I would like to welcome a very special guest to my channel today

This is Asa, and she is a professional mangaka in Japan!

So we're going to talk to her a little bit today

And give you some advice, for those of you that are thinking of becoming a mangaka in Japan

and yeah, I'm really excited to talk to her!

So if you could tell us a little about yourself, your background and how you ended up here

I came to Japan about 4 years ago

By then I had been working in Sweden as a freelance manga artist for 7 years

And then I studied Japanese in Japan

and then I studied graphic design to get a diploma

and then after that I got published

I was published with a book called "The Scandinavian Girl Asa's Mysterious Adventures in Japan"

I know what the Japanese title is so I'm picturing you translating it

Mysterious Adventures in Japan

So I did that, and that was a 4-koma manga

Which is like 4 panels, like strip comics

And just finished the 2nd one which will be out in like 2 weeks

Ooo I'm looking forward to reading it!

I read the first one and it's adorable

and I can relate to so many of the stories in it so it was really fun for me to read

I'll link all her books below you can purchase them online

So if you're interested in checking them out, please do that

I asked you guys on FB and Twitter if you had any questions for Asa

So yeah, let's get into those!

How can you get started as a manga artist in Japan?

Well I think there are a lot of different paths you can take

I only know what I did

If you write manga, you don't necessarily have to go to Japan

That would obviously be the easiest

But you can also write manga in your own country, get it translated to Japanese

and send it

Ahh and get it published here as well?

Well I have one Swedish colleague, she's like a super talented mangaka

She won a prize in Ribon, which is a really famous shojo manga magazine here

So it's possible to do it from outside Japan as well

But there is the thing with the Japanese I suppose

You have to write in Japanese...

It will be a lot easier if you can speak it yourself

Instead of having someone to translate everything

So the first step would be learning Japanese guys

So get on that first!

And that of course is much easier to do in Japan

So if you have a chance to do that

Schools in Japan, they are a little pricey

But it will also get you a visa, which is awesome

So if you come to Japan on a student visa and study Japanese

You can do manga "katsudou"....

You can work as a manga artist...

You can start showing your stuff to different magazines and editors and stuff

So it's actually a really good thing to do at the same time

What do you think of manga school in Japan?

There are several schools that you can do to here to study how to draw manga

Do you have experience with those? Did you go to one of those?

I did... but I kind of lost my nerve

Really?

Yeah... so I really wanted to study manga

But I ended up studying graphic design instead

I was like "Oh you can't become a manga artist in Japan..."

But you can!

So you really wanted to be a manga artist, but you kinda felt like it was too difficult?

I was just obsessed with somehow working in Japan

But anyway, there are manga schools. They're called "senmongakkou"

Which is like a college

And they have animation courses, and manga courses and stuff

Anyone can get in, as long as you clear the school's requirements

Japanese is always one of those I think

Are there any schools that will accept only English speakers?

Not that I know of...

You need Japanese, probably N2 level

That's a pretty common requirement

So get on studying for your JLPT!

Which is a pain in the butt, I know because I did it!

But if you clear that, you're kinda eligible for lots of different things in Japan

It'll be easier to get a visa probably, easier to join a school and get a job

Clear your N2

How can you get your art seen by publishing companies?

Do you just contact a company randomly and say

Hey I draw manga, check it out!

and just send it to them?

Yeah there are a lot of different ways to do it

So I studied graphic design, but I also had a lot of electives

Where everything was manga related

So those teachers were always telling us, you have to do mochikomi!

Which is basically, you bring your stuff to a publisher

or an editor, and show it and you get feedback

and I think anyone can do this

They're willing to sit down with you and look over your stuff

Yeah! If they think your stuff is interesting

But I didn't do it that way, you can go to manga markets

I think the most famous one is Comiket

Have you been?

Yeah, and set up a little table and sell your stuff

And then publishers will come and look around at stuff, so you can get recognised there?

And build connections that way

I'm more fond of one called Comitia actually

Comiket is like so huge, it's massive!

But Comitia is smaller, and it's only for original manga

So not doujinshi, which is like Naruto

So I really recommend that!

