Give it to me straight. How hard is it to learn Japanese, and to becoming a professional mangaka, serialized in a weekly or monthly magazine?
you don't need to know japanese and you don't need to be able to draw good
>>7197103>how hard is itextremely. if you try, you will in all likelihood fail.
>>7197103>To learn Japanese to survive in JapanEasy if you're not a lazy shit>To learn Japanese well enough to write well enough that you don't sound like an IndianVery difficult>Become a mangakaAlready very difficult, you have to learn to both draw well and write well>Become serialisedExtremely difficult, it's both a very competitive market and the Japanese don't like foreigners
>>7197107How about becoming a professional animator? I see teenagers on Twitter doing that. Their Japanese can't be that good, right? Then all I would have to focus on was drawing well, animating well, and knowing some Japanese?
>>7197103you don't even have the perseverance to grind fundies and git gud now, what makes you think you have what it takes to endure gruelling overworking culture in their industry?
>>7197115They have armies of generic animators from bordering regions in Korea and China. All working like mules in a sweatshop, wagecucks. Why would they hire daydreaming special snowflake from all the way wherever you're from? Who the fuck do you think you are?The fucking saddest irony is, even some 10 year old autists are already making money off their Youtube or Fiverr career doing autistic Roblox/Minecraft shit, fucking brainrot shit like Skibidi. So why not be that autistic 20, heck 30-40 year old autist, pandering and catering for these kids closer to home instead? Go make your own series of autistic FNAF/Roblox/Minecraft/SCP/Brony/Gacha/Skibidi shit and rake in all that support from 10 year old toddlers, there's bound to be 'whales' using their mom's credit card to pay you big money to produce custom shit for them.
>>7197103Why would you ever want to do that?
>>7197103How many baka gaijins do you think currently have or have had an ongoing serialization in a prominent manga magazine in the past 20 years?I've heard some Koreans and Chinese have managed but I'm assuming you're white or brown so forget about it
>>7197103Took me 2 weeks to remember the hiragana, there's Kanji and katakana. It's one of the hardest languages.
>>7197172I've already been studying Japanese for a year and can read most novels, visual novels, and understand most of youtube, and most animes. I'm going to start hiring an italki tutor soon and will have them correct the serifu on my nemu.I feel like a mangaka career is only 1-2 years away from me at this point, but maybe I'm being delusional. Maybe the "intermediate plateau" is a lot more severe than I think
>>7197106this if you aren't ballsy enough to power through after hearing that then you're ngmi
>>7197103Nigga if you want to make a manga and get serialized just make a Twitter account and post your shit if it's good people will flock to it and you will get offers from publisher
>>7197103It's possible but incredibly hard. A guy from Spain works in Japanese manga to this day.
What's much harder than learning japanese is learning good enough taste in art to not be a weeb idolizing japanese art to a weird degree like you are.
>>7197225>It's possible but incredibly hard.Are you actually sure about that? Maybe it's the same difficulty as any other writing career, given you already know the language. Screenwriters don't usually break into hollywood until their 30's or 40's. Lots of professional, published novelists never seem to make a living solely from writing. their royalties just don't bring in enough.Manga, on the otherhand, seems way different. Given that you know the language, and can draw, it seems like even very mediocre stories sell well. Lots of mangaka in Japan give the following advice: forget about learning to write. Just learn to draw. Because if you can draw well, you can just work with your editor and they'll make your drawings into a good story. idk
>>7197103you can learn their language, but without living there, you will never learn their culture. you'd have to relearn societal norms to have your manga fit in, learn their language, learn to draw better than average, be able to write something that either isn't complete trash or is at least competent in maintaining a healthy fanbase, and even then you'd have to compete with stuff like JJK, Boruto, etc.let me make it easy for you, how many japanese natives who know the language, the culture, how to write, how to draw, and have the same stupid dream as you, do you think there are out there right now applying to be in that magazine?want me to make it even easier? it's never gonna happen for you. not this way. the only way i can see your manga making it is if you are a great artist or know one, great storyteller or know one, and even then, you'd have to get lucky enough to be found by the internet en masse. cuz it ain't gonna happen in your favorite magazine, if you have any chance at all, it will be through posting online.i would bet you haven't even posted your works online yet out of some dogshit fear that someone will steal your magnum opus out from under you. it's a lie. no one's stealing your shit and you know it. you just know deep down that it's a waste of time to draw all that stuff - not because you can't draw or write - but because you don't WANT to.what you want is to receive the rewards or being a huge mangaka without putting in the effort first. you need more proof? look at the fact that you're wasting time asking questions that - judging by picrel - you KNOW the answer to. you just don't want to accept it. even when this is all said and done, and everyone's told you to stop wasting time and go spend your time on something productive like learning to draw instead, you're STILL not gonna draw your comic. you're STILL gonna sit there dreaming. here's something people don't tell you about dreaming - eventually, you gotta wake up.
