Manga artist salary: Case Study of Satou Shuuhou

October 2, 2009 by r2moo2
Filed under: Manga Industry, News

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I have always wondered about a manga artist’s salary, and how does that artist earn a living. I believe that this is one big question to many people, and especially to aspiring manga “artists-to-be”.

After searching in Google and in many places, the answers provided are less than satisfactory.

However I chanced upon articles about Satou Shuuhou, the manga artist of Umizaru and Blackjack ni yoroshiku(seinen manga, which is for young adults and maybe unsuitable for teenagers), where he spoke about his distress with his publishers in his blog.

Subsequently, Satou Shuuhou reveals his income, expenses and some of his struggles as a manga artist. Now, he started to sell his manga online.

Therefore, I am going to list some facts and figures about Satou Shuuhou, and I believe any reader reading this article will have a rough idea of how does a manga artist earn a living, and how much much is he paid.

This may be old news for some people, because Satou Shuuhou posted all these information months ago within this year. However, something strange happened in the Internet, as Wikipedia and many other websites do not contain much about Satou Shuuhou and his manga works at all.

Usually, I am able to pick up information about manga artists and manga through Wikipedia and many other places, but just for Satou Shuuhou and his manga works, it seems like someone deleted much information about him.

So if you happen not to know, this is for you.

How does a manga artist get paid by a publishing company?

In Japan, when one’s manga comic gets serialized, the author is required to produce a chapter of roughly 20 pages weekly to be published in weekly manga comic magazine.

The author is paid per page by the publisher, and Satou Shuuhou revealed that newcomer artists today are paid 1,000 yen per page (~USD$11), while about 10 years ago Umizaru’s serialization paid him 10,000 yen per page(~USD$112), and his recent best-selling manga BlackJack ni Yoroshiku paid him 35,000 yen per page(~USD$391).

A weekly manga comic magazine usually publishes about 50 issues in a year.

So if we work out the math, we will see this:
Newcomer artists: 1,000 yen perpage X 20 pages in a chapter X 50 issues = 1,000,000 yen a year (~USD$11,174)

Umizaru: 10,000 yen per page X 20 pages in a chapter X 50 issues = 10,000,000 yen a year (~USD$111,767)

BlackJack ni Yoroshiku: 35,000 yen per page X 20 X 50 = 35,000,000 yen a year (~USD$391,080)

For the newcomer, it really looks sad. And we haven’t discuss about the expenses to produce the manga comic yet, and also the pay for the assistants.

In addition, if a tankoubon (trade paperback) of the manga comic is released by the publisher, the author gets a standard rate of 10%, which usually does not change even if the sales are good. Poor sales may force the royalty to drop to 8-9%.

Manga artist expenses

This is Satou Shuuhou’s expenses in a nutshell when Uzimaru was serialized.

Costs per month:
Tax: 80,000 yen (~USD$895)
Monthly pay for 3 assistants: 470,000 yen total (~USD$5,257)
Monthly food expenses for the staff: 100,000 yen (~USD$1,118)
Cost of drawing materials and reference materials every month: 100,000 yen(~USD$1,118)
Rent for the studio: 70,000 yen(~USD$782)
Utilities bill and other misc expenses: 50,000 yen(~USD$559)

Satou Shuuhou gets 800,000 yen(~USD$8,946) a month for Uzimaru, so deducting everything he has a deficit of 70,000 yen(~USD$782). He stated that he makes a loss of 200,000 yen(~USD$
2,236) a month if he includes his daily expenses and needs.

Moreover, Satou Shuuhou works 20 hours a day usually.

Satou Shuuhou’s editor told him that once his tankoubon is released, Satou Shuuhou will start to earn back what he lost. However it was revealed that no promises of releasing a tankoubon is made at anytime.

A 500 yen(~USD$5.60) tankoubon will give the author 50 yen(~USD$0.55) in royalties.

Final Words for this post

Well, this is a little research on a manga artist salary, based on Satou Shuuhou. There are many other things that Satou Shuuhou revealed, such as his challenges of being a manga artist and such, but I will leave it to another day.

Please await for future posts!

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