Kodansha

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The head office of Kodansha

Kodansha Limited (株式会社講談社, Kabushiki-gaisha Kōdansha^?) is the largest Japanese publisher of literature and manga, headquartered in (Bunkyo), Tokyo. Kodansha publishes manga magazines Nakayoshi, Afternoon, Weekly Shonen Magazine, Monthly Shonen Magazine, Monthly Shonen Magazine Special, Seasonal Shonen Magazine Wonder, as well as more literary magazines such as Gunzō, Gendai and Shūkan Gendai, and the Japanese dictionary Nihongo Daijiten.

[edit] History

Kodansha was started by Seiji Noma in 1909, as a spinoff of the Dai-Nippon Yūbenkai (Greater Japan Oratorical Society). Its first publication was the literary magazine Yūben. The name Kodansha (taken from "Kōdan Club", a now defunct magazine published by the company) was first used in 1911 when the publisher formally merged with the Dai-Nippon Yūbenkai. The company's current legal name has been in use since 1958. Its motto is "Omoshirokute tame ni naru" (To be interesting and beneficial).

It also owns the Otowa Group, which manages subsidiary companies such as King Records and Kobunsha, and publishes Nikkan Gendai, a daily tabloid. It also has close ties with the Walt Disney Company, and is an official sponsor of Tokyo Disneyland.

It is the largest publisher in Japan, and at one point yearly revenue was more than ¥200 billion. However due to the recent Japanese recession and accompanying downturn in the publishing industry, revenues have been dropping, and the company made a loss in the 2002 financial year, the first time ever since the end of World War II. The second largest publisher, Shogakukan, has been catching up as well – for the 2003 financial year, Kodansha's revenue was ¥167 billion, as compared to Shogakukan's ¥150 billion, a difference of around ¥17 billion; at its peak, Kodansha led Shogakukan by over ¥50 billion.

Kodansha also sponsors the prestigious Kodansha Manga Award, which has run in its current form since 1977 (since 1960 under other names).

[edit] Relationship with other companies

The company is a stockholder in various broadcasters across Japan, and is believed to hold around 20% of the TBS Group's stock. It also holds stock in Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, along with Kobunsha. In the recent Nippon Broadcasting System takeover war between Livedoor and Fuji TV, Kodansha supported Fuji TV by selling their stock to them.

Kodansha also has a somewhat contrary relationship with NHK, the national broadcaster. While many of the manga and novels published by Kodansha that have been made into anime, such as Cardcaptor Sakura, have aired in NHK's Eisei Anime Gekijō timeslot, and Kodansha published a companion magazine to the NHK children's show Okāsan to Issho, editorially the two companies often clash. The October 2000 issue of Gendai accused NHK of staging footage used in a news report in 1997 on dynamite fishing in Indonesia. NHK took Kodansha to the Tokyo District Court, where Kodansha was ordered to publish a retraction and pay ¥4 million in damages. Kodansha appealed the decision, and a settlement was reached where Kodansha only had to issue a partial retraction, and pay no damages[1]. This decision, however, has not stopped Gendai's sister magazine Shūkan Gendai from printing articles on further staged footage controversies that have been dogging NHK.