>>7197249nothing you said applies to me, because unlike 99.999% of people I'm actually serious about manga thank god
>>7197225That guy doesn't even know the language. He simply has great work ethic from working as an inker for western comics
>>7197254delusion it is then. sad. enjoy your dreaming though.if what i said >>7197249 does reach anyone who is actually serious and not a fucking 12 year old (who's just out here daydreaming about all the interviews he'll get or what jrock band will do the anime op for his "guaranteed-success"), do yourself a favor. stop frequenting here (especially with self-pity bullshit) and start putting that effort into drawing and learning to write.if you think you're good enough, start publishing your work. remember that not every artist starts with a bang. the guy behind MHA wrote stuff before that got rejected and had next to no fanbase, MHA is what blew up for him and like it or hate it, it's massively successful, popular, and put all his works on the map for many who previously didn't know him at all.same thing happened with the mangaka behind Prison School aka Kangoku Gakuen, but that fucking retard threw it away by rushing a shit ending to move on to other projects, which wound up backfiring when people who were fans turned into people who hate him so passionately for ruining a favorite manga of theirs due to selfish wants, that they refuse to read his new works. Prison School literallly the GoT of the manga world.
>>7197308>Prison School literallly the GoT of the manga world.if you stopped thinking with your dick maybe you'd have a better chance of making it
>>7197313I didn't mean in story quality, I meant in how it failed. GoT guys intentionally rushed a shit final season as well, despite HBO offering them contracts and cash to fund multiple more seasons, all so they could work on another project (I think it was something big like star wars or marvel), and it backfired massively. in their case, fans hated GoT final season so much, they lost the contract for the future project and are now hated by an entire fanbase. also GoT is basically dead thanks to them.
>>7197143You don't know what you're talking about and should have refrained from replying to that other anon.
>>7197200how many hours a day do you study
>>7197348I read for 3 hours, then listen for 3 hours, and some Anki and internal monologuing (for when I have no conversation partners available)
>>7197376you're a NEET?
>>7197395問題がありますか?
日本語の言葉を覚えているはめっちゃ簡単な活動である。ただし、楽しんでいる場合に限ります
>>7197103Just pull a Kooleen and pretend to be good. Who cares about details and the correct skin color anyway?
I learned Japanese in a few months. What are you, a baka?!
>>7197433いえ、ただの問いです。
>>7197103Impossible. There are no white boy mangaka that you see in Jump or anywhere for that matter in Japan. You will never learn Japanese for starters, but even then, Japan is full of aspiring mangaka, all way better than you, that are not able to get published. Its a competitive and saturated market over there, and that's not even considering the fact that you're not even Japanese, you don't live in Japan so you can't make arrangements with anyone for your work to be published there, and lets face it, your art is probably shit. Its definitely shit compared to pro mangaka, and you will probably sooner kill yourself than release engaging manga with good art weekly or monthly.You will never do this.
>>7197103Why would you spill blood to enter an infinitely small market? Do you realize Japanese people aren’t having kids? Very soon Japan will have less and less readers for their content domestically. Oh, you want a world wide appeal? Publish in your own country. Oh, you want animation? If good, it’ll get animation. Or make it yourself. Anything else is just cope.
