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Japan’s biggest manga magazine is raising its minimum payment rate for creators

Casey Baseel Nov 20, 2024
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New manga artists will be earning more for their work at Weekly Shonen Jump.

Weekly Shonen Jump is Japan’s biggest and most popular manga anthology, and publisher Shueisha apparently thinks it’s gotten big enough to share a little more of the wealth that the magazine brings in. In an announcement made Monday through its official Twitter account, the Weekly Shonen Jump editorial department said:

“We would like to inform everyone that the minimum manuscript payment for serialized or one-shot manga in Weekly Shonen has been raised, effective as of November 2024.”

“Based on sales profits received from readers of Weekly Shonen Jump (print and digital editions), we will continue to make such reservations in the future in order to produce better working environments for our magazine’s creators.”

【ご報告】
『#週刊少年ジャンプ』本誌で連載・読切掲載する場合の最低原稿料を24年11月掲載分より改訂しましたので、ご報告させていただきます。

読者の皆様からいただいた雑誌(紙版・電子版)の売上利益を基に、弊誌作家さんのより良い執筆環境作りへ今後も改訂を重ねてまいります。 pic.twitter.com/k2krA7V52w

— 少年ジャンプ編集部 (@jump_henshubu) November 18, 2024

Under the new policy, artists will be paid a minimum of 31,350 yen (US$206) per color page and 20,900 yen per black-and-white page. The vast majority of manga pages are published in black-and-white, and assuming an average page count of 20 pages per chapter, that would work out to 418,000 yen in earnings per chapter/week, which extends to 1,627,000 yen for a month with four issues, or around 21.7 million yen for a 52-week year.

Moreover, these are the starting rates for new manga creators whose work is being published for the first time. For continuing artists whose series is past its first year of serialization, Weekly Shonen Jump offers annual rate increases, and the magazine’s management is open to negotiation even with first timers if they have been offered higher rates from other magazines. First-time serialized authors are also provided with 500,000 yen in funds to help cover expenses in getting the series off the ground.

Weekly Shonen Jump sibling publication Jump Giga simultaneously announced it is increasing its minimum rates as well, to 19,800 yen for color pages and 13,200 for black and white.

Higher starting pay rates are, in and of themselves, good news for budding artists. However, it’s also important to keep in mind that while 20 million yen a year sounds like a whole lot, few manga professionals produce an entire series by themselves. It’s customary for manga creators to have multiple assistants, and those assistants get paid by the creator, not the publisher. In other words, a sizable chunk of that 21.7 million yen is going to be going to production costs. In addition, getting paid by the page means not getting paid by the hour, which also means no paid vacation time. As mentioned above, 21.7 million yen is the projected payment for 52 weeks of 20-page black-and-white chapters, so if the creator wants, or needs, to take time off, it’s going to come with a deduction to their earnings.

As a result, it’s hard to say whether or not manga creators are in an easy spot financially when starting out with Weekly Shonen Jump without knowing what their other expenses and preferred work/life balance is like. If nothing else, though, at least they’re in an easier spot than before the rate raise.

Source: Twitter/@jump_henshubu
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