Reports of the death of manga are greatly exaggerated. True, physical sales of what is universally (though problematically) defined as “Japanese comics” have dropped alarmingly in recent years, at least in Japan. In the first decade of the twenty-first century, total annual sales of manga books and magazines decreased roughly from over 500 billion yen ($4.5 billion) to about 300 billion yen ($2.7 billion). This is not surprising, given that manga has become somewhat overshadowed by other media, particularly animated film (anime) and digital gaming. Yet slumping sales of manga belie the fact that interest in manga may actually be on the upswing. Until recently, works were produced and consumed in what might be described as the “manga pyramid,” consisting of (1) a base of amateur fare, a fraction of which was submitted directly to publishers, though most of which consisted of self-published minicomics or “zines” (_d_ō_jinshi_) circulated among acquaintances or at comics conventions (_komikon_); (2) a middle strata of works that, while crafted primarily by professional artists, were test-driven in a slew of manga magazines, or _mangashi_ (e.g., Kōdansha’s _Young Magazine_ launched the now-classic series _xxxHolic_, _Be-Bop High School_, _Ghost in the Shell_, and _Akira_); and (3) an apex...