>>7198551There are no white boys in Jump because white boys can't jump, remember?
>>7198551yeah, I'm beginning to feel like it's impossible.
>>7197103Why do you need your comic to be japanese?
>>7198551A true westaboo wouldn't use a body pillow
>>7197143>esl giving advicethink about your own problems before trying to give anyone else advice
>>7198551>You will never learn Japanese for starterslearning a language is the easiest step. drawing and writing are much harder skills to learn, imo
Very hard, you can do it but you will probably never work for a big magazine, most non japanese mangaka do straight to tankobon short stuff or very short series, its easier becoming an animator thanks to twitter but the pay is shit (it can get better if you have experience but not so much)
>>7197103Why would anybody here know how to answer any of this? Are you really this fucking retarded LMAO?
>>7197103A big nosed italian man did it while on that Terrace House showhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppe_(artist)
>>7201426Being ESL is a badge of honor. Being not a JSL, but an aspiring JSL is just pathetic.
>>7198551I don't even get that need to get published by someone in Japan, if your shit is good just post it on Twitter and open a patron. That's a million times more achievable than becoming a fucking mangaka lmao
>>7204302>just post it on Twitter and open a patronname a single successful mangaka who's making a living that way. porn doesn't count
>>7197103just make a webcomic
>>7197433You're a worm with free time, go fuck yourself scumbag
Not even experience Mangakas are having it good, especially those in Shonen Jump.
>>7197103What's wrong with starting a webcomic?
>>7205265You sure? Hiro Mashima once serialized 3 series at once, with free time to play video games and stuff. Naoki Urasawa, Akiko Higashimura, lots of mangaka have serialized several series at once.
>>7204367Just look at patron and how many artists have a webcomic on their who make a decent chunk of money
>>7197103If you're a good illustrator with japanese work ethic you could probably make it into one of the smaller serials. There are tons that most people outside of japan don't even know about, which speaks for how limited the popularity of their entries are. Weekly Jump is uniquely competitive because it's the most popular serial by miles and miles.
>>7205265Weekly shounen jump is literally the most popular magazine in japan. It sells over a million physical copies every week, not even including the millions of readers who read the individual series on their site and app. For reference, something like 60 million comics were shipped to retailers (not even sold) in the US in 2020. Jump by itself sells more than that to actual readers. There are tons of other manga publications that don't have that kind of sales pressure, like Weekly Young Jump, Jump Giga, Dragon Age Monthly, Young Champion, Young Champion Retsu, Comic Ryu, etc.
>>7197103>How hard is it to learn JapaneseDunno. Haven't done it.>and to becoming a professional mangaka,Easier than you'd think.>serialized in a weekly or monthly magazine?Easier than you'd think... or not. Getting serialized, not that hard, there's plenty of publications that will try out anything that seems like it might have potential. There's still SOME kind of standard, but they're probably way lower than you're thinking.Now getting that serialization and actually KEEPING it is the hard part. Easily the hardest part. Keeping up with a deadline (even a monthly manga's deadline is extremely tight) over months/years without the writing and art falling apart takes a real trooper. And to do that while probably making something that you probably don't actually want to make, because what you actually want to make would undoubtedly sell like complete shit makes it that much worse. And in the meanwhile you can crush all of that but if it just happens to not sell because predicting what an audience responds to is a complete crapshoot so your serial could end just for not selling.It's probably one of the more stressful jobs out there, even for japanese who don't need to worry about the language/culture thing on top.t. author currently getting published in an (ero)manga magazine.>>7197200持ち込み sooner rather than later. Your japanese is already good enough for an editor to understand your intent and that's sufficient for now. What's more important than mastery of the language is your skill in actually making manga. You could make a completely silent manga if you want, japanese is of secondary importance. Get a professional editor's eyes on your work sooner rather than later.>>7197212Not how it works, lmao. You have to actually apply if you want publishers to look at it. Luckily said publishers do actually want you to apply, and will look at it even if it sucks.
