Ever dream of being a mangaka but felt that was impossible because you don’t live in Japan? Now you don’t have to worry about that, because Shonen Jump +, the digital version of one of the most famous manga magazines on Earth, Weekly Shonen Jump! Magazine (One Piece, Nisekoi, Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, Hunter x Hunter, Fist of the North Star, etc.), together with digital distributor, MediBang, are putting together an amateur manga submission contest. It is is open to EVERYONE, even people outside of Japan.

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For those living outside of Japan, there are three easy steps for Shonen Jump!-senpai to notice you as you submit your own manga work. Just finish your own manga, submit it to MediBang’s official website, and the people from Jump will be the ones to judge whether your work can be published by them.

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Here are the details on how to enter:

Entry Period: 17 December 2015 – 17 March 2016

Entry Format: 

  • One shot stories
  • Under 50 pages in length
  • Completed comics only (No scripts or rough drafts)
  • Pages can be ordered from left to right, right to left and vertically.

How to Enter

  1. Create a MediBang Account
  2. Click ‘Submit’
  3. Click ‘Submit’ once again
  4. Under ‘Comic’ choose the type of file you’d like to submit, and upload it.
  5. Under the submission’s Details under ‘Submissions’ select the ‘Jump+MangaContest’ tag and save it.
  6. Finally click ‘Publish to MediBang

Qualifications: Anyone can participate, whether you are a pro or an amateur. You can enter even if you don’t live in Japan. Only comics that entrants have the rights to distribute for free may be entered. Entries must be submitted in either ENGLISH, JAPANESE, KOREAN, or CHINESE (simplified or traditional)

Winner Announcement:

Grand Prize: 1 million yen, publication in Jump + , and feedback from editors.
Second Place: 300,000 yen , publication in Jump + , and feedback from editors.
Third Place: 100,000 yen, and feedback from editors.
※The possibility of no winners being chosen exists.
※Entries that don’t win may also receive feedback from editors.

Cash prizes will be transferred to entrants MediBang accounts. They can be paid to the Paypal accounts or bank accounts (bank transfers will have surcharges) registered to entrants accounts.

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The feedback for those who do not win will not only come from MediBang but Shonen Jump as well. This means that the people overseeing mangas such as One Piece, Naruto, Bleach, Nisekoi, Gintama, and other Jump mangas, and work closely with their respective (and legendary) mangaka, will be the ones giving you feedback. So even if you lose, you might get to hear advice from guys editing your favorite Jump mangas.

MediaBang has stated that publishers in Japan, like Shueisha, are having trouble finding new manga talent, and are seeking to get fresher ideas from outside of Japan. However, thanks to a language barrier, this is proving to be very difficult. According to Rocket News 24, with the ongoing contest, “Shueisha and MediBang hope to change this by offering to localize any foreign works that make the cut into Japanese using Shueisha’s team of professional translators.”

You can also view the submissions by language here: https://medibang.com/jumpplus/entry