Shogakukan

Company Information & Key Figures

About

Established on August 8, 1922, founded by Takeo Oga, the grandfather of today’s president Masahiro Oga. Shogakukan was founded primarily as an educational publishing company which published educational magazines for elementary school students as well as instructional magazines for teachers. The variety of publications then gradually expanded to pre-school children’s magazines, general magazines and book publications such as illustrated reference books, dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Shogakukan is part of the Hitotsubashi Group, a Japanese “Keiretsu”, a set of more or less interconnected companies with shared interlocking business relationships and shareholdings. The Hitotsubashi Group also includes several other publishing companies, notably Shueisha. The two companies have their headquarters next to each other.

Over the years Shogakukan has also established itself as one of Japan’s leading publishers of Japanese manga. With its comics becoming increasingly popular in the 1980s and 1990s, Shogakukan further expanded its horizons in areas outside of manga by publishing a number of successful fashion and lifestyle magazines such as Oggi and Be-Pal. Today, Shogakukan is one of Japan’s major publishers, publishing eighteen comic magazines and about one hundred million comic books a year while continuing to put out an impressive array of non-manga publications as well.

Shogakukan publishes numerous children’s books but also dictionaries and encyclopedias as well as books dealing with history, folklore, geography, literature, art, education, medicine, photography and gardening. Currently, Shogakukan publishes 64 magazines, on average 760 new book titles per year and sells ca. 22 million copies of a backlist of 9200 titles.

Of its manga series, it publishes ca. 13,900 items, selling ca. 117 million copies per year. It also has ca. 850 magazine books and 4,000 DVDs and videos in its lists.

Analysis & Key Developments

Update: During fiscal 2018 Shogakukan experienced a loss of 2.93%, therefore revenues declined from 97,309mYen in 2016 to 94,462mYen in 2017. (company information)

Financial

In fiscal 2017 revenues at Shogakukan slightly increased to 97309mYen. Net Profits grew to -813mYen compared to -3052mYen in 2016. (company information)

Acquisitions and growth initiatives in publishing

• In January 2018, Shogakukan and the VOYAGE GROUP, Inc. launched the joint venture C-POT, Inc., a company providing software solutions, focused on the digitization of publishing content. (PR 13.02.2018)
• In March 2018, Shogakukan launched a new website named Japanese Books for everyone, which aims to encourage interest in Japanese culture all over the world. (company information)

International

Shogakukan established business-bases in San Francisco, Paris, Shanghai, and Taiwan.

Since 2002, Shogakukan, together with Shueisha, owns Viz Media. Viz Communications Inc. was founded in 1987 in San Francisco and has been successful in introducing Japanese comics to the North American market. In March of 2005 Viz Communications Inc. merged with Shopro’s American subsidiary, Shopro Productions and Entertainment, Inc., thereby making the newly formed company, Viz Media, a groundbreaking new entertainment company specializing in the production and licensing of animated content for TV and theatrical distribution, publishing, home video distribution and consumer products. Shanghai Viz Communication Inc. was founded in 1995, and has been active in arranging for joint publications with Shogakukan and Chinese publishing companies.

For Asia, a dedicated entity has been created, Shogakukan Asia, headquartered in Singapore, while in Europe, the Japanese group is partnering with various local brands, like Kazé in France, or Carlsen, Egmont as well as Tokyopop in Germany.

For its dictionaries, the group has cooperation projects with Random House, F.A. Brockhaus, Robert and Librairie Larousse among others.

Digital

In July 2017 Shogakukan launched digital versions of its Weekly Shonen Sunday and Monthly Shonen Sunday magazines in Japan. Those include several popular mangas like Detective Conan or Nobunaga Concerto. (ANN 13.07.2016)