>>7197249Your manga doesn't need to fit in, actually. In fact it's beneficial for your work to stand out, and many many japanese authors try their very best to do just that. Arguably the most it needs to do is be on-brand for the magazine, but not even that is a guarantee. You are right about this >>7197308 though. OP needs to get his ass off 4chan and get to work if he wants to actually succeed.>>7198551>There are no white boy mangaka that you see in Jump or anywhere for that matter in Japan.Of course not. I'm not in japan.>you don't live in Japan so you can't make arrangements with anyone for your work to be published thereGood thing we have the internet, no?>>7205296>heh, one guy who hires an entire room full of assistants makes it look easy, therefore it's actually not hard at allYou'll probably never find out just how good those guys are at what they do to make it look so easy.
>>7205546>>7205557Eromanga sensei always saving the day with his sage advice. arigatou
>>7205546>>7205557pyw with your authorship
>>7198551Funnily enough, japanese forums right now are kinda rolling with a conspiracy theory about how the industry is secretly hiring chinese and korean authors and making them pretend to be japanese for cheap profit, this being separate from the actual foreign artists already working on anime.Apparently, they don't like when gaijin are making the manga or light novels directly.
>>7205602they should be legitimately more worried about publishers using ai generation to make manga / books. Unlike the rest of the free world, the Japanese government is actually encouraging that slop.
>>7205602What else to expect from a xenophobic shithole where “fuck you ive got mine” was elevated to societal behaviour. Sprinkle in unsustainable labour market and enormous pressure to conform and shut your mouth no wonder some people go off the rails and cook up retarded scenarios.
>>7205607It's strange how the japanese bitch and moan about how their stuff has to be made by japanese workers, and yet they don't give a fuck when those very same workers die from overwork. Fucking insane.
>>7205620also funny how 95% of their manga are just soft-core porn
>>7205585https://www.dlsite.com/books/work/=/product_id/BJ01389272.html
>>7197103>How hard is it to learn JapaneseIt's not hard, just takes time.If you want to learn Japanese, read the /jp/ guide https://tatsumoto.neocities.org/
>>7205527All of the webcomic patreons i've come across make like 5 dollars a month
>>7205631>also funny how 95% of their manga are just soft-core pornAnd that's supposed to be a bad thing? lmao
>>7205602ITT expat living in Japan (military)I mean my fav coom artist is a Naturalized Chinese woman Sayori. Many of the "new" artists aren't muh pure "Yamato japs" or whatever the fuck they consider themselves these days.The hard truth is Japanese Anime just like the rest of the county is in steep stagnation. The phrase living like its the year 2000 in 1989 very much applies here.All the prebubble anime basically had near unlimited budgets to work with. These days not even close. If you go to Akiharaba the place hasn't changed since the 90s. Most of what you see is coom art because well its cheap to make and sells. Even Ginax is shutting down and filing for bankruptcy.There is an art community here but don't get sucked into the manga trap.
>>7197103even younger Japanese mangaka are going independent by doing the public funding route because IT'S THAT HARD TO DEBUT using the traditional way (publisher etc). Instead of submitting more trash and polluting their serialize manga system, why not create it in your own country? Follow how Koreans do it with their webcomic culture. Or if you're underfunded, do your webmanga on tiktok. Zoomers are willing to pay for a good manga plot that leaves them dying for more while at the same time promoting your merchs of the beloved characters. If you ask me, I won't post my work but just believe me. I used to draw for children's book illustrations and drawing character design + ads for a small drinking soda company. My side hustle are doing commissions and doing short comic
>>7197115>professional animators Lmao, more like cheap slave labor. Your only job is to redraw and follow the director's instructions for pennies at best, doing souless inbetweening at worst. You're not going to become famous or successful taking that road, you're not going to create nor get recognizedAccept you don't have Asian genes and instead of trying to ruin the jp animation industry with your subpar westoid woke bullshit, focus on saving your cringe western animation/comic industry. Dumb fuck
>>7207264What the fuck are you talking about? Akihabara has been in a protracted decline and Covid accelerated it. You just outed yourself as a fucking poser faggot. Kill yourself.
