#Ribon covers

[oratokyosaigunda]

Ribon cover 2025年2月 issue

[jariten]

マリンブルーの風に抱かれて (Marine Blue no Kaze ni Dakarete), Ai Yazawa

[lauraagrace]

I'm so excited to read more of this amazing series from @officialshojobeat! 😍😍

Mio is a beautiful heroine inside and out, and eagerly looking forward to seeing how her story will unfold in volume three!

Also, the covers of this shoujo are SO beautiful! Love how vibrant this one is!

[bishiedoll]

りぼんデラックス (Ribon Deluxe) covers by Ichijo Yukari in the 70s.

[holespoles]

Eiko Mutsu Cover of the August 1976 issue of Ribon, a Japanese girls' manga magazine.

陸奥A子 「りぼん」 76年8月号表紙

[midnight--sadness]

SERIOUSLY. JJ'S BODY IS CRAZY. how is he out here looking damn sexy and coquetteish all the time

https://www.tumblr.com/lizzytoobusy/772813615625633792/cant-stop-thinking-about-this-image-of-lee-jung?source=share

the proportions? 👀 okay twink

this photo makes me insane, those two ribons literally cover his entire waist 😭😭😭😭

[arkus-rhapsode]

Manga Publishers: Shueisha and Shonen Jump-What's the deal? (Quick Post)

Hello all, Arkus Rhapsode here again this time with a much smaller post. Recently I've been getting asked by people what a "Shueisha" even is? "Isn't it all just Jump?" Which reminded me how, at least in the west, manga fans really don't understand the difference between publishers and how something like Weekly Shonen Jump is an imprint part of a larger publishing company known as Shueisha.

Shueisha itself has numerous other magazines underneath is such as V Jump (monthly Shonen magazine aimed at middle schoolers), Weekly Young Jump (A weekly seinin series), Jump+ (An online service that allows multiple manga with more range and broad genres), Ribon (A monthly shojo magazine), etc. With the ones containing the word "Jump" being part of the Jump Line of comics which are usually Shonen and Seinin series.

The amount of magazines may vary from company to company so it may be too much to ask of everyone to know all of them. In fact with digital platforms they kinda just blend together. And as someone in North America, I can see the SJ stamp placed on non shonen jump series by viz because they don't use categories like "Jump Comics" at viz.

Now this is information I really don't expect the average western manga fan to know because back in the day, we all had to use stuff like Manga Panda or Manga Stream which would post chapters from One Piece and Naruto alongside stuff like Fairy Tail and the Seven Deadly Sins. So for a lot of people the distinction of what is even inside "shonen jump" can change. Even with modern convinces this makes it hard for some as they think Spy x Family or Kaiju no 8 are shonen jump because they're updated on the SJ app.

This did get me thinking about how much publishers in Japan don't really make the company the "brand." In America, Marvel and DC slap their names on all their comics. This is the "Marvel Universe" or the "DC Universe." Now part of this is because they are a connected universe so they need a single unifying brand so you know what's what in a world with things from super science to mutants to magic. As well as the fact most of their characters are owned by the company. But you see this with things like animation too, its easy for networks to remind you that this is a Cartoon Network show or this is a Nickelodeon show even though they may have wildly different tones or genres or artstyles.

But in Japan, its interesting to see how much Shueisha as a publishing company isn't really concerned with tying its identity with the brand of their magazines. Part of me wonders that if its due to the fact that the publishers of these companies don't actually permanently hold the rights of the series that run in them. There's actually a lot stronger creators rights in Japan and a creator can simply choose to walk away from a publisher, famously Hiroyuki Takei would leave shueisha and take all of the Shaman King franchise to rival publisher Kodansha. Then Tsukasa Hojo and Tetsuo Hara both famous for their work on City Hunter and Fist of the North Star respectively, would create their own publishing company called Coamix and take the rights to their series to bolster the value. And none bigger than Makoto Raiku, a creator heavily critical of his former employer Shogakukan and creators rights enthusiast, would end up taking Zatch Bell with him and having its sequel independently published.

While in the case of Marvel many creators made characters on a work for hire contract which would stimulate that anything they made would become the property of the company.

Now that's not to say Shueisha don't invest in their brand. "Jump Comics" is a brand that possibly gets more promotion than another. As mentioned previously, you only really see Weekly Shonen Jump making manga the focus of their magazine cover. Heck some of the best covers are when you see all the characters inside the magazine hanging out. And my personal favorite is the Shueisha puts on Jump Festa, a convention specifically for jump related announcements and advertising which are almost always host to a massive mural each year of series running under the "Jump" label. I wish more companies honestly did this, particularly Kodansha and Shogakukan, but it Nintendo Direct vs Sony State of Play has taught me anything, its that not every company has that fanbase that'll make a big deal out of everything to sustain such a venture.

[dailykodocha]

Ribon Magazine November 1996 Cover Scan by Daily Kodocha

[chibivesicle]

Gokinjo Monogatari got an English release. I am just - feeling like I got my wish from 1998.

