes he learned more and more as he worked with various publishing editors overtime
And what was your first paid job and how much was it?
So he says the manga was about 55 pages with a colored title page, nine thousand yen per page
Which is about 82 dollars and the color title page was about double that
Which means he got about four thousand six hundred and seventy five dollars
That's pretty good for his first paid job, for those of you who aren't familiar with manga
Let me explain how a manga is created
Mangaka start by creating a rough sketch called Ne-Mu
which is reviewed by editors from the publishing company who review the sketch in red
Reiji told me that the ne-mu process takes the most time as it requires about four to five revisions
once editor satisfied with a sketch, a mangaka draws a final draft called genko inking the sketch now done digitally
and meticulously adding tones and filling drawings in black
So this is pretty much Reiji's morning, he gets here at 6:00 and he's just pretty much the drawers all morning
Very very simple, but it takes a lot of dedication and I think the staff doesn't come in until 10:00
So I guess we'll just wait for them to arrive.
So while he's working on his manga, let's go explore a little bit
So just right out to the office it looks like he has this like kind of little workout in gym area
It has a bicycle and he even has an exercise ball
So on the other side, what's also pretty cool is that he has a full-on wall as a chalk board if you go
On this side is a chalk board
And look he even has a slippers for he's assistants
And I think just over here there's another room
Let's go see what's inside
So this area it looks like another office space
just to the right of me here
there's a huge drawing pad
and you have all of his books behind me
Maybe let's get him to come inside here and explain a little bit more
Reiji what's that?
Oh, I see he used actual models for his drawings, so can I ask you a favor?
Can I draw one line in the manga?
So he's gonna let me draw right now. Like he just gave me the pen
All right, so I guess it's not that hard to be a mangaka, so easy right?
Wow you guys my line will be an episode 118 page 13, so check it out
There's the first assistant
So how long have you been an assistant?
And why are you wearing the same shirt?
Oh and there's another one
Hey, did you hear the assistant call Reiji sensei which means teacher in Japanese?
It's typical for our assistants and editors to call professional mangaka sensei
In Japan there are certain jobs that are given the title sensei other than teachers like lawyers doctors
governors and mangaka as a way to show respect
Now that everyone's here he instructs the each person on what to do one by one and they share all the drafts in Dropbox
Which means that reiji rarely needs to get out of his seat to work with his assistance
So it usually has four to five assistants come in every Wednesday, but some mangaka hire ten assistants on a shift basis
It really depends though on each mangaka and how they like to run their studio
It's also interesting that each of them using different drawing tools
I guess it really depends on each Mangaka
And what makes them feel comfortable when they draw
did you work as an assistant back in the day?
So looks like all four staff have already arrived
while their here
Let's ask them a few questions to see how their jobs are like
How long have you been working here?
How did you find this job?
How about you?
How did you find this job?
Do you have rensai?
So when I'm finding what's different than most offices is that they actually
Like talk of a lot of the time while they're working for some people that may be the perfect job
So reiji's two male assistants have actually got the rensai
And usually when this happens assistants quit to start off on their own
But both have decided to continue to work with Reiji
Which says a lot, but let's see is Reiji a good boss?
Yay, finally
Lunchtime he often goes to lunch with his assistants
But since it's a nice day, he's gonna take his dog for a walk in the park while also grabbing a small lunch
So lunch hasn't finished yet
They still have about 10 to 15 minutes before lunch is over and it looks like all of them are back here
They're using their own free time to work on their own manga
So, what are you working on now?
I think it's like just a little after one they're pretty much gonna be doing this the rest of the day
And took us 6 o'clock so...
So let me just take a little bit of time and explain how kind of this whole mangaka thing works
Since his manga appears in a weekly magazine
He has a one-week production cycle
He meets publishers decide the plot on Monday
works on the final sketch on Tuesday
Finishes the genko final draft with his assistants on Wednesday
and from Thursday through Sunday
He worked on drafting and creating the story for the next ne-mu
as well as gathering information
Like taking photos for Backgrounds
and then back to the publisher meeting on Monday
Okay, That was the first time he moved from his desk and during work hours
You just witness the biggest action scene at a mangaka
So what do you advise people to do who want to become a mangaka?
He says that the manga industry is short with assistants
So if artists have a set of skills, maybe that person can contact the publisher or mangaka directly for a job
He thinks is important to keep trying to submit your manga to publishers
or other manga websites like pixiv
and also to find your own unique strengths
That can compete with existing popular mangaka
Look, he uses women's magazines as a reference for female characters
And he even pulls out his heroine Miso Haru's outfit from the fashion magazine (?)
Interesting
So we're reaching the end of the day and it looks like the manga actually starting to come together
You can see that the pictures are starting to get filled out
You can see the tone so they have to actually finish all of it today and send it to the publisher
Have you and your assistants finished the genko?
I mean all of it?
Reiji usually goes straight to dinner with the staff after work
But today he has an irregular meeting with his editors
So he's joining a bit afterwards
So instead of having the weekly meeting at the office
Reiji prefers to meet with a publisher at an Izakaya Restaurant
So they can heat and drink while they discuss the next episode
By the way, Reiji is sitting at the furthest location from the door
Which is called Kamiza in japanese
It's a top seat within the room meaning the seat of Honor
and the seat closest to the door is called Shimoza
Which is the lowest seat
It date's back to the samurai days when there would be attackers came through the door
Usually the first person killed would be the person closes the door with their back turned
In Japanese business culture people still decide where to sit and stand
Based on this seating rule
And the Kamiza and Shimoza also apply to car seats and elevators as well
Nice Reiji is finally finished with the publisher meeting and is now joining dinner with his assistants
Gathering itself it's called Uchiage in japanese
which means a drink and celebrate an event in their case the finishing of this week's episode
All right
So that's the Day of life of a Japanese mangaka
What did you guys think?
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I'll leave that in the description
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