Tongli Publishing Co. ( Chinese: 東立出版社,

Hanyu Pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means ' Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin'' literally ...

: ''Dōng Lì Chūbǎnshè''), most known as Tong Li Comics, is a

publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

company which distributes a variety of domestic and imported comics in

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

History

State Capital Economic and Trade Building 20131207

Tong Li was founded in

Tainan Tainan (), officially Tainan City, is a Special municipality (Taiwan), special municipality in southern Taiwan, facing the Taiwan Strait on its western coast. Tainan is the oldest city on the island and commonly called the "Taiwan Prefecture, ...

, Taiwan in 1977 with a mere nine employees."Tong Li Publishing Timeline (東立出版年鑑)"
Tong Li, Retrieved 2008-10-13. Tong Li entered the publishing business as a seller of illegally copied comic books. "For fifteen years, Tong Li was the largest producer of pirated comics, redoing more than 1,000 titles in all, and for part of that time, fifty a month."John A. Lent, ''Pulp Demons: International Dimensions of the Postwar Anti-Comics Campaign'' (1999) p. 195. Tong Li's original method of operation was to procure new comics from

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

ese distributors, replacing the Japanese text with

traditional Chinese A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examp ...

, and "drawing bras on bare-breasted women characters and modifying, up to what they could get away with, explicitly sexual or violent panels".''Pulp Demons'', p. 195. The head of Tong Li, Fang Wan-nan(范萬楠), "jokingly referred to himself as the 'king of pirated comics'". Despite the copyright violation trend, Tong Li procured Taiwan's first legal license for Japanese manga with Minako Narita's ''

Cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...

'' from

Hakusensha 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 com ...

in 1989, and followed with

Katsuhiro Otomo is a Japanese Mangaka, manga artist, screenwriter, animator, and film director. He first rose to prominence as a pioneer founder of the New Wave (manga), New Wave in the 1970s. He is best known as the creator of ''Akira (franchise), Akira'', bo ...

's '' Akira'' from

Kodansha is a Japanese privately held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha publishes manga magazines which include ''Nakayoshi'', ''Morning (magazine), Morning'', ''Afternoon (magazine), Afternoon'', ''Evening (magazine), Eveni ...

in 1991. A 1992 Taiwanese law strengthening the copyright enforcement of comics forced Tong Li to abandon the copying and develop original content in addition to acquiring licenses through legal means, at which point it began publishing the magazines '' Dragon Youth'' (龍少年月刊) and '' Star★Girls'' (星少女月刊) - titles which retained the considerable influence of Japanese manga. It currently releases over 100 licensed manga titles a month includes One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, Saiyuki, Sket Dance, Hunter x Hunter, Gintama, Shijō Saikyō no Deshi Ken'ichi, Skip Beat, and more.

Manga Magazines published by Tong Li Publishing

* Dragon Youth Comic * New Youth Express * New Youth Express Monthly *Formosa Youth * Young Flower * Star Girls * New Youth Weekly

References

External links

* Mass media companies of Taiwan Comic book publishing companies of China Manhua distributors Publishing companies established in 1977 1977 establishments in Taiwan Manga distributors {{Manhua-stub

History

Manga Magazines published by Tong Li Publishing

See also

References

External links