Square Enix manga magazine Shonen Gangan has astonished readers by deliberately printing a manga upside-down “as punishment” for the author missing a deadline.
The manga in question, Haru ni Naru Uzuuzu Shichau by Fumi Fujimura, has been serialised in Monthly Big Gangan since 2011.
The most recent edition saw 8 pages printed upside-down, with a right-side-up note printed on the page stating that:
“As punishment for Fujimura-sensei breaking a deadline, the manga will be printed upside-down. We apologise for causing readers annoyance with this inexcusable measure.”
The odd punishment has provoked a distinctly mixed reaction:
“This is a joke, right?”
“Editorial onanism? Wouldn’t it be more sensible to reduce the mangaka’s pay?”
“Even as a marketing stunt this is a bit lacking. I guess they didn’t want to use blank pages either.”
“Just sack the mangaka already!”
“These magazines give the impression that their editors are a bunch of children…”
“This is at least quite entertaining to see once in a while.”
“In spite of the deadline the editors seem to have plenty of time to mess around like this!”
“This is just taking things too far.”
“I can’t believe they did this without Fujimura’s consent. It’s quite entertaining… will they restore it for the tankobon?”
“Just a publicity stunt, surely. They have been doing this kind of stuff too much lately.”
“So now the readers get punished along with the mangaka? What is wrong with these companies…”
“Somebody is going to ask for a refund, like when they manage to print pages out of order.”
“Don’t involve the readers in this stuff!”
“It certainly seems Gangan is not doing too well these days.”
“This must have really confused the printers…”
Personally I find this the “better way” to deal with the deadline mishap
Better that reducing pay for an already ordinary pay job
Better that sacking the mangaka
The wording… are they sorry to the reader for the mangaka not meeting the deadline, are they sorry for ‘having’ to print it upside down… I’m so confused. If they felt the need to apologize for the “inexcusable measure” then they shouldn’t have done it in the first place.
SE: doing things wrong even in mangas.
Its probably just a publicity stunt – people are saying they’ll lose money but I think it’ll be the opposite. People probabyl want to own ‘that one magazine that did that stupid upside down thing’ just for laughs, or even just to buy it to see if its true.
Immature. Although, I’d sure like to hang Square Enix upside down for their constant stream of failures~