JAPANESE COMICS ARE ALL BUSINESS The country with one of the world's highest literacy rates loves to look at pictures. Major companies have discovered that cartoons are a great way to communicate.
By Sally Solo REPORTER ASSOCIATES Terence P. Pare and Cindy Mikami

(FORTUNE Magazine) – GOT A MESSAGE? Want an audience? If you're in Japan, say it with a cartoon. Dozens of major Japanese companies are turning their newsletters into comic strips, or manga. Leading book publishers have embraced the format to introduce readers to such lofty themes as economic principles, superconductivity, and the history of Japan. When Sony Chairman Akio Morita asked his ski instructor if she had read his autobiography, Made in Japan, she told him she would happily read the book -- if it were a comic. Now it is. Some 40 companies, including consumer electronics giant Matsushita and automaker Mazda, have begun to use comics to explain technical subjects to workers and customers. A four-volume economics primer called A Cartoon Introduction to the Japanese Economy has sold 1.8 million copies over the past three years. It was produced by the publishing arm of Japan's leading business daily, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Volume one was translated into English and distributed in the U.S. last year as Japan Inc. In addition to these new upscale versions, sales of everyday manga -- weeklies and monthlies of fictional fare sprinkled with a hearty dose of sex and violence -- totaled some $1.8 billion last year. That's about six times U.S comic book revenue. The most popular serials were also made into softcover books that brought in another $1.1 billion in sales. Yes, the buyers are the same Japanese who are so serious about work that the government periodically stages campaigns to get them to take vacations. This is the same populace that boasts one of the highest literacy rates in the world and buys millions of newspapers a day. Hard to imagine, perhaps, until you look into the intricate world of Japanese comics. Pass any newsstand on any Japanese train platform and see the array of comics on sale. There is a manga for everyone -- thrillers that rival 007 for espionage, psychological tales of salaried workers, romances that would put Harlequin to shame. ''It used to be that when students graduated from junior high school, they also graduated from comics,'' says Teruo Miyahara, the soft- spoken general manager of editorial services at Kodansha Ltd., Japan's largest book publisher. ''Then in the 1960s we started to make the stories more human, the drawings more real.'' Comics also became more relevant for the post-puberty crowd 20 years ago. Says Toshihiko Suzuki, editor of Shogakukan Inc.'s biweekly Big Comic Superior: ''It was during the student movement, and these comics were antiestablishment.'' Big Comic, the first of Shogakukan's manga, has grown up with its readers. In 1968, when it began publication, it appealed to men in their 20s. Today most of Big Comic's readers are in their 40s, and they are following some of the same serials that got them hooked at the beginning. A logical step: luring Big Comic fans to heavier material. Says Kazuyuki Adachi, who was in charge of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun series on economics: ''It was a topic that people wanted to know about, but there was no reference book that anyone could just pick up and understand. The manga filled the gap.'' With illustrated tales of characters at corporations such as Toyosan (could it be Toyota, or Nissan?) and Mitsutomo (try Mitsui, Mitsubishi, and Sumitomo), the four volumes humanized the cold political realities of international trade and economic restructuring. Says Adachi: ''It's natural to describe something with pictures. Michelangelo painted the Bible for people who couldn't read.'' Japan Inc. is no Sistine Chapel, but it does convey surprising depth. Otherwise dry and technical trade talk becomes emotional, almost exciting. The scene shifts quickly from Tokyo to Washington and back. Masked men confer with Prime Minister Nakane, a thinly disguised Yasuhiro Nakasone. Bodies float in the Thames. Nakane and his unnamed U.S. counterpart (hint -- he's a former actor who gets tired when the talk gets too complicated) are obsessed with one thing: reelection. A wily American auto executive named Ironcoke runs a company called Chrysky Motors. Among the nonfiction manga that followed Japan Inc., one of the most ambitious has been a series of corporate histories. Sekai Bunkasha, a publisher that had never produced comics, saw a market in high school and college students who were starting the intimidating process of job hunting. With help from the most popular companies, the publisher produced 12 volumes, including profiles of Honda (see cartoons), Sony, Nomura Securities, and Ajinomoto, the world's largest maker of MSG. Ajinomoto's public relations chief, Hirosuke Itoh, says he thought the idea was ''terrific'' when he first heard of the project. ''Comics give a total image, and they're easy to understand,'' he says. He disappears and comes back with a dull-red cloth-covered book resembling a dictionary. ''This is our company history,'' he says. Then he holds up the new comic version, asking, ''Which would you rather read?'' No contest. In the time it takes to plow through chapter one of the company's official history, the manga reader has learned how Ajinomoto revolutionized processed foods in Japan. Says Itoh: ''Comics are an entrance to studying about something. Better to read comics than to read nothing.'' Some Japanese still disdain manga, but there are signs that the medium is only beginning to mature. The Agency for Cultural Affairs announced this summer that cartoons would now qualify for national education awards. The expansion of manga would have been impossible without Japan's dedicated army of mangaka, or cartoonists. Says Keizo Inoue, a managing editor at Shogakukan: ''They say that in the U.S. every little boy wants to grow up to be a baseball star. In Japan you could say the same thing about becoming a cartoonist. Anyone who can do it does it. It's the ones without such talent that become other things -- like bureaucrats and businessmen.'' The man who brought respect to manga was Osamu Tezuka, a medical doctor and cartoonist who died last spring at 60. He revolutionized the medium with a 1947 comic called New Treasure Island, a story with elements of Treasure Island, Tarzan of the Apes, and Robinson Crusoe. Among Tezuka's innovations: He created the impression of movement by drawing the same scenes from different angles. His works included a biography of Buddha and a fictional rendition of life in Germany under Hitler. Two of his creations, Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion, became favorites outside Japan, especially in the U.S. ! With a newsstand price of about $1.50 a copy, manga yield thin profit margins. But volume is huge -- the most popular manga, a weekly boys' magazine called Shonen Jump, has a circulation of about four million. Publishers hold down costs by using grainy, low-quality paper and holding colored drawings to a minimum. ''Comic magazines and books are the foundation of profits for publishers,'' says Inoue of Shogakukan, which sells about 20 million copies a month of manga magazines. PUBLISHERS DISAGREE on how far the nonfiction manga market can grow. Optimists say comics may be the perfect answer in an age of information overload because they convey a story or idea quickly. What about exports? Shogakukan recently began a U.S. subsidiary called Viz Comics to chase after the big three: Marvel, DC, and Archie Comics. With its English-language versions of lovable aliens, martial arts experts, and others, the Japanese publisher says it has captured 2% of the market. But Inoue doubts that share will grow much, because so few Americans commute to work by train -- when Japanese are busiest reading their favorite manga, as well as other magazines. Chances are that Big Comic or Shonen Jump won't be showing up next to Time at the newsstand soon. That's why FORTUNE decided to treat you to excerpts from some of the more recent manga fare. Of course, the text has been translated and the panels transposed (the Japanese read from right to left). But the cartoons provide a new view of Japan. You may find an emerging superpower, but the Japanese see a country with numerous -- and dramatic -- problems. Where you discover an invincible corporation, they detect a company challenged everywhere by fierce competition. For Westerners, manga are more than fun. They're an opportunity to see the Japanese as they see themselves.