CoroCoro Comic

• 1. Introduction

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  CoroCoro Comic has sold 400 million copies as of April 2017, a number that places it among the best-selling comic and manga magazines ever printed. Published by Shogakukan, the monthly magazine has been arriving in Japanese homes since 1977, and the franchises it helped build, including Doraemon and the Pocket Monsters series, have become fixtures of Japanese popular culture.

  The name itself is a clue to the magazine's philosophy. CoroCoro comes from a phenomime, a Japanese word that mimics a physical sensation. It evokes something rolling, something round and small, because that, the magazine's founders reasoned, is what children like. Every issue since launch has been built around that instinct.

  How does a single publication tie itself so tightly to the toys, games, and characters that define a generation? And how does a magazine launched before Nintendo's Famicom even existed stay relevant for nearly five decades? Those questions run through CoroCoro's entire history.

• 2. Origins in Doraemon

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  Before 1977, Doraemon had been spread across six different Shogakukan magazines, each aimed at students in a different year of elementary school. CoroCoro was created specifically to gather those scattered chapters under one roof.

  The magazine launched in May 1977 as what was essentially a dedicated Doraemon vehicle. That manga had already proven its popularity across the six-magazine run, so Shogakukan was not taking a blind leap. The consolidation gave Doraemon a single, stable home and gave the magazine an anchor franchise from its first issue.

  Monthly circulation climbed to 1,400,000 copies in 1987. The 30th anniversary of the magazine's founding was marked in 2007 with an exhibition held at the Kyoto International Manga Museum, a concrete sign of how seriously the publication's cultural contribution was being taken.

  By April 2002 the magazine was running Fujiko F. Fujio Masterpiece Theater Doraemon as an ongoing serialization, a title that has continued alongside newer additions to the roster.

• 3. The Pokémon Breakthrough

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  Pocket Monsters Blue, the Game Boy title that would become one of the most recognized video games in history, was sold exclusively through CoroCoro Comic at first. That arrangement gave the magazine a direct commercial stake in the game's success, and the boost ran in both directions: the exclusive sale helped Pocket Monsters reach its earliest buyers, and it pulled new readers toward the magazine.

  CoroCoro has since become a consistent source of advance information about upcoming Pokémon games and films. Multiple Pokémon manga series have run in the magazine's main edition and in its sister publications simultaneously. Pocket Monsters / Pocket Monsters SPECIAL began serialization in April 1996 in the main magazine. Pokémon Pocket Monsters started in Bessatsu CoroCoro Comic in February 1997.

  The circulation data shows the Pokémon effect in real numbers. Monthly sales sat at 630,000 in 1995, then jumped to 1,350,000 in 1996, the year the games launched. They climbed further to 1,800,000 in 1997 before gradually receding. That peak is the highest figure in the source's full circulation record.

• 4. Toys, Games, and Tie-Ins

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  Mini 4WD cars, developed with Tamiya, were among CoroCoro's most prominent non-digital tie-ins. The magazine also partnered with Nintendo and third parties on coverage of the Famicom, Super Famicom, and Game Boy lines, and worked with Takara on Beyblade and B-Daman.

  Beyblade is a clear example of how the relationship between CoroCoro and a toy property could run in multiple directions. The magazine serialized Beyblade manga, promoted the toys, and then decades later launched Beyblade X as a new serialization starting in June 2023, long after the original run had ended.

  Bikkuriman, the chocolate wafer snack whose collectible stickers turned into a franchise, was a tie-in with Lotte and also appeared in the magazine's formerly serialized list from the 1980s. Barcode Battler, the handheld game system from Epoch Co. that reads barcodes as game data, also featured in the magazine's promotions.

  Super Mario-kun, which began in the main magazine in November 1990, has continued without interruption and now also runs in Bessatsu CoroCoro Comic, where it began in February 1991. That parallel run across sister publications is a pattern the magazine has used across several of its most durable franchises.

• 5. The Magazine's Physical Life

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  Each issue of CoroCoro Comic is A5-sized, roughly 6 centimetres thick, and runs to 750 pages. New issues reach readers on the 15th of each month, though the date shifts earlier when the 15th falls on a weekend.

  The magazine has three sister publications: Bessatsu CoroCoro Comic, CoroCoro Ichiban!, and CoroCoro Aniki. Bessatsu and Ichiban! are published every two months. Aniki targeted an older audience and came out quarterly before ending publication in March 2021.

  On the 20th of November 2020, Guinness World Records recognized Tariji Sasaki, the CoroCoro Comic cover designer, as the longest-running cover designer for a children's magazine. That recognition came while the magazine was still active and Sasaki was still working, not as a retrospective honour.

  Foreign editions of the magazine have operated in Hong Kong as CO-CO!, in Taiwan as CoroCoro Monthly, and in China as Dragon Comic CORO-CORO.

• 6. Rivals and the Market

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  Comic Bom Bom, which ran from November 1981 to December 2007, was among the most direct competitors CoroCoro faced. Its closure after declining sales removed one of the magazine's oldest rivals from the field.

  Other past rivals include publications that ran between January 1979 and February 1982, between January 1981 and January 1983, between November 1985 and January 1989, between January 2004 and October 2009, and Kerokero Ace, which ran from December 2007 to September 2013.

  The current competition comes from V Jump, which has been published since June 1993, Monthly Shonen Ace since December 1994, and Saikyo Jump since January 2012.

  CoroCoro's own circulation numbers show the pressures of that competitive landscape. After peaking at 1,800,000 in 1997, monthly figures fell across subsequent years. The September 2008 to August 2009 period recorded 911,667, and the October 2018 to September 2019 period came in at 621,667. The Splatoon manga, which began serialization in the main magazine in June 2016, was one of the newer game tie-ins the magazine leaned on during that period of declining numbers.