That's right, I'm alive but not very active on the meta for the time being. 2023 sped up for the second half; work got crazy busy for Q4. I worked up to Dec 18th through several weekends so yeah, needed some recharge time.

I don't know how I missed this, but thanks to watching Coleen's Manga Recs, I discovered that the one shoujo manga title that I had been wanting an English release for has finally arrived. Gokinjo Monogatari by Ai Yazawa!

I discovered Gokinjo Monogatari in '98. One of the local comic stores had the first three tankobons and I bought them based on the cover artwork alone.

It wasn't until undergrad I was able to meet a few more people and figure out more than just the name and artist. I tried to find the translation of the manga online, but was unsuccessful. I have to remind people that before scanlations, you had to buy a tankobon and hope you found the text based translation which would have the text according to page number and what panel location. I read a fair bit of Kenshin that way, but sadly, this series was not that popular with readers in the States. I've been moving my entire adult life hauling my three precious volumes of the manga hoping that someday I would first, collect volume 4-7 to complete the picture and that I'd have my matching English version. Granted, I haven't done a good job of looking for volumes 4-7 when I've been in Japan . . . or using the internet either.

As if to spite me, the follow up manga, Paradise Kiss, did get a translation in 2002 from Tokyo Pop which exists in the same universe as Gokinjo Monogatari. Note that a previous manga's characters show up at the Flea Market in Monogatari as well and Yazawa likes to keep a lot of her series tied together. Eventually, the scanlation of the series appeared and I read it around 2011. I'd only found an episode or two of the anime during the golden age of file sharing, but didn't follow through on it. I wanted to read the manga before watching the anime. In 2017, I visited the Manga Museum in Kyoto, got to see a cool display about Ribon magazine and of course they had Gokinjo Monogatari merch! I bought the file folder set and stickers! I bought the Gokinjo Monogatari UT shirt from Uniqlo featuring Ribon series. Yet each time I found more stuff, the universe got the last laugh. Japan released the collectors set with four volumes, there was a French translation, German etc and never one for English. So, you have to realize how I absolutely lost my mind when the thing I'd figured would never happen, happened! Not only was it a thing, I'd even missed the December 2023 release date -at least I didn't have to wait for a pre-order to get volume 1.

I'm happy to see that this version included some of the original color pages!

It has a few more at the end with a photo wall of Mikako's outfits. Everything about the style of this manga, I absolutely love. The fashion goes so hard even now. I get nostalgic with all of the mid-90s Japanese street fashion which has a mix of 60s mod and 70s flare. I think the series also does a good job of capturing that awkward time in your teenage life when you are trying to figure out how to act with people you are interested in. But failing to sort things out. Unlike a lot of other high school manga series, this one stands out with the much more "normal" appearance of the students. I remember picking it up and thinking that the characters looked like they could be my peers; though there is no way Mikako's outfits would pass my high school's own liberal dress code where dyed hair and piercings were permitted. Her bare midriff would get her in trouble . . . Funny how now when I look at it, this is a very unusual high school set up for a Japanese reader likely coming from a more regimented school environment with a uniform and strict dress code. I never thought about it at the time. More that I was plotting my own hair dying plans for when I moved out of the house for undergrad just like the characters had - while still in high school. I did read Parakiss back when it came out from 2002-2005; however, it never really resonated with me the same way a series that I couldn't even find a decent translation for. I started to watch Nana but couldn't get into it at all. Maybe it was my mindset or the fact that I wasn't the mood for young twenty-somethings figuring their shit out.

Yet, here I am in the winter of 2024, and I have volume 1 of the collectors edition format of Gokinjo Monogatari and I'm still loving every little bit of the story as I read it. Perhaps, Parakiss and Nana were more edgier/grittier than something like this which is why they never quite clicked with me. I wanted my fashionable shoujo drama but not over the top. I'm not sure what I'll write about it. It isn't a well known series both due to the fact it is from the 90s and that it is shoujo but perhaps I can reflect on what I was drawn to it all those years ago and what I think about it now.

[oratokyosaigunda]

Ribon cover 2025年1月 issue

[jariten]

田渕由美子ベストセレクション  すてきなボーイフレンド編 (Tabuchi Yumiko Best Selection: Sutekina Boyfriend Hen), Yumiko Tabuchi

[your-mentally-ill-vampire]

Me *bleeding out, about to faint, wounds covered up in ribons instead of bandages* : ✨coquette✨

[bishiedoll]

りぼん / Ribon March 1969, cover by Kitajima Yoko.

scanned by: 書庫の中.

[holespoles]

Mutsu Eiko Cover of Japanese girls' manga magazine Ribon

陸奥A子『りぼん』表紙

[kits-shrine]

Meeka playfully covered her eyes, “surprise me~” she sang.

Ribon chittered a laugh before disappearing into the chute. Tsukuyomi smiled at Meeka softly pouring himself another cup of tea "What will... you do... today my child?"

[fandompost]

‘Honey Lemon Soda’ Manga Gets Upcoming Ribon Magazine Cover http://dlvr.it/TH0ZlY