Shueisha, a major publishing company, will hold a practical course “Shueisha’s Shojo Manga School” to create works specializing in shojo manga and women’s manga. It will be a shojo manga version of “Jump Manga School” which took place in 2020 and attracted a lot of attention.

In August 2020, Shueisha launched ‘Manga Meets’ Submission Site for Shoujo Magazines. In many ways, the Manga Meets website mirrors that of “Jump Rookie” which started in 2018. Users need to make an account and upload manuscripts to the site, with works from other users also going to be available for perusal. The only difference is that they 100% guarantee to reply or give feedback from an editor.

In this online school, there will be a total of eight lectures; scheduled to begin in August 2021. Shueisha’s women’s manga magazines; “Ribon,” “Margaret,” “Bessatsu Margaret,” “Cookies,” “Cocohana,” “Digital Margaret,” and the Shoujo manga app “Manga Mee” will cooperate in opening the course. Editors and manga artists will be on stage as lecturers.

Curriculum will include “expressions unique to shojo manga,” “hints for ideas,” “character creation,” “how to improve drawings,” “frame division / screen creation,” “story composition,” and “tips for continuing to be a manga artist.” Further, there is also a plan for a drawing demonstration by a manga artist. In addition, the editors will make criticism comments to the students using Manga Meets.

The course classes are 3 hours long. A total of 8 lectures and the tuition fee is 11000 yen including tax. From the price setting, it can be seen that the course itself is not a profitable business. Similar to “Jump’s Manga School”, the aim is to discover and bring in new writers.

Currently, only the teaser site has been launched, and from June 1st, applications will be accepted on the “Shueisha Shojo Manga School” site. Applicants need to upload one past/sample work to “Manga Meets“. The seats for attending the course is upto 300 people. But if there are a large number of applicants, selection will be carried out. The application deadline is July 15th.

Source: Animation Business Journal