Here's the translation:
I’m going to explain again how breaks and the publication of a manga magazine work in Japan because I see a lot of people don’t understand how it works. I’ll start with the famous “advance chapters.”
As I’ve said many times over the years, “advance chapters” only happen at the beginning of a series because before starting a manga, the mangakas need to submit several chapters together for the editors of the magazine to review them (to ensure the series gets the best possible start).
That’s why, when a series begins, the author already has several chapters completed in advance. And once the series starts, and the author gets into the rhythm of weekly chapters, they can maintain this “distance” for a while at the beginning of the publication.
Let me give you an example. Imagine a new manga starts this week, and when chapter 1 is published in the magazine, the author has already finished chapter 7. Well, when chapter 2 is published, the author will have already drawn chapter 8, and when chapter 3 comes out, the author will have finished chapter 9.
So why doesn’t this distance last over the months/years? Because, like everything in life, nothing is perfect, and mangakas are people like us who get sick and can’t work for a few days or sometimes can’t finish their work on time due to various reasons (too much workload, family matters…). Sometimes, chapters that were already completed need to be changed because the series needs to gain popularity, or because the author has decided to alter the plot.
That’s why the “advance chapters” reduce over time until the mangakas are literally working on a daily basis. In any series, it’s normal that in the first months/years, there are no breaks (unless the author falls seriously ill), but it’s thanks to those advance chapters that there is margin. Once that margin is used up, that’s when the breaks begin.
For example, the first break One Piece took was in early 2001 after chapter 171 (three and a half years after the series began). And the second break was in early 2002 after chapter 217. Do you think Oda didn’t get sick during those three and a half years or that there wasn’t a week when he couldn’t finish the chapter on time? Of course he did, but thanks to the material he had prepared in advance, One Piece didn’t stop being published, and we didn’t notice.
Now, let’s talk about how a manga magazine works.
First of all, a magazine is prepared several weeks in advance from what we see. I won’t explain in detail how a magazine is created from scratch because I’ve already gone on for too long, but as I said, from the moment work starts until it’s on the shelves, it usually takes about 3 weeks.
Mangakas have a deadline to submit their chapters every week, and that deadline can be extended by 1 or 2 days at most if a mangaka is really pressed for time to submit a chapter (for any reason). That deadline is usually about 18-20 days before we see the chapter (more or less).
For example, on September 29th, chapter 1,161 of One Piece was officially published, so Oda had to submit that chapter to the publisher by September 10th-12th at the latest.
Once the authors submit their chapters about 20 days before the magazine is released, the publisher begins to create the magazine: they digitize the chapters, add the ad pages, create the cover... This work also takes several days (around 8-10 days at most).
Once the magazine is finished, it’s sent to the printing press. Keep in mind that a magazine like Shonen Jump prints over 1 million copies every week, so they have to send the magazine to the printing press well in advance because it’s not something that can be done overnight.
When the magazines are printed, they need to be sent to stores all over Japan, which also takes several days. In total, from when they start printing the magazines to when they’re delivered to stores, another 10 days pass.
As you can see, creating a magazine like Shonen Jump is not as simple as some might think because there are many steps involved and many people depending on each other. That’s why the publisher has to carefully plan every decision, and things like the breaks of series, who will be on the cover of the magazine, or which series will have color pages are decided before even starting to create each issue of the magazine.
But as I mentioned earlier, nothing is perfect, and sometimes, no matter how much you plan, problems arise that can’t be predicted. These are the last-minute breaks, like the one One Piece had this week.
No matter how much the publisher and the author have decided that the next chapter will be published in the next issue, if the author falls ill or has a serious personal problem and can’t finish it on time, it can’t be published. And it’s not about more or less professionalism, these are problems that can happen to anyone.
Well, I think that more or less explains everything. If anyone has any more questions, I’ll be happy to clarify.
Let me know if you need anything else!
