AnimeNYC 2025: Manga professionals talk about ‘More than One Way To Break Into Manga’

The “More than One Way To Break Into Manga” panel at AnimeNYC 2025 featured a range of manga publishing professionals discussing how they started their careers and how other aspiring manga professionals could do the same.

The panel began with technical difficulties connecting the presentation to the screen, but the panelists introduced themselves while that was sorted out. The panel was moderated by TJ Ferentini, Senior Editor at Kodansha. The panelists were Lydia Nguyen, Assistant Editor at Abrams Comic Arts and Manga History Professor at SVA; Shirley Fang, In-House Production Manager at Kodansha/Vertical; Mark de Vera, Sales and Marketing Director at Yen Press; Morgan Perry, Marketing Manager at Square Enix; and Ricky Uy, founder of Komodo and NIUHI.

Photo Credit: Masha Zhdanova

All panelists talked about their career journeys and how they ended up in their current positions, as well as expanded on the different types of roles that exist in the English-language manga industry. Fang talked about how freelancing eventually led to a full-time role for her at Kodansha, while de Vera talked about how he seemed to get his first role in marketing at VIZ pictures by being in the right place at the right time. Ferentini emphasized that while manga editorial requires Japanese language knowledge, other positions, such as sales and marketing, generally do not. Perry added that her marketing strategy relies heavily on “visuals and vibes.”

Photo Credit: Masha Zhdanova

Panelists also discussed skills that transfer well into publishing, such as retail and food service, bookselling, and education. Being able to juggle multiple tasks, anticipate client needs, and pitch books to readers is very applicable to multiple publishing career paths. Nguyen talked about how contemporary fanzine projects are essentially recreating publishing on a small scale and how moderating fanzines requires similar skills as production management and editorial. Perry talked about how working in a comic shop transitioned well into working in sales at BOOM! Studios. 

Uy started in game design and engineering before transitioning into manga, aiming to help indie manga creators the same way Steam helps indie game developers share their work with a wider audience. His new app NIUHI has several new features to support manga translation, including the ability to tap a speech balloon and instantly view it in another language and harnessing the power of fan translation to increase the availability of manga in languages including Tagalog and Hawaiian. 

Unfortunately, the panelists didn’t have enough time to cover every point they intended to discuss, but they still saved some time for attendees to ask their own questions and remained available after the panel to answer further questions and give more specific and individual advice.

For more coverage on AnimeNYC 2025, you can find it right here in the AnimeNYC 2025 archive on The Beat!