Chapter 714 "Kirin Half Monthly Magazine"

In 1980, Japan had already entered a period of economic prosperity, and its economic and living standards were gradually improving, and there was a harmonious and upward scene everywhere.

But in fact, in terms of salary, there is still a big gap compared with the future.

Today's ordinary Japanese members who have just joined the company have a monthly salary of about 120,000 yen, while in 1985 it was about 200,000 yen, and in 2000 it was about 180,000 yen.

But people's price level at this time is similar to that in 2020, which is unmatched.

A medium-sized Fuji apple costs 150 yuan, and an ice cream costs 100 yuan. Drinks in vending machines on the street cost 100 yen a bottle, and ordinary lunch boxes sold in a supermarket cost about 500 yen.

The average hourly salary of high school students who started working is about 800-1200, which is similar to that in 2010 and higher than that during the Great Recession in 2020, but it is higher than the average hourly salary of 1,500 yen during the period from 1985 to 1992. Hours, it seems to be much lower.

It can also be seen from this that a weekly comic magazine of 180 yen is not a burden, whether it is for Japanese students or young Japanese office workers.

In fact, living in Japan, if it’s just daily expenses, from 1980 to 2020, not only prices have been stable, but there has also been a situation of deflation, and the prices of food and drink have dropped slowly, which really makes prices soar. The Chinese people who stood shoulder to shoulder on the Shenzhou 7 were envious.

This is also an important reason why in 2020, although the rise of the Internet has taken away a large number of people, and the three major Japanese manga weekly magazines have declined due to the serious decline in birthrates, they can still publish more than 1-2 million volumes.

"Kirin Weekly" has caught up with the best golden age of Japanese manga, and it is the beginning.

At this time, Japan's population is still rising, and there are not a few families with two or three children. It's not like in 2020, when a family can't guarantee even one child.

Therefore, the terrifying sales volume of 6 million copies of "Kirin Weekly" in Japan was easily achieved.

In fact, there is still a lot of room for this.

Tokuma Yasukai said that at least the Japanese market can accommodate about 2 million volumes, because now not only children and young people, but also many adults aged 30-40 are gradually falling in love with reading "Kirin Weekly" comics .

Even with a sales volume of 6 million copies, it has completely surpassed the three major weekly manga magazines in Japan, or even the sum of the three!

Now the most famous first-line manga artists in Japan are Akira Toriyama and Rumiko Takahashi.

Akira Toriyama's "Arale" has become the most important factor driving the sales of "Weekly Shonen Jump". After Rumiko Takahashi graduated, "Fuxing Kid" was finally serialized steadily, which also made "Weekly Shonen SUNDAY" a great success.

These two comics are the only two Japanese serial comics that can be compared with "Kirin Weekly".

But "Alalei" and "Fuxing Boy" are just two comics. "Kirin Weekly" has now expanded to the scale of 12 serialized comics and 1 comic book. "Alale" and "Fuxing Boy" are simply not enough to read .

To be honest, many Japanese, especially some so-called writers and literary managers, although they are full of atonement for the Chinese people in this era and would not engage in any crooked ways, but for the Japanese manga kingdom, they are actually covered by "Kirin Weekly" "Occupied, still a little resentful.

Their performance is to call on more Japanese cartoonists to stand up and fight against the big devil together.

It's impossible to defeat the big devil for a while, so let's come to someone who is capable of fighting.

Under such circumstances, Tokuma Yasukai was naturally unwilling to be caught up by them.

Although he is honest by nature, he needs to make money in business.

Not to mention that his other businesses have been a bit unsatisfactory recently. The agency right of "Kirin Weekly" is now the biggest cash cow in his hands, with a monthly gross profit of 1.8 billion yen!

Such a generous income is enough for him to do a lot of business expansion. If he is attacked by someone, what will he do if he loses this cash cow?

So Yin Jun asked Suzuki Toshio to do a semi-monthly manga, and Tokuma Yasukai gave the most sufficient support.

Tokuma Yasukai and Yin Jun are one and a half of the shares, but because they are in Japan, Tokuma Yasukai contributes more in terms of contribution.

Toshio Suzuki is worthy of being the future superpower of the animation industry. After more than half a year of planning and preparation, "Kirin Semi-Monthly" finally officially began to go on sale at this time at the end of November.

