How Comics Are Made

I've been learning about how manga and anime is made in Japan, they're fascinating industries that doesn't seem to have an analogue elsewhere, at least in the West.

For manga (Japanese comics), they're mostly black and white and serialized in manga magazines that cater to a specific genre (like action or romance) [1], and when there's 12-ish chapters published, those are published as a standalone book (単行本 tankōbon) [2] which goes for ~$5 new (inside Japan). So series are published continuously, with the tankōbon lagging behind a bit. The industry is half digital and half pen-and-ink, with a lot of artists using both for different tasks. Often there's only one writer/artist who may or may not use assistants for backgrounds, shading, etc.

I highly recommend finding some episodes of Naoki Urasawa's [3] Manben [4]. He's a legendary manga artist himself, and in the show he sets up static cameras in another mangaka's workspace for a few days, then both he and the artist watch back the footage and talk about it in a casual interview.

Anime is even more fascinating, because there's so many people involved and it's still so manual / analogue. I'd encourage anyone to scan through this video explaining the timesheet process and the different redraws for every frame [5]. Surprisingly, most anime seems to be animated inside Japan in small offices, whereas most animation in the West seems to be (largely) outsourced to Korea. And not always South Korea [6]!

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_manga_magazines

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank%C5%8Dbon

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naoki_Urasawa

4. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4981726

5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr8dR_oPKbU&t=767s

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyongyang:_A_Journey_in_North_...