''Raijin Comics'' is a discontinued
manga
are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...
anthology published from 2002 until 2004 in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...
by the now-defunct
Gutsoon! Entertainment and largely backed by the
Sega
is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...
Corporation at its inception. The collected volumes of ''Raijin Comics'' titles were published under the ''Raijin Graphic Novels''
imprint. The magazine was aimed at mature readers.
Premiering with a cover date of December 18, 2002, ''Raijin'' was initially published on a weekly basis similar to various popular manga magazines in Japan, including
Coamix's own ''
Weekly Comic Bunch''. However, distribution problems made the weekly schedule difficult to maintain and the weekly format ceased with issue #36 (September 10, 2003), becoming a monthly publication from issue #37 (October 2003) until issue #46 (July 2004), when the magazine ceased publication. Its failure to break into the U.S. market has been attributed to competition with the North American version of ''
Shonen Jump'', which debuted shortly afterward, despite the fact that they were aimed at different age range. Also, unlike Jump, many of the titles in Raijin lacked general brand awareness amongst casual American manga fans.
On May 5, 2005, Raijin lost control of the raijincomics.com
domain name
In the Internet, a domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services, and more. ...
to
domain squatters. The corporate website, remained in operation for many years but wasn't updated after June 2004,
Raijin Comics Loses Domain – Anime News Network
/ref> and as of mid-2010, has been taken over by domain squatters. Since the folding of ''Raijin Comics'', some of its titles (''Slam Dunk'', ''Guardian Angel Getten'' and ''Fist of the North Star'') have since been licensed to other companies.
Series published by Raijin
The following series were serialized in ''Raijin Comics'', with the issues they appeared in parentheses:
* ''Baki the Grappler
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Keisuke Itagaki. It was originally serialized in the ''shōnen'' manga magazine '' Weekly Shōnen Champion'' from 1991 to 1999 and collected into 42 ''tankōbon'' volumes by Akit ...
'' (2-46)
* '' Bomber Girl'' (1-11)
* '' Bow Wow Wata'' (14-21, 23–33, 35–41, 43–46)
* '' City Hunter'' (1-46)
* '' The First President of Japan'' (2-18, 20–23, 25–29)
* '' Fist of the Blue Sky'' (1-31, 34–35, 37–46)
* '' Guardian Angel Getten'' (4-7, 9-20, 22–32, 34–46)
* '' Nemuri Kyoshiro'' (33-46)
* '' Hana no Keiji'' (19-34, 36–45)
* ''Mountain Climbers Saga'' (5, 13, 46)
* ''Revenge of Mouflon'' (4-18, 30–36, 38–46)
* ''Slam Dunk
A slam dunk, also simply known as a dunk, is a type of basketball shot that is performed when a player jumps in the air, controls the ball above the horizontal plane of the rim, and scores by shoving the ball directly through the basket with on ...
'' (1-14, 16–46)
Imprinted manga series
See also
* List of manga magazines published outside of Japan
The following is a list of notable manga magazines that were, and are published outside Japan. Not all magazines abroad published their own manga or had the rights to serialize manga originally published in Japan. To qualify for this list, the ma ...
References
External links
* (Waybacked
The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web founded by Internet Archive, an American nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California. Launched for public access in 2001, the service allows users to go "back in ...
)
Anime and manga magazines
Magazines established in 2002
Magazines disestablished in 2004
2002 establishments in the United States
2004 disestablishments in the United States
Defunct magazines published in the United States
{{Anime-mag-stub