When you create an original story, your biggest question is often about rights: who owns what, what is being signed away, and what is kept.
Studio Gijutsu is a manga publisher that doesn't take your rights. We have no upfront fees for writers, and we believe clarity before work begins is essential for any healthy creative collaboration. This plain-language guide explains what production rights mean in practice.
1. Full Rights vs. Production Rights
Full rights mean handing over complete ownership of your story, characters, and world to a publisher. In that model, the creator often loses control over their own creation.
Production rights are fundamentally different. We never ask for full rights to a story. If we choose a story, we ask only for production rights: the right to produce and publish the manga. The writer keeps the story. The exact scope, duration and territory are set out in the written agreement before any work begins.
2. No Money Upfront and Plain Revenue Terms
We never ask writers for money upfront. There are no submission fees, no development fees, and no publishing fees. We evaluate stories on genuine potential.
We invest our time, artists and money in the stories we choose. To recover that effort, we agree on a revenue arrangement with the writer in writing before work begins: how much, when, and how payments are made. Everything is agreed plainly in advance so both sides work with complete confidence.
3. What Happens If a Story Is Not Chosen?
If we do not see potential, we take nothing and the story stays the writer's. You are completely free to pitch it elsewhere, publish it independently, or develop it further. Sending an introductory concept transfers no rights of any kind.
4. Where Does Publication Happen?
Depending on the project, we either publish together (the writer and Studio Gijutsu credited together) on our own digital platform, which is planned and not yet launched, and on other digital platforms where possible; or we hand the finished production-level manga to the writer to publish, under the written agreement.
Have an original story concept?
Studio Gijutsu reads original stories and develops promising ones into full manga with artists. No upfront fees and no full rights taken: only production rights.