Following Kobayashi Makoto’s footsteps through manga history

Features Natsume Fusanosuke | November 4, 2026 Translated by Jon Holt and Teppei Fukuda “Manga-shi ni okeru Kobayashi Makoto no ashiato o tadoru” — from Kawade Mook: Kobayashi Makoto (Kawade Shobo, 2026) pp. 170-175. If there is one thing America needs to copy from Japan, it’s the mook. “Magazine Books” are special-issue magazine printed on great quality paper, usually with lots of color photos and illustrations. The publisher Kawade Shobō usually issues a mook showcasing the career of prominent cultural figures, like writers or manga artists, on a semi-monthly basis. They come with interviews, essays on the person’s works, a timeline of their career, and lots of interesting side pieces about the person. Another publisher, Shogakukan, also issues their own mook series and in 2019 they released a special Takahashi Rumiko mook, from which we translated an essay about her written by Natsume Fusanosuke and published on TCJ in 2021. In June, Kawade Shobō published a mook about Kobayashi Makoto (born 1958), the creator of the popular manga What’s Michael? Kobayashi is a true master of both gag manga and martial-arts manga. Natsume Fusanosuke contributed a five-page essay about his career...