>>7207412I literally just said it was in decline. Is /ic/ really full of mentally ill artists?
>>7207264>Even Ginax is shutting down and filing for bankruptcyGood, hope trigger shuts down too. Garbage studios
>>7207416You said it hasn't changed since the 90s you disgusting retard
>>7205665>my stance when
>>7197247>Lots of mangaka in Japan give the following advice: forget about learning to write. Just learn to draw. Because if you can draw well, you can just work with your editor and they'll make your drawings into a good story.That's why Shihei Lin is the goat, all the manga that he's the editor are huge best sellers. I wish I could learn something from him in a video course or book.
its easier to learn JAPANESE ITHAN TRAING DRAWING **anyways once you leave highschool then youll stop making stupid threads, you hope
>>7208883Is he chinese? sounds like a chinese name
>>7208883>shihei>nihei>hei means black>black ink>nihei's black ink stylesomeone......anybody!! tower dungeon HAS TO BE A SUCCESS
>>7207511I'm purrrety shure anon meant that the type of goods (coom) being sold hasn't changed rather than the overall popularity of akihabaraYou know, like he statedIn the aforementioned postYou blabbering mongoloid
>>7197103it is doable https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdJICluC7Pc part 1https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIlp__zyovk
>>7208896>Is he chinese? Dunno, web says that he's from Tokyo>sounds like a chinese nameIt does but from the little I know, his name is probably a pseudonym related to writing and it's very old fashioned. Shihei is related to Buddhism and writing and Lin have Chinese origins but it's common in other Asian countries including Japan and Korea.
>>7208920>tower dungeonI like Nihei works, both KoS and Blame.Do you recommend tower dungeon? I don't care if it's fantasy, what I like is his edgy and angsty storytelling besides his background drawings.
>>7209049yes i do, there's only 7 chapters out right now but I've found myself going through them at least 20 times by now - one, for story inspiration and two, for design inspiration (monsters, characters, architecture, even props)It really is incredible. The premise is simple but done impeccably well, the world feels lived in and considered which makes sense since Nihei's shtick is architecture which really shows in Tower Dungeon and the character relationships are really fun. Read it, read it now, read it many times.New chapter comes out in about 2 days
>>7209049I'm not really seeing how any of his stories are anything close to edgy or angsty but it feels like a nihei story so if that's what you like then you'll probably enjoy this. The artwork is very clearly rushed through is the only complaint I could really levy at it, but I don't really mind much since it more than gets the idea across and if that's how he wants to make manga then more power to 'im.
>>7197103It's pretty hard for even native japs and they don't like gaijin
>>7210230learning to draw is hard.learning a language is hardlearning to write stories is hardbut all of them are a matter of practice. Once you have these skills under your belt, is becoming a mangaka really that hard? If you can make good manga, you can get serialized, right?
>>7210242see >>7210230
>>7210245but i did see it
>>7210247then you should see that it also answers your response
>>7210249I challenged your assumptions, and it seems you can't answer me. Therefore, you lost this argument.
>>7210254But I did answer you?
>>7210249>>7210255Not him but why are you like this?First, obviously it doesn't because such statements were what beggared the question in the first place, second because what you're saying isn't even strictly true and third because his question was probably rhetorical anyway.Yes, of course, if you can make good manga then you can get serialized. That's not up for debate. Even as a foreigner. There's no "you must be this yellow to enter" requirement here. This notion that japanese hate gaijin and will never buy anything made by a foreigner is exactly the kind of retarded nonsense you should expect to see here and should be ignored. It's not based in reality, at best it's based on japanese forum posts just like here. Not representative of the average person's preferences, but that of the delusional social outcast. And even if it WERE true, which it's not, most authors in japan use a pen name and tend to avoid letting their face get out into the public anyway so it's not like a japanese audience even needs to know that you're a foreigner.
