Factbook

A Dynamic Compendium of Interesting Japanese Literary and Publishing Facts
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    • manga

    Kitazawa Rakuten created Japan’s ‘first serialised comic’ in the 1890s[UPDATED: 3-11-2026]

    Kitazawa Rakuten (1876-1955) created Japan’s ‘first serialised comic’ in the 1890s for Box of Curios, a paper set up by the Australian political cartoonist and printer Frank Arthur Nankivell (1869-1956).

    Rakuten joined the Tokyo-based English language publication, Box of Curios, in 1895, and is said to have been the first professional Japanese cartoonist in Japan, as well as the very first to use the term ‘manga’ in its modern sense.

    That said, many have contributed to Japan’s long history of visual storytelling and some experts like to highlight the links back to famous Japanese woodblock artists, such as Santo Kyoden (1761-1816) and Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), who both knew and used the term manga.

    They are, however, thought to have used the word manga to mean drawing, casually and spontaneously, according to experts such as Ryoko Matsuba, and not in the way the word manga is used today, to describe Japanese-style visual storytelling, even if their artwork has indirectly inspired many manga artists and storytellers.

    Kitazawa Rakuten was actually the pen name of Yusuji Kitazawa, an artist known today for both his nihonga and manga art. 

    Interestingly, Rakuten shares his name, written using the same letters, with Rakuten one of Japan’s largest Internet companies founded much later in 1997. The name, Rakuten, literally means happy heavens, and is often said to mean optimism.

    Amongst his many creative pursuits, Rakuten, the artist, launched his own publication, called Tokyo Puck, named after Puck, America’s first commercially successful humour magazine, which Nankivell contributed to after he moved to the United States from Japan.

    Rakuten is also remembered for creating an early female character called Haneko Tonda, Hopping-Jumping Girl in 1928, about a tomboyish schoolgirl, as well as Teino Nukesaku, Foolish Wooden-Head, a male character.

    Jiji Manga, a Sunday colour supplement included in the newspaper Jiji Shimpo, launched by Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835-1901), was one of the first publications in Japan to use the word manga in its title.  It was launched in 1902.

    Rakuten contributed to this publication and copies of his work included in Jiji Manga are now part of The British Museum’s collection in London, highlighting the importance of his contribution to publishing and manga, as well as the growing interest outside Japan in manga amongst academics and curators, as well as fans.

    This goes some way in explaining Rakuten’s moniker as the Grandfather of Japanese manga, which has itself been dubbed the visual lingua franca of Japan.

    Rakuten, the company, is the owner of Kobo one of the world’s leading digital reading devices and the local competitor to Amazon in Japan and is also very much involved in publishing innovation and new forms of communication and storytelling like its cartoonist forbearer and namesake.

    Kitazawa Rakuten created Japan’s ‘first serialised comic’ in the 1890s Posted by Richard Nathan
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    Japanese Yellow Books, Kibyoshi, are considered the world’s first adult comic books[UPDATED: 8-4-2022]

    Some historians believe that Kibyoshi, Yellow Books, which peaked, as a publishing genre between 1775 and 1806 in Japan, during the nation’s Edo period (1603-1868), were Japan’s and perhaps also the world’s first major comic book genre targeting adult readers. 

    Often written by authors and woodblock artists still famous today such as Santo Kyoden (1761-1816) whose most famous Kibyoshi title is Playboy, Roasted à la Edo, Edo umare uwaki no kabayaki, first published in 1875.

    These illustrated books typically consisted of about 10-30 pages per issue, with back and white interior pages, and can be identified by their yellow covers, hence their name. Hundreds were published and were distributed in Edo, Japan’s capital city at the time, which is now known as Tokyo, and were mostly considered as pulp fiction.

    One highly successful author of Kibyoshi, Jippensha Ikku (1765-1831), became Japan’s first individual to have sufficient publishing success that he could live off royalties alone.

    The Harvard-Yenching Library, at Harvard University has a collection of Kibyoshi, which are sometimes referred to as ‘the manga of the floating world’ and the progenitor of modern manga and perhaps also graphic novels.

    In parallel with the international success of manga, academic interest has grown in these genres of Japanese books, which means they are no longer brushed off as mere pulp fiction with limited literary or historical value.

    Japanese Yellow Books, Kibyoshi, are considered the world’s first adult comic books Posted by Richard Nathan
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    The world’s bestselling comic book series by a single author is ‘One Piece’ a Japanese manga[UPDATED: 6-3-2021]

    According to The Guinness Book of Records, Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece sold 320,866,000 units worldwide between its launch in 1997 and 2015 when it was first listed by Guinness as a record breaking series.

    One Piece, which is an on-going series that still tops the bestseller lists in Japan, was initially launched by the Japanese publisher Shueisha in its weekly magazine Shonen Jump in July 1997.

    Since its magazine launch One Piece, now the world’s bestselling manga, has also been published in book format in more than 92 tanko-bon single hardback volumes.

    The pirate adventure, One Piece, which features a young pirate Monkey D. Luffy fighting the World Government, is now what industry observers call an international media franchise, and includes anime spin-offs and much more.

    One Piece has also had a huge cultural impact in Japan and outside the nation that has led, for instance, to some of Japan’s most interesting authors, such as Fuminori Nakamura, penning essays about the series and its cultural impact, as well as academic papers such as Pirates, Justice and Global Order in the Anime One Piece.

    The world’s bestselling comic book series by a single author is ‘One Piece’ a Japanese manga Posted by Richard Nathan
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    Manga magazines and books generate more than half of all publishing revenues in Japan[UPDATED: 6-2-2021]

    According to The All Japan Magazine and Book Publisher’s and Editor’s Association (AJPEA) manga magazines and books generate more than half of all publishing revenues, which are estimated at 1.4 trillion yen (US$14 billion), in Japan.

    Manga magazines and books generate more than half of all publishing revenues in Japan Posted by Richard Nathan