Creating manga is not an easy job. This job not only requires continuous working hours, sometimes overload, but also requires the mangaka to have the necessary skills to create a good manga.
For decades, the manga industry has received more and more attention from home and abroad. This also ensures huge income for many mangakas.
When Yen Press visited New York Comic Con this fall, the publisher broke down how a manga artist makes money. It turns out manga artists get paid in installments. When starting out, manga authors are paid an average of US$88 per page, but that number can vary depending on experience.
While some beginners may earn less, professional manga artists can earn double that depending on their work. These manuscript fees are fairly standard across the industry, but what sets manga artists apart in terms of income is sales.
One Piece's Eiichiro Oda leads the list of richest mangaka
According to data shared by Kadokawa and Yen Press, the average royalty for manga authors is 10% for each volume sold. This means that a collection of stories worth US$4 in Japan brings in $0.40 for the author.
For example, if one million copies of a manga volume are sold, the manga author will earn nearly 327,000 US dollars (more than 8 billion VND). So with that number in mind, netizens did the math to see which best-selling manga authors made the most money from sales.
It's no surprise that Eiichiro Oda tops the list. The author of One Piece has at least 515 million manga volumes in circulation, so in royalties alone, Oda has earned 206 million US dollars (more than 5000 billion VND) so far. This number does not take into account special copyright contracts or other cuts taken by Oda in sales, anime licensing, film production, etc.
As the list goes on, the co-creators of Doraemon have the same revenue as Golga 13 creator Takao Saito when it comes to royalties. This mangaka group has earned at least 120 million US dollars (about 3000 billion VND) from sales alone.
4th and 4th place went to Akira Toriyama and Gosho Aoyama. With 118 (nearly 3000 billion VND) million dollars, Toriyama has several series supporting his royalties; Dragon Ball contributed the most with 260 million copies sold, but other titles such as Dr. Slump and Sand Land also contribute significantly. And for Aoyama, Detective Conan and Yaiba helped this mangaka become a rich man.
Below are the top 10 mangakas with the highest income:
1. Oda Eiichiro
2. Fujiko F. Fujio
3. Saito Takao
4. Akira Toriyama
5. Gosho Aoyama
6. Inoue Takehiko
7. Masashi Kishimoto
8. Takahashi Rumiko
9. Mitsuru Adachi
10. Osamu Tezuka
Manga authors make the most money outside of publishing
Looking at this data, you can see that the best-selling manga authors are making a lot of royalties, but their wealth goes far beyond those numbers. For people like Oda, it can be said that money is not an issue for them. The net worth of top manga creators is huge, and those numbers are only getting bigger as anime becomes more popular globally.
In Oda's case, his royalties not only made him the top earner in the manga community, but his other projects also increased his net worth. Estimated to be worth more than $200 million, Oda is heavily involved in the licensing of One Piece. From Netflix's live-action adaptation to Universal Studios' events and clothing collections, all of these crossovers give Oda more money.
When it comes to net worth, usually manga royalties don't determine who has more money. Rumiko Takahashi is said to have an income of up to 70 million US dollars even though her manga royalties are not top-notch. Her award-winning fame and top-rated anime adaptations have earned her huge sums of money.
The same truth holds true for the likes of Hajime Isayama (Attack on Titan) and Tite Kubo (Bleach). As creators, manga sales are important to success, but the manga industry is just the beginning. Artists can make a lot of money through licensing, and newcomers like Kagurabachi's Takeru Hokazono are now seeing it firsthand.