>>7210260[spoiler]name ten serialized non yellow mangaka[spoiler] [spoiler]I can only think of one myself and I don't think he was really that notable beyond being white[spoiler]more seriously I didn't say it was impossible more implied that it was really hard even if you have the skills since even talented japs like Nihei get sandbagged
>>7210263Yeah, it's more difficult. There's a language and culture barrier to overcome. It's true that not many people out there have done it. That doesn't disprove my argument. The question was "if you overcome these barriers, can it be done?" and the answer is definitely "yes". I can't think of 10. If we're only counting white people exclusively and not any non-japanese then I can only think of 4 who are/have been serialized. But consider your own argument: if gaijin really don't sell in japan, would that not mean there's a good chance that any gaijin who IS serialized is likely doing so under a pseudonym? How do you or I know that there aren't plenty of foreign authors in japan? We don't, and it can't be proven, just like how you can't prove that a foreigner can't get serialized.
>>7210268>How do you or I know that there aren't plenty of foreign authors in japan? We don't, and it can't be provenIf we're going into the land of can't be proven then there is little point in arguing in either direction since it won't go anywhere.
>>7210268desu I think the more interesting question is how well can a westerner can keep up with a weekly manga grind that has a habit of fucking over the japs health wise
>>7210260thank you for defending me
It's impossible, get over it.
>>7197103Lucky for me I have a Japanese friend so he'll translate everything for me for a six pack of asahi
>>7205546>>7205557you're the best anon, thanks for everything
HAHAHAHA good dreams, you will never become a mangaka, for people like you it is impossible, it is also impossible for most Japanese, what then can you hope for, haha, these dreams
>>7211728you must be so miserable, to think this low of yourself
>>7211847Based, we have proof right here in this thread. I can't imagine not wanting to see your fellow artists succeed.
You can be trans and make money by pretending to be a girl online and doing manga as a side gig for your simps to suck in.
>>7197103The real question is why does it have to be Japanese and why does if have to be in a serialized magazine? In this day and age you can publish your own stuff online and cultivate a audience that are willing to pay you.
>>7212354I honestly haven't seen a single case of that working out for anyone. You may as well ask a mcdonalds burger flipper why they don't "just" open a 5 star gourmet restaurant and make lots of money. There are hundreds and hundreds of mangaka who make a living from publishing in Japan, but only a few dozen webcomic artists who make it on their webcomics. Unfortunately, the infrastructure that helps set up Japanese mangaka to succeed and make money needs to exist in the west before any great comics careers can truly be made.Like, if I were born in Kenya and wanted to be an animation board artist, I'm fucked. It would be better if I were born in California and could apply to animation studios. It would also be easier for that Kenyan to just learn English and immigrate to the US, rather than starting up the equivalent of Disney or Pixar in Kenya. Geography and infrastructure makes a huge difference.
>>7212362ik your just giving an example and that africa is huge, but there's triggerfish studios in cape town. It would probably be easier for a Kenyan to move to cape town and break in as a board artist there than to immigrate to the US.Additionally webcomics don't require infastructure, it's in the name "web". But the monetisation method is completely different from manga in Japan, and requires creators to be tech and business savvy, but in this day and age can definitely be done from anywhere.
>>7212370the infrastructure is all about the money. In Japan, you can buy a 300 page magazine from Shonen Jump, literally every week, for just under a dollar. These magazines are available at every convenience store, all around the country, and are meant to bought and thrown away. Yet somehow, they are able to make a profit with this system. Shonen Jump is not the only magazine by the way, there are hundreds of these magazines, potentially thousands of series. (If you've ever walked into a manga shop in Tokyo, you'd understand)In america, a 22 page booklet is FOUR DOLLARS. Jesus christ.And for webcoimcs, people aren't going to pay, period. Good luck getting people to pay for something they already expected for free.