Originally, Yin Jun thought that he could change another name, but both Toshio Suzuki and Yasukai Tokuma felt that the brand "Kirin" was not a pity, so they insisted on calling it by this name.

Not to mention, with the "Kirin" brand, when Toshio Suzuki made his name in the manga industry, he received more than 200 drawings within two weeks.

You know, there are less than 500 cartoonists in Japan now!

Even though many of them are newcomers, who said newcomers can't do it?

Of course, there are so many cartoonists and newcomers who can send their drawings. In addition to the sense of honor of wanting to be serialized in the semi-monthly magazine of the best weekly manga in Japan, a more important factor lies in the "Kirin Semi-Monthly" A sky-high price was offered that stunned the entire comics world!

One page of drawing, minimum 20,000! How uncapped! !

What is the guaranteed price given by the three major weekly manga magazines in Japan?

"Weekly Shonen Jump" is 6,000 yen per page.

"Weekly Shonen Magazine" is 5,000 yen per page.

"Weekly Shonen Sunday" is also 5,000 yen per page.

The price of "Kirin Bimonthly" is more than twice as high as that of "Weekly Shonen Jump", and even 4 times that of the other two weekly magazines!

If the calculation is based on the average monthly serialization of 20 pages, then the remuneration of the serialized manga artist is 400,000 yuan. Based on the current average Japanese salary of about 180,000 yuan, it is already twice that of ordinary people, and it is also a new employee. more than 3 times.

This is just the basics. If your serialization is well received and you rank at the top of the selection, the price will continue to increase. The top ten are at least 50,000 yen per page, and 1 million per month, but it is already The salary of the top executives of ordinary clubs.

What's more, Japanese cartoonists know that the most money for best-selling serialized comics is not from the serialization, but from the royalties of the single book, the copyright of the cartoon, the copyright of the peripheral products, etc., all of which add up, at least the serialization Two or three times, or even seven or eight times.

According to such a calculation method, as long as it enters the serialization of "Kirin Bimonthly", it can get absolute food and clothing.

The publishing method of "Kirin Half Monthly" has been advertised, and comic fans also know that they are very kind.

Ordinary comic publications usually have 20 serial comics of about 360 pages, plus the number of pages of advertisements and illustrations, a total of 450-500 pages.

There are 25 cartoons in "Kirin Half-Monthly", with only some illustrations and no advertisements. The total number of pages is 500 pages.

Who doesn't want to spend less and get more?

The same goes for the Japanese.

With the same money, other comics only have more than 300 pages, while "Kirin Bimonthly" has 500 pages, and they don't have so many advertisements. The difference is really huge! It is more honest than its own publication "Kirin Weekly".

Regarding this, the representative director and chairman of "Weekly Shonen Jump" said sourly that "Kirin Weekly" has already obtained too many huge profits, of course they have the capital to not publish advertisements, but the advertisements themselves are part of the comic book , otherwise where does so much money come from for cartoonists?

Everyone doesn't know, but Tokuma Yasukai and Yin Jun once had a debate about whether there should be advertisements, but in the end, Yin Jun's opinion prevailed.

After all, in the current Japanese domestic comics market, after "Kirin Weekly" stands alone, the three major comics weekly firmly occupy the second echelon position.

Moreover, the three major comic weekly magazines have attracted almost all the local cartoonists in Japan. If "Kirin Half Monthly" wants to win in Japan and attract outstanding Japanese cartoonists to join, then it must be based on its own content and friendliness to the audience. Just have the upper hand.

The reason why Tokuma Yasukai didn't insist was partly because Yin Jun was right, and partly because he made so much money from Yin Jun's "Kirin Weekly" and rejected a master-level manga script writer like Yin Jun The suggestion is really not very good.

Yin Jun insisted on doing this, of course, in order to attract outstanding Japanese cartoonists, so that after his future memory is exhausted, he can still have a channel that can continuously replenish excellent painters to "Kirin Weekly".

You said that if "Dragon Ball" was robbed, Akira Toriyama wouldn't be able to draw better manga?

If "Yu Yu Hakusho" is robbed, the old thief Fu Jian can no longer be brilliant?

Snatched "One Piece", and Oda has been silent since then?

Of course not!

The reason why they are so good and outstanding is not just relying on any comic, but relying on their genius imagination and creativity.

Therefore, even if Yin Jun snatches the excellent works of those cartoonists, they can continue to become the best group of people with their own efforts.

And this is also an important reason why Yin Jun wants to recruit them.

