Having your own serialized work in the
manga industry is usually the golden dream of any artist, but behind
the printed pages hides a real financial nightmare. Veteran creator Anetarou has
just reignited an intense debate after crudely exposing why drawing freelance
material for adults ended up being her real economic salvation, allowing her to
survive comfortably while her professional colleagues drowned in debt under the
shelter of a traditional publishing house.
The numbers the author shared are truly
terrifying for any aspiring mangaka. While in the independent doujinshi market,
creators can easily pocket between fifty and eighty percent of the total
profits from their sales, signing an official contract reduces those royalties
to a measly five or ten percent. To make matters worse, Anetarou explained that
grueling storyboards or yams are never paid for by magazines.
Once your series is approved, you are forced to go into massive debt to hire
assistants and buy expensive equipment, receiving only about 120 euros per
finished page, which leaves artists practically in destitution after paying the
salaries of their work team.
Although his route is not the most
"correct" by Japan's high conservative standards, this decision
allowed him to travel the world attending international conventions with the
money generated exclusively by his risqué art. The illustrator made it clear
that the vast majority of Japanese creatives are not looking to become
millionaires, they simply want to generate enough income to continue publishing
without ending up bankrupt. Knowing that new employees and executives of
publishing houses receive training and stable salaries without assuming any
financial risk, she continues to advise the new generations to bet on the
profitability of the independent format.
Considering that cartoonists of adult content
on digital platforms tend to earn much more money than the base authors of
titanic magazines such as Weekly Shonen Jump
