Kodansha has built a model for working with Spanish manga artists, and the first to break through is Juan Albarran, who was born in Barcelona. The publisher has scouted local artists and put them in serials in its Japanese magazines, with the story by a Japanese writer and the art by a Spaniard.
Albarran drew Justice League and Suicide Squad for DC Comics in the US. After 2020 he worked as an assistant to Japanese manga artists, learning the weekly serialization process in which the name — the rough, panel-by-panel script — comes first. From 2022 he has drawn Matagi Gunner, written by Shoji Fujimoto, in a Morning-affiliated magazine.
His style, which the publisher says balances the composition of Western comics with the readability of Japanese manga, drew praise from both the editorial team and readers. NHK's morning program Ohayou Nippon featured the Morning desk's scouting of foreign artists as a success story, in a broadcast on March 30, 2025.
A generation raised on Japanese manga
Spain has a deep generation of readers brought up on Akira, Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star and Captain Tsubasa. Unlike France, where bande dessinée has hardened into a tradition, or the US with DC Comics, Spain has no fixed national school of its own, which may explain how readily its artists take to Japanese storytelling conventions.
At Manga Barcelona 2025, Kodansha had the strongest presence of any Japanese publisher. The shift matters beyond one convention: Spain is moving from a market that consumes Japanese manga to a base for creating and exporting it.
The account is drawn from “Anime” Economy Zone (Nikkei BP), by Ayako Hirashima, an editorial board member of Nikkei Entertainment!, who reported from the US, Spain and India.