But for the first batch of more than 40 cartoonists in "Kirin Half Monthly", Yin Jun read their names and cartoons, but he didn't find the cartoons in his memory. Everyone, I don't know if someone used strange Odd pseudonym sake.

These people will not serialize the comics together, but some will debut in the first issue, while others are waiting for the opportunity while drawing. Once a comic is cut in half, they will quickly make it up.

On the whole, the first issue of "Kirin Semi-Monthly" does not have too many characteristics in Yin Jun's opinion, although it is not bad.

But the market reacted very well.

The publication volume of the first issue of "Kirin Semi-Monthly" is 300,000 copies, which is quite a lot for a new semi-monthly comic magazine, and the most is only about 1 million copies.

The place where the first issue is published is the chain bookstores of Tokuma Bookstore in various places.

As a result, 300,000 volumes were sold out in less than a day.

According to the feedback sent back one after another, among the 25 serial comics, 5 got a passing score of 6 points or more, 13 comics got a good score of 7 points, and 3 comics scored as high as 8 points. A youth joke comic called "Bored Boy" actually scored 8.7 points!

A manga with 8 points is regarded as an excellent work in the Japanese manga industry.

If it reaches 9 points, it is an undisputed masterpiece.

Now "Kirin Weekly"'s 13 serial comics, plus a single comic, are all above 9 points, even the popular "Fuxing Boy" is only 8.8 points, and "Alalei" is about 9.1 points.

If this kind of rating lasts for 10 consecutive issues, basically this "Boring Boy" can become a god, and at that time, "Boring Boy" will officially join the serial ranks of "Kirin Weekly", and those legendary serialized together.

This is why so many cartoonists are willing to contribute to "Kirin Half Monthly".

It is a very proud honor to be serialized together with Mr. Yin Jun's comics.

But at the beginning, it was amazing, and there were not a few comics that went straight to the street.

Similarly, it is not very popular at the beginning, but gradually starts to rise steadily, and finally explodes into a masterpiece, and it is also everywhere.

Yin Jun is very happy with such an opening.

It is best to be able to dig out the masters of comics in their previous lives, but if they can dig out and cultivate those buried cartoonists, it will be a very good achievement.

He was happy, but Toshio Suzuki was a little worried.

There is no other reason, just because the current loss is too big.

There is no advertising sponsorship, the manuscript fee is high, no copyright has been sold, and more than a dozen comics have been hoarded in one breath, and they are constantly reviewing and negotiating to sign new comics... After such a series , In fact, since September, the loss of "Kirin Bimonthly" has exceeded 30 million yen, and it has reached 50 million yen in October.

Although the two shareholders are rich and are mentally prepared to accept losses for more than a year, if such losses continue, he, the executive editor-in-chief, will lose face.

To change the current situation, there are only two ways out.

The first is to increase the sales volume of comics. As long as the publication volume of "Kirin Bimonthly" can be stabilized to more than 1 million copies per issue, then according to the current manuscript fee and operating standards, the loss can be reduced to less than 10 million yen .

The second is to sell various copyrights as soon as possible, so that the profits obtained will be considerable, and more importantly, the author will only get a small part of the profit, and the "Kirin Half Monthly" will get most of it.

However, neither of the two methods can be realized immediately.

No one has the courage and courage like Yin Jun. The number of copies was 4 million when it was published, and the number soared to 12 million within a year. It was sold all over Asia, and it can be said that it was in the limelight for a while.

"Kirin Half-monthly" is not such a strong comic publication, and most of the authors are new authors. They can only say that they have potential. If they rashly increase sales and cause a backlog that cannot be sold, it will not only become a joke for others, but will also Let comic fans have doubts about "is this comic publication not good enough", which will deal a blow to existing fans.

Therefore, we can only gradually increase the number of publications. It is estimated that the publication volume will reach 1 million copies within 3 years, which is already thankful.

The issue of copyright is not so difficult. After about 10 issues, we can see a general idea, and many businessmen can make decisions based on the market reaction.

On the contrary, "Kirin Half Monthly" is not in a hurry to sell the copyright at a low price. If a masterpiece is sold at a low price in a hurry, it will be too late to cry.

To put it bluntly, there is no way to solve the loss of "Kirin Bimonthly" in the short term.

Toshio Suzuki, who worked harder, can only be thankful that his two bosses are rich and powerful, and he has the confidence to support it!