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The Proofreading Department

The publisher Shinchōsha has a kōetsu-bu, a department for checking manuscripts. Its own site says that 60 people work there and check every publication. Their checks go beyond typos to the facts of what is described. One note to an author read: “From Tokyo to Nagoya, a car will not arrive in this time, even on the expressway.” Another noted that the hero’s home was on the first floor, while in the previous book it had been on the second.

The critic Tokuoka Takao called the department a lone demon of the publishing world, with an attitude that never allows a mistake. On October 5, 2016, Nippon Television began broadcasting the drama Jimi ni sugoi! Kōetsu gāru Kōno Etsuko (Plain but Amazing! Proofreading Girl Kōno Etsuko), with Ishihara Satomi in the title role. It was based on a novel by Miyagi Ayako.

Five Hundred Rejected Pages

Torishima Kazuhiko was a new editor at the manga magazine Jump when he worked with Toriyama Akira. In an interview with ITmedia, he described how the manga Dr. Slump came about. The two made manga and crushed them, made them and crushed them, again and again. It took about a year and a half.

Torishima recalled what Toriyama told him later. When Toriyama moved house, about 500 pages of drafts that Torishima had rejected came out of his closet.

Galley Proofs

The publisher Hitsuji Shobō gives its authors a guide to correcting proofs. The first proof is the shokō gera. The proof with its red corrections made is the saikō gera, and the next one the sankō gera. A proof sent at the end, just to make sure, is the nenkō gera.

Editors and proofreaders write their questions to the author in pencil on the proof. From the second proof on, the guide asks the author to check that the red corrections from the last round were made correctly.

B Sizes

Japanese paper comes in A and B sizes. The standard JIS P 0138 defines a B series of its own, separate from the ISO B series. JIS B0 measures 1,030 by 1,456 millimeters, ISO B0 1,000 by 1,414. In Japan, paper in the B series follows the JIS sizes more commonly than the ISO sizes.

The Essence of Failure

In May 1984, the publisher Diamond brought out Shippai no honshitsu: Nihongun no soshikironteki kenkyū (The Essence of Failure: An Organizational Study of the Japanese Military). Its six authors include Nonaka Ikujirō.

The description of the 2024 Chūkō Bunko edition says the book brought social science analysis into the study of war history for the first time. It examines six operations as cases of failure: Nomonhan, Midway, Guadalcanal, Imphal, Leyte and Okinawa.

Self-Help in Meiji Japan

In 1870 and 1871, the scholar Nakamura Masanao published Saigoku risshi hen, his translation of Self-Help by Samuel Smiles. The book is linked with the line Ten wa mizukara tasukuru mono o tasuku. Heaven helps those who help themselves.

A Japanese encyclopedia puts the total number of copies printed at more than one million.

Vertical Society

In February 1967, Kōdansha published Nakane Chie’s Tate shakai no ningen kankei (Human Relations in a Vertical Society). It grew out of an article in the May 1964 issue of the magazine Chūō Kōron. The book became a long-seller. One account puts its sales in Japan at 1.17 million copies, another at more than 1.16 million in 124 printings.

Nakane herself said that it is a misunderstanding to read tate, vertical, as top-down command or as a structure of power.

Confining the Lord

In 1988, the historian Kasaya Kazuhiko published Shukun “oshikome” no kōzō, The Structure of the Lord’s Confinement. It won the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities. The book describes oshikome, a practice of Edo-period domains.

When a lord ruled badly, his senior retainers agreed among themselves to confine him and give him time to reform. If he did not, they retired him and installed another lord. The prize citation notes that the practice was widely accepted as legitimate and was usually carried out peacefully.

Counting on Goodwill

Amae (甘え): the Daijisen dictionary defines it as the feeling of counting on the goodwill of others. In 1971, the psychiatrist Doi Takeo published “Amae” no kōzō, The Structure of Amae. The book sold more than two million copies.

Doi defined the psychology of amae as an attempt to deny the fact of separation that belongs to human existence, and to overcome the pain of that separation.

Star of the Giants

The manga Kyojin no Hoshi, Star of the Giants, ran in Weekly Shōnen Magazine from 1966 to 1971. One device from the story became famous: the dai rīgu bōru yōsei gipusu, the major league ball training cast, which the hero wears all the time to build his muscles. The magazine Hiragana Times calls the series a pioneer of supokon, sports and guts, manga.