>>7212375>Yet somehow, they are able to make a profit with this system.The magazines are actually loss-leaders. It's the collected books/merch that they make the money on.There definitely are people who make their living from webcomics, and it's more than you realize. It's just that you're probably never going to encounter them because there's only so much reach one individual can achieve, the trick is just reaching the people who would want to read and potentially even support your comic monetarily. In any case self-publishing is a totally different ballgame from working with a publisher so saying "just self publish lol" isn't a solution.(not meant to be arguing anything here, just clarifying some points)
>>7212375like other anon said, most money is made of merch, both for manga and webcomics. Webcomics are free, but if I really like the art and story, I will buy merch, artbooks, physical volumes, etc. The merch machine is what the Manga industry provides. Anime, licensing, merchandising, etc, which creates multi-million dollar IPs. For indie creators, they have to be tech and business savvy themselves to figure out this side of the business. You aren't wrong about there being less webcomic authers making a living, but it's mostly due to the low quality of webcomics out there. Do you know any fantastic webcomic artists out there who struggle to make a living? The reason isn't the lack of infastructure, the reason is the low quality of their work, whether it's art, story, appeal, etc.
>>7211847>>7212253Survival bias, you will not succeed. This is bullshit
>>7212379>>7212393you guys have good points. will have to think about this more.Honestly though, I will probably keep learning Japanese, not because i need to, but because I enjoy it. It also helps that the manga community is much stronger and more vibrant in Japan. Even if I never make it as a mangaka in a magazine, I can do doujin at comiket and potentially make even more than what a lot of officially serialized mangaka are making. Not that i think that highly of my skills. It's just a dreamPeople used to immigrate to america because they felt that they could have a better future here. They'd learn the language and abandon everything for that hope. Now, I'm simply doing the same with Japan
>>7212785go for it anon! If you haven't yet, try Silent Manga Audition. One of my friends got published in a Japanese manga magazine this way, and remains in contaact with Japanese editors. Another friend won an award recently. If your goal is to be published or serialized, I think it's one of the best ways to do so outside of Japan cuz the goal of the competition is literally to showcase international talent. Learning Japanese won't hurt your chances either if you reach that stage and can leave a positive impression on the judges, editors, and those in the industry.Many of my friends also are currently on a working holiday visa in Japan. Depending on where you are from, it can be reasonably cheap to live in Japan, so they saved up, and are working as freelance artists while there. I like your positivity, and I hope you make it!
>>7212785Anon, I've already said this, but you should reeeeally approach publishers now, or at least before you try and move to japan. We have the internet, they can be contacted. It's pointless to try to and go to japan without already having a publishing deal going, for a number of reasons much of which practical. If you can't get manga work from outside of japan, you aren't going to magically get any while in japan. Plenty of publishers have ways to contact them online, and those that require in-person 持ち込み likely have high standards already. Start with a small publisher if you have to, but moving to japan hoping to land a gig is not a good plan.And SMA (and similar competitions) are similarly bad plans. You need to win or at least place in those to actually benefit from them, and that's not likely. I've never placed in any of those competitions yet I still got published, they're far from necessary.>>7213120>Many of my friends also are currently on a working holiday visa in Japan. Depending on where you are from, it can be reasonably cheap to live in Japan, so they saved up, and are working as freelance artists while there.I definitely would not recommend this. Working on a holiday visa is more like a temporary solution, a publisher needs you to be able to work with them completely above-board. A semi-permanent solution is required if you're going to be living and working there, and it's simply much easier to acquire said solution by already having a professional relationship with a japanese company. You could definitely approach publishers while you're there, but there's no reason you need to go to japan just for that.
