Hakusensha, Inc. is a Japanese publishing company. It is headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo. The company mainly publishes manga magazines and is involved in series' productions in their games, original video animation, music, and their animated TV series. The company is a subsidiary of Shueisha, thus; is also partly owned by Shogakukan.
History
Hakusensha was founded on December 1, 1973 by Shueisha. It is now a separate company although still a part of the Hitotsubashi Group with Shueisha and Shogakukan as one of the major members of the keiretsu. After setting up the company for five months, the firm published their first magazine, a shōjo manga magazine titled. In November that year, they moved from to. In 1975, the firm changed the frequency of their magazine from monthly to semi-monthly; in March, they created their first imprint,. In July 1976, they published their second manga magazine, a shōjo manga magazine named as a sister magazine to Hana to Yume that is published bi-monthly. In April 1977, they set up a publication editing department and in July, they began publishing a seasonal magazine titled. In March 1981, they moved to. In September, they branched out from their usual shōjo manga magazines to a shōnen genre by publishing. With that, the company released their series in Shōnen Jets under a new imprint, in July 1982. As of January 2009, the magazine was defunct but the imprint is used to publish their seinen manga series serializing in Young Animal and Young Animal Arashi as well as certain series serializing in Melody. Three years later on August, they published a new magazine, specialising under the josei genre, Silky that is published on even-numbered months. With that, they created an imprint for Silkys series to be published under. In March 1989, they started publishing a seinen manga magazine called Animal House. Three years after Animal House, they published Moe, a monthly magazine for picture books targeted toward shōjo readers. In May that year, Animal House was renamed to Young Animal and was then published semi-monthly since. In March 1994, they created another imprint,. This imprint is for publishing manga in the bunkoban format. Moreover, in December 1995, they started publishing another magazine that was published seasonally, which is targeted toward josei readers. In January 1996, they created an imprint for,. In July that year, they created. In September, they published Melody which publishes on odd-numbered months. On the same month, they moved to, their present location. In April 1996, they published LaLa DX on odd-numbered months. The company also began selling their drama CDs under, abbreviated as HCD. In June 2001, they published Candy; as of January 2009, the magazine has been discontinued. In May 2005, they changed their special publication of Young Animal Arashi into a monthly publication. In July 2006, Bessatsu Hana to Yume was made a monthly publication., a magazine targeted at readers of yaoi genre started its publication on May 2008. Le Paradis, a manga anthology published triannually published its first issue on October 29, 2008. Source:
Besides publishing, the company releases drama CDs of series under their magazines:,,, and. Moreover, they are involved in the productions of games, TV drama, theatrical movies, musicals, radio shows, TV animation and original video animation. Series under the company can be read throughmobile phones in Japan using the following service portals: and. Hakusensha e-Comics was started in September 2005 and is operated by Hakusensha and CharaWeb. This service is available in two variations and customers will have to pay 315 yen and 512 yen respectively to access this service every month. Source:
It was announced at the 2009 Tokyo Game Showpress conference that Hakusensha and 11 other publishing companies in Japan would provide nearly 100 titles of manga to supply the service in PlayStation Store. Hakusensha has yet to provide details of the supplied titles for the service. This service is only available for Japanese PlayStation Portable consoles and will start in December 2009.
Hakusensha publishes their books and manga under these imprints.
Hana to Yume Comics
Jets Comics
Hakusensha Ladies Comics
HanaMaru Comics
Hakusensha Bunko
HanaMaru Bunko
HanaMaru Novels
HanaMaru Black
Awards
Hakusensha organizes contests to offer aspiring manga artist a professional debut as well to be affiliated with their magazines. These contests or awards are, Hana to Yume Mangaka Course, LaLa Mangaka Scout Course, LaLa Manga Grand Prix, and Big Challenge Awards.
