The inaugural issue of Shonen Jump went on sale in the United States in November 2002.

A steady stream of English translations of Japanese manga (comics) and magazines on anime (animated films) have made their way across the Pacific to the United States. In November 2002 Shukan Shonen Jump, a weekly magazine in Japan, made its debut in the United States as a monthly magazine with the title Shonen Jump. In the same month Shukan Comic Bunch appeared as Raijin Comics in America, where it maintained its original weekly format. And the English-language version of the anime-related magazine Newtype went on sale in October.

The manga and anime boom in America has been sparked by the popularity of such anime as Pokemon, and publishers believe that the base audience there for Japanese comics and anime-related magazines is growing. Japanese manga and anime have already been wildly successful in Southeast Asia, so many people are keenly interested to see how things will play out in the United States.

A Different Tradition
Shueisha's Shukan Shonen Jump first hit Japanese newsstands in 1968, and it has since grown to be the runaway leader, with a total of 3.4 million copies being published every week. The American version that first went on sale on November 26 is about 300 pages long and contains manga already well-known in the United States, such as Dragon Ball and Yu-Gi-Oh. The publisher has retained the Japanese style of reading, meaning that the book reads back to front and right to left. Not only is this the way the art was originally meant to be viewed, it also makes production much easier since the pictures need no arranging for the English edition. At $5 an issue, this magazine is more expensive than it is in Japan, where it costs ¥220 ($1.76 at ¥125 to the dollar). But given its size, it is still quite cheap in comparison with American comics. Some 200,000 copies of the inaugural issue were printed, and the publisher hopes to put out 1 million copies of each issue within three years' time.

In the United States comics have an image of being just for kids or geeky collectors. In Japan, though, manga sell at nearly every bookstore and newsstand and are read openly by many adults. And whereas mainstream American comics mainly stick to the traditional superhero genre, Japanese manga cover a much wider range of topics and stories. In addition, the Jump format, in which many different continuing stories are serialized in the magazine, is one that is rarely found in the United States.

But after Pokemon became a cultural phenomenon in 1999, other anime, such as Dragon Ball, were broadcast in America, and interest in the manga on which these shows were based began to grow. In Japan the usual course has been for a manga to become popular first, and then for an anime series and related merchandise to follow. In the United States, though, it has been the other way around. If the growing interest in anime is any indication, though, manga will soon become a hit in the United States as well.

Manga from Shukan Shonen Jump have already been translated and published in places like Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, and a German version of Jump, titled Banzai! went on sale in that country in the fall of 2001. The magazine has a monthly circulation of 130,000 copies, and Germans have bought a total of 5.7 million individual copies of Dragon Ball comics. And while the new American version of Jump that has just gone on sale will most likely do well, it may serve an even bigger purpose in taking Japanese manga to all corners of the world: The existence of the English-language version will make it easier to translate manga into many different languages.

Manga Summit Held in Yokohama
The Fifth Asian Manga Summit was held in Yokohama from October 12 through 14 under the sponsorship of the Japan Cartoonists Association. Approximately 15,000 people attended this three-day event, and the summit was billed as a forum where the manga artists of Asia could enjoy interchanges while extending manga culture to all of Asia and seeking out new possibilities for the art. The first of these summits was held in 1996 in Iwaki City, Fukushima Prefecture.

The event gathered together in one hall a number of popular manga artists, all wearing the same kind of happi (a traditional light coat). In one area, a team of artists worked in a glass booth so that visitors could see how they create manga. There were also a number of symposiums. One on the subject of manga and education featured a discussion by a panel composed of university professors, manga artists, and an educational commentator, which debated the role of the art in the educational process.

Comics in the Classroom
A generation ago, Japanese children were generally not allowed to bring manga to school, as comics were thought to be an impediment to learning. But attitudes have changed with the times. In 1992 a Japanese language textbook for fourth graders featured images of the robotic cat Doraemon, which has come from the future, and his human friend Nobita, two characters from the hugely popular Doraemon. In 1996 a social studies textbook for fifth graders included drawings from a manga created by Takao Yaguchi, titled Tsurikichi Sanpei (Fishing-Crazy Sanpei), as material for thinking about the environment through fishing. And manga was included for the first time in the junior-high-school Courses of Study in art. Manga may not yet have achieved full acceptance in academic circles, but it appears to be moving in that direction.