>>7213417there is plenty of reason to go to Japan. Not everyone is going so they can become a published manga author. Many just want to go and experience it once in their life while they are still young without responsibilities. Many ppl end up staying for longer, or even forever, after meeting their partner, or falling in love with the country. FWIW I'm not telling anon just to go to get published, but if they have this goal, then they can make the most of out of this situation. I have no doubt that if they came back without achieving their goal immediately they would regret nothing. Travelling and immersing yourself in another culture is an incredible experience. You can go, come back, and continue chasing your dreams.But of course, reaching out to publishers first is probably a good course of action, but I wouldn't let that stop anon from going.How is submitting to SMA a bad plan? If anything it is motivation and good practice, anon won't lose anything from trying. You aren't guaranteed to win, neither are you guaranteed a deal by reaching out to pubishers. I think you stand a better chance in a competition aimed towards foreigners tho. An no one said winning was the only path, or that it was necessary. Not disagreeing with your suggestion to reach out to publishers, but I think your advice is a bit tunnel-visioned. Go all out while you're still young and able and chase your dreams. The gist I get from anon is that they are responsible enough to not make terrible decisions and ruin their life doing so.BTW, what country are you from and who are you published with? No need to share anything, but interested to know your path.
>>7213444>Not everyone is going so they can become a published manga authorOkay, but he explicitly said that's why he wanted to go to japan.>How is submitting to SMA a bad plan? If anything it is motivation and good practiceYes, it's both of those things, but if the goal is getting published then dispensing with the competitions and directly contacting the publisher is a much more effective route. I've seen so many people getting stuck in a loop of submitting to competitions, not placing at all and only get the most basic barebones feedback from the judges, not learning from their experience and simply repeating this in a loop for years thinking all they need to do is win one. It's like buying lottery tickets. No, you're not guaranteed to get published either way, but at least by directly sending work to a publisher they'll probably get back to you with more in-depth feedback than you would get from competition judges. Or at least a "no thanks", instead of waiting months for the competition results to be announced just to get nothing back. All I'm saying is, just take the thing you submitted to the competition and show it to publishers directly as well. I get the impression that basically nobody outside of japan even tries to do that, and I think it's because they don't think they can. But that's not the case.>An no one said winning was the only path, or that it was necessary.I did. I said that. You're not going to be approached by an editor unless the work was good enough to at least place, unless what you submitted was wildly off-theme. It's good for practice but moving forward professionally just from competitions is not likely. So if one is serious about going pro, it pays to approach a publisher.>BTW, what country are you from and who are you published with? No need to share anything, but interested to know your path.Australia, COMIC 夢幻転生.
>>7213454>I did. I said that. haha ok, i meant that winning wasn't the only way to get published, ie, you can go to publishers as you suggested. Meaning you can both enter competitions and submit your work to publishers. If you are submitting and then twiddling your thumbs for months doing nothing then maybe you don't have what it takes. But a suggestion to enter competitions is not a suggestion to only do that and nothing else. How long does a one shot take, a week? Thats not a massive investment that also builds your portfolio, which helps with reaching out to publishers. Kill two birds with one stone.> I've seen so many people getting stuck in a loop of submitting to competitions, not placing at all and only get the most basic barebones feedback from the judges, not learning from their experience and simply repeating this in a loop for years thinking all they need to do is win one.Their problem isn't that they're entering competitions, it's that they don't practice critical thinking and analysis. And one-track mindedness, which it exactly what I am advocating against. You said it yourself, they don't learn from their experiences, it's not the experiences that are lacking, but their ability to learn and grow from them. congrats btw, you are one-in-a-million. Not many get as far as you have.
>>7213466>congrats btw, you are one-in-a-million. Not many get as far as you have.I want to change that. There are people way more skilled than me who haven't come this far, and I can only think that it's because they didn't think to just apply, japanese skills be damned.
>>7197107> To learn Japanese to survive in JapanNot sure about a job , but as a touristYou could just use basic body language commuication like pointing at stuff like poiting to food on a meniu and using google translate.
Expat hereWhy is advice on /ic/ so unbelievably shit? The better advice would be is to go to a Japanese art school or a community group. There are also schools where you can get a US degree too. There are plenty of things you can do, also mangaka isnt the only option.On the topic of learning Japanese its not easy but also not nightmare tier hard as most normies believe.If the some of crayon eating marines in Okinawa can do it so can you.
>>7214032>If the some of crayon eating marines in Okinawa can do it so can you.Nukemarine never made it...
