A glimpse of a serialized mangaka's schedule

[UzukiCheverie]

http://i.imgur.com/jFhnTgg.jpg

Scary shit, huh?

Even with assistants, their days are long, and their nights longer. They make our Mondays look like a pleasant stroll through the park. Except the park is on fire. And you're on fire.

http://i.imgur.com/c4jt321.png

(this doesn't apply to every professional mangaka of course, but it serves as a good basis to imagine and estimate the work that pro mangaka like Masashi Kishimoto, Eiichiro Oda, Tite Kubo, etc etc. have to do on a regular basis.

[Tanisha]

Well that looks terrifying. ;D

I remember reading somewhere where Masashi Kishimoto said he did not have a lot of personal time to himself and didn't get to spend a lot of time with his kids! Leading to them not really reading the Naruto series and I just find that so sad! It kind of ruined his life a little bit there ;\

[StevenDacasin]

Gotta admire that dedication there. It's True that mangaka's work extremely hard and for what? To go up in rankings so they won't get dropped( I remember that from Bakuman). It hurts just Looking at the schedule but its admirable.

[Vikiro_Hop]

Complete insanity. I could only imagine.

[allenthomas]

The thing that absolutely scares me the most about this isn't even the amount that gets done, but the random and rather odd hours that he gets sleep and handles meetings. I couldn't imagine how my body would feel or at least my brain.

[heterodont]

Well it's not quite a 9-5 job either.

Frankly if I could get by on just 2 hours of sleep, I'd do the same. I haven't got much of a personal life anyway!

[FixerTheWise]

Its true too! I'm not surprised that Oda and Kubo were hospitalized because of their work schedule. And Kishimoto was skin and bones when He finished Naruto.

[winglesscomic]

mrw "when I grow up to be a professional mangaka!"

[carloswebcomic]

Wow, this guy gets almost as much sleep as I do.

[ratique]

With the exception of the ridiculous 2 hours of sleep on Monday, he actually gets more sleep than I do. But then he has only 3 hours of free time. Sounds like a wonderful life of joy and happiness.

To be honest though: If you manage to have a successful comic in Shounen Jump, you are one of the most successful comic creators out there. The story you write and draw is around often for 10+ years, usually gets animated, maybe even turned into movies. If you do it right and are able to keep most of the rights to your comic (I don't know how Shounen Jump or similar publishers work), you might not have to work much after you completed your series.

If someone would come to me tomorrow and would tell me I would have publish my comic and work like crazy for the next couple years, but then I will have enough money to enjoy life comfortably afterwards - sign me up for it.

[AnnaLandin]

Ooooh wow, yeah. I knew the mangaka production schedule was insane, but I've never seen it laid out like this before. Those Mondays look brutal. And the rest of the week doesn't exactly look awesome either.

And it's not so much the number of hours they get to sleep - I don't sleep much either, and have never been a particularly deep sleeper - but rather how they're distributed across the days and nights. If I got to sleep 4 hours per night, I could get by on that, if those 4 hours always fell at the same time of day. But here, the sleeping hours keep getting shifted back and forth. It must play merry hell with their circadian rhythms.

[SpavVy]

Haha, this is why I go for self publishing, this shit is just terrifying. I'd end up having an emotional breakdown xD

[zerofruits]

Ah thank you for sharing this! I think this is a good example to show to people, who say "drawing isn't a real job". Heck, this is harder than most office jobs! And those mondays look terrifiying o___o

Imagine how hard it must be if you are an unknown mangaka and working the same schedule but with less pay? Or less assistants- or even being a one-man team :/ And even if you work hard, no one can say if it will be worth it in the end. This industry is really harsh.

[zetina]

They are insane and they should chill the fuck out. No one can shit on Togashi being the author of Hiatus x Hiatus. Like, he doesn't need this bs. Weekly mags should change to once per two weeks or all just turn into monthly ones. People would cry but that's because we're spoooooiiiled haha

Butyea I remember when I saw this or occasionally saw mention of authors being ill I was just.... ack... Not cool.

[Marvin]

Not even talking about sleep, the guy doesn't eat !!
And I'm sorry, but seeing this, I'll NEVER say : "Wow, so much dedication, that guy is a hero !"
Of course he's a hard working man but those publishers should be ashamed to ask that of their employees. Those deadlines are insane and it's not the mangaka that sets them just to have a little challenge, it's the publisher.
No matter how successful your manga is, you should not be treated like a machine.

[Marvin]

Ahahah "Hiatus x Hiatus"... perfect :'D

[desannlim]

3/7 days they only eat 1 meal and that sleeping schedule makes my heart go out to them. Q.Q As much as people love their work, I wish the creators would have more time to take care of themselves. That's such a terrifying schedule that it's practically superhuman to be able to do that week after week years on end.

[shaylafarley5]

Daaaaang! I had know ideal what a pros schedule was like. I thought they get to lazy around and draw all day and take break when they wanted to.
O.O I will just keep my drawings as a hobby for now.

[shaylafarley5]

That's also why most of them fall ill or over work themselves to the point of no return

[bakasama25]

Ah, I remember the story I've heard about how and why Togashi has such easy work load.

The story goes that during Dragon Ball's run at Shounen Jump, the company overworked their mangaka and their assistants to the point they were dying from overwork. (I suppose the practice of "canning" was killing them.) After these artists left Shounen Jump, the company went into a slump. It was so bad that it was desperate for a hit manga. They reached out to those former artists. Shounen Jump were willing to compromise the artists to get a hit manga. Only Togashi was willing to deal with them. What he got in return for working with Shounen Jump was an easier workload and creative freedom, more than the norm in the industry.