Egmont Manga (EMA, formerly ''Egmont Manga & Anime'') is one of the largest publishers of manga in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It was founded in 2000 as a daughter company of Egmont

Ehapa The Egmont Ehapa Publishing Company (officially named Egmont Ehapa Verlag GmbH) was created in 1951 as a subdivision of the Egmont media group. The name "Ehapa" was taken from the initials of its founder: Egmont Harald Petersen. Ehapa is known ...

, after the manga boom in Germany became apparent around the turn of the millennium. Since 2003, EMA has been part of Egmont vgs in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

History

In 1878, Egmont H. Petersen opened his own print shop in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, which formed the foundation of the publishing firm. Its first big success was the family magazine, '' Hjemmet'', in 1904, which still exists today in

Scandinavia Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Swe ...

. For the opening of its large printery building, the ''Gutenberghus'', Egmont received the title of royal court printery in 1914. In 1948, the publishing company managed to secure the rights to

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

comics for several European countries. In 1951, a German subsidiary was founded,

. In the field of comics, it sold Disney works (translated by Dr.

Erika Fuchs Erika Fuchs, née Petri (7 December 1906 in Rostock – 22 April 2005 in Munich), was a German translator. She is largely known in Germany due to her translations of American Disney comics, especially Carl Barks' stories about Duckburg and its i ...

) and later also ''

Asterix ''Asterix'' or ''The Adventures of Asterix'' (french: Astérix or , "Asterix the Gauls, Gaul") is a ''bande dessinée'' comic book book series, series about a village of indomitable Gaulish warriors who adventure around the world and fight th ...

'' and ''

Lucky Luke ''Lucky Luke'' is a Western '' bande dessinée'' series created by Belgian cartoonist Morris in 1946. Morris wrote and drew the series single-handedly until 1955, after which he started collaborating with French writer René Goscinny. Their ...

''. In 1991, the Reiner Feest Verlag was bought out. The first manga of the publishing house appeared in February 1994 under this label, with '' Appleseed''. Further manga followed, but the great breakthrough did not occur until 1997/1998 with '' Sailor Moon''. In 2000, Ehapa published manga directed toward Japanese readers for the first time, with ''

Wedding Peach is a '' shōjo'' manga written by Sukehiro Tomita and illustrated by Nao Yazawa that was originally serialized in Shogakukan's ''Ciao'' magazine. In North America, it was translated and published by VIZ Media in its entirety, consisting o ...

''. In October of the same year, the firm Egmont Manga & Anime (EMA) was founded. Since then, the head of the publisher has been Georg F.W. Tempel, who had already been responsible for the previous manga publications as the former chief editor for trend subjects at Ehapa. EMA is the first German manga publisher to have an advisor directly on location in Japan. ''

Weiß Kreuz is a series conceptualized by voice actor Takehito Koyasu about four assassins that work in a flower shop called "Kitty in the House". The assassins are members of a group called Weiß (white), which is run by Persia of the mysterious K ...

'', the first anime, followed in 2001. It was produced in cooperation with Anime-Virtual under the label of IKASU. In 2002, EMA was again integrated with Ehapa, but the label was kept. There was a merger of several companies from the Ehapa concern, as well as a fusion with Egmont vgs, in 2003. This resulted in EMA and the Ehapa Comic Collection (ECC) moving to

. ECC became responsible for the comic publications of Ehapa in the book trade and it has also been led by Georg F.W. Tempel since the fusion with vgs. The Ehapa magazine department, which also publishes the '' Micky Maus'' magazine, is still located in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. From 2003 until 2005, EMA in cooperation with the organisation, Animexx e.V., organised the annual

anime convention An anime convention is an event or gathering with a primary focus on anime, manga and Japanese culture. Commonly, anime conventions are multi-day events hosted at convention centers, hotels or college campuses. They feature a wide variety of activ ...

Connichi Connichi is an annual, 3-day anime convention in Germany and one of the largest of its kind in the German-speaking world with over 24,000 visitors in 2013. It is held by the German anime association Animexx e.V. History Connichi was first held i ...

, in Kassel. The semi-annual program preview is the ''Shinkan''.

External links

Official site
Book publishing companies of Germany Publishing companies of Germany Manga distributors Manhwa distributors {{manga-stub