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158 Manga Creators Mark Shonen Sunday, Mag's 50th Year
posted on by Egan Loo
158 manga creators gathered at a ceremony in Tokyo to celebrate the 50th anniversary of both Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine and Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine on Tuesday. Among the guests at Tokyo's Imperial Hotel were Motoo Abiko/Fujiko Fujio (A) (Doraemon), Mitsuru Adachi (Touch), Tetsuya Chiba (Ashita no Joe), Makoto Kobayashi (What's Michael?), Takao Saitō (Golgo 13), Rumiko Takahashi (Inuyasha), and Takao Yaguchi (Tsurikichi Sampei). The Gigazine news website posted a group photo of the creators and event videos. Both magazines launched on the same day: March 17, 1959.
To mark the occasion, the Japan Post service issued 20 commemorative stamps decorated with characters from Urusei Yatsura, Cyborg 009, 8 Man, GeGeGe no Kitarō and other manga. The two magazine actually began celebrating the anniversary last March with their first joint magazine cover, card and video games, and 53 T-shirts from UNIQLO. Each magazine published a special issue on Wednesday. Shonen Sunday's anniversary issue features a one-shot manga collaboration between Takahashi and Adachi, a poster with sketches from 51 creators, and a trailer DVD for the Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2, and Inuyasha special anime shorts that were created for last year's "It's a Rumic World" exhibition.
Source: Comic Natalie, Gigazine, Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web, Oricon Style