And there they had an editor area where you can just fill out a paper

Of course, Japan, there's always gonna be a paper to fill out

Lot's of papers, learn your kanji!

So I just did that, and then you can go and show your stuff

That was how I got in touch with my publishing company

That sounds a lot less stressful than having to go to a company by yourself

I think an event like that might be a good way to start out guys

Are the deadlines as stressful as shown in anime?

Yes.

Yes? Haha that's really life guys! It's actually like that!

Well it really depends

I read a manga called Bakuman

Yeah I've heard of it

So I thought it was gonna be like that, just like dying

But it's not that hard

And it really depends on what you're doing

I'm only working part time actually, because my manga doesn't run in a magazine

It just gets published on my blog actually

So that gets collected as manga books

But if you have a weekly section

Then you're pretty tight for your schedule

That's just insane

It's amazing though! It's amazing :D

So do you enjoy it? You're enjoying working as a mangaka?

Yeah, oh it's amazing

You're glad that you chose this path?

I'm so happy that I got this chance to be published in Japan as well

Like I never thought it would happen actually, but it did!

You can do it!

I think that's really cool, that you're an example that it can happen

I see lots of you guys commenting on my videos asking if it's possible to be a mangaka here

And I've seen people reply to you and be like "Pfft NO. Too much Japanese competition, you don't have a chance"

But Asa is proof that it can happen! So don't give up!

If you're passionate about becoming a manga artist

Then go for it! Why not?

If you fail, you fail. But you might as well give it a shot!

I should probably say that I'm not the only one either

There are others, there's a German girl called Caroline Eckhardt

She's published 2 tankobons

And I have another friend called Benjamin Boas who writes manga scripts

He doesn't draw it himself, which is actually quite common

So that's another option too, if you suck at art!

One of the other questions was is it more important to be a good artist, or good at coming up with stories

So you could just do one or the other, if you're only good at one of them

Yeah you can, it's actually quite common

There's quite a lot of people who want to tell their own stories or something

And then they get a Japanese mangaka to draw it for them

But the thing about being a foreigner as a mangaka in Japan

That is your strongest point, and your weakest point at the same time

Is there a lot of competition?

It's just monstrous

Of course it's insane, yeah

But as a foreigner, that's your weapon! That's the thing you can do that Japanese people can't do

The thing I've been told constantly from my teachers and publishers

is to use your foreign perspective when you write stories

It's a bit limiting, really

Because you basically just draw mangas about being a foreigner in Japan

Or about your own country, or international marriage love stories

But it's so true though

Yeah that's what you can do, and other people can't

Yeah kinda like your secret weapon kinda thing

So let's talk about your new books that are out!

I read your first 4-koma manga series

And the art is so different to that, it was neat to see the contrast

And these are published in Japanese, Swedish and English

Just so you can get an idea of her artwork

It's called "Sayonara September"

This is what the books look like

So what's the main idea of the story?

It's during one year, and the main character, is a girl who wants to become a manga artist

and the process

Yeah so that might be kinda interesting for you guys too

Is it based a lot off of your own personal experiences?

Yeah some of it is, but it's actually quite dark

And very dramatic

I think that is actually very interesting

When foreigners draw manga, when they've been reading Japanese manga and stuff

Like what you get inspired by, what you use in your own books as well

There's a lot of like Sailor Moon, Shojo Kakumei Utena, kind of dark stories

I like that, because it's such a contrast to your first work that I read

Yeah it's so different from my strip comics!

People read it and they're like Oh my gosh! Are you ok!?

But no, I think that's really cool that you have such flexibility to make both types

But yeah, I will link everything down below guys!

So make sure to check them out!

Very beautiful, very fun to read, very hard to put down, very interesting

So I totally recommend them!

And yeah, I'm so proud of you for doing so well here! I know how hard it is to work

Thank you, you too

So I totally respect that

So I hope you guys enjoyed talking to Asa!

If you have any questions for her, leave them down below

Maybe I can relay them over to her and we can reply to them

Thanks for watching! Bye!

Good luck!