Materials and Processes

There are many different ways for an illustrator to become a mangaka. But it definitely is not an easy task. Thousands of artists submit their work to manga publishing studios, so getting your work looked at is very hard, especially if you have no connections in the field (Chillal, 2015).

Some ways that many illustrators choose for the start of their career are: attending a manga school, becoming a mangaka assistant, publishing their work online to gain an audience, submitting their work for different competitions, attending anime and manga panels and conventions, or going for an interview in manga studio or a publishing agency (Indeed Editorial Team, 2023). Most of these opportunities allow illustrators to gain knowledge and practice before creating and trying to publish their work. It's possible to face rejection for several years from a publishing company before the first chapter finally goes for print (Chillal, 2015).

Once a manga artist's work gets published in a weekly magazine and gains enough recognition, meaning they get paid more money, the artist gets to choose whether to work with an editor and assistants, or work completely independently. This decision completely relies on how fast the mangaka can produce a certain amount of work to be able to meet the deadlines (Chillal, 2015).

Manga can be drawn in two main ways: traditional and digital. Traditional manga drawing process is more difficult and time consuming, since fixing accidental mistakes on paper is much more difficult than pressing the undo button when working digitally. Traditional drawing requires storage and drying space for completed pages, different pencils for sketching, inks, pens, brushes and markers, as well as all kinds of screentones. Working digitally however requires less space and only the appropriate hardware and software for drawing (Character, 2021). Digital illustrations also don't need to be scanned in for later print, which takes one step out of the pre printing process.

*The conversation displayed on the right is a conversation the main character of the movie "Character" (2021), Yamashiro Keigo, has with his publishing agent in the begining of the movie.