How to get published at Saturday AM

Oct 22, 2023

Saturday AM is an OEL (Original English Language) manga publisher. They hold an annual “Summer of Manga” oneshot competition for hopeful mangaka to get their foot in the door. Here’s the path to success at Saturday AM:

Applicants send their portfolio, elevator pitch, and summary for a hypothetical manga oneshot
The strongest applicants are interviewed
Of this group, the top are selected to create their manga oneshot
The best oneshots are published in Saturday AM Annual
Of those published, a few may be selected for a manga serialization

With dedicated effort, your OC can be the next to come remarkably close to smacking the camera

Last Summer of Manga I applied. I made it to step 2, and that was the end for me. Around this time I also applied for LumeBento, and PolyMonFur was approved for serialization. Since I’m happy with life at LumeBento, it’s unlikely that I’ll apply for SaturdayAM again.

Senno Kai, pictured, protecting both Ushida-hime and my compulsion to shamelessly apply for every OEL manga publisher

I don’t see SaturdayAM or any of their artists as competition. Anyone who’s making manga is an ally on the same path (but if any “rival” artists want to partake in kayfabe for attention, I’m game).

So I am writing this post as someone who is a fan of manga, with a particular interest in the niche of OEL manga. And I am saying this in complete seriousness, with the hopes a future applicant to Saturday AM will listen:

I know how to win Saturday AM’s Summer of Manga event.

“That’s bullshit,” says the more sensible reader (Don’t worry, we can still be friends even if we disagree, and kayfabe rivals if you’re an artist). “How can you know? You only made it to step 2 of 5 with Saturday AM. Furthermore, you’re only making a light novel with Lumebento. You’re not serialized as a mangaka. Why are you so confident?”

Here’s why I’m so confident:

I have consumed most of Saturday AM’s podcasts and streams. They rigorously review entries for the Summer of Manga, and are open about their tastes and selection process. If you consume enough of their streams and podcasts, you’ll start to see the patterns in what gets approved. This is my attempt at condensing this knowledge and passing it onto you.
I do not believe in the Dunning-Kruger effect.

As with any manga competition, luck is still a variable with any entry. But here’s the patterns I’ve noticed for what gets approved:

Have comic pages in your portfolio. Even better if you have greyscale/screentoned pages. Show that this isn’t your first time making a manga-like product. Having a few examples of sequential art on your Instagram page will make you stand out. If you’ve already made a manga or webcomic, that’s great! But also be aware that they think webtoon (as in, infinite scrolling vertical comics) are a little too avante-garde for their taste (seriously, every time this comes up in someone’s portfolio, they always make a stink about how they just don’t “get” webtoons). If webtoons are your only example of sequential art, it’s better left unmentioned
Make a strong summary. Part of the pitch process in step 1 is summarizing your oneshot, and a lot of otherwise strong applicants will mess up on this step. A strong summary doesn’t indulge in lore/backstory, it’s contained to a paragraph, and gives a clear and solid ending. Don’t tease it with a “to be continued!” You’re not writing this to entice an audience to read your work. You’re writing this so an editor will know that you can structure a short story with a solid beginning, middle, and end.
Don’t be American. This is the biggest “luck” factor. Saturday AM wants artists from lots of different countries. They have explicitly stated that Americans have a lower chance of getting in, since they already have so many. At this point in time, you have to be exceptionally skilled to join SatAM if you’re American. If you’re born-and-raised American and want to play dirty, ham up your Ancestry.com results. I will never tell anyone to lie, but I will say Saturday AM doesn’t do formal background checks.
Play to the tastes of Saturday AM’s CEO, Fredrick Jones.

This last point is the trickiest.

The key lies in perfecting your oneshot’s Elevator Pitch (using the “Series meets Series” format) in Step 1 to suit the company’s tastes.

The example Saturday AM likes to give for a good elevator pitch is “Batman meets Yugioh.”

Honestly, this example sucks and I hate it. “Adam West’s Batman meets YuGiOh GX” would be wildly different from “The Batman 2022 meets YuGiOh Go Rush”. This hypothetical example of “Batman Meets Yugioh”, mixing these two franchises that span decades and mediums, tells me nothing.

I’ve strained to try to make sense of this. I’ve tried to think backwards - is there any pre-existing series that could be described with this? The best I could come up with is describing Kakegurui as “Harely Quinn Plays Yugioh.” Feeling satiated that yes, somehow, this Batman Meets Yugioh example they swear by makes a sliver of sense in this single context - I stopped trying to think any deeper about it, and accept it for what it is.

Because this example is really what they’re looking for. The closer you get to Batman Meets Yugioh, the more likely you are to be accepted.

To contrast, let’s look at a pitch that didn’t get accepted.

In Saturday FM podcast episode 6, rainbowolfe_art describes their series as “Scooby Doo meets Kamisama Kiss.” Fredrick Jones had never heard of Kamisama Kiss, and got into some light-natured ribbing that maybe it’s a series from the future. Despite his jokes, this dismissal of Kamisama Kiss left me angry, saddened, confused, anguished.

Such hurtful words took me to the “anger” stage of grief, and I had to take my emotions out on the nearest snack table.

Kamisama Kiss ran for 25 volumes between 2008-2016. Its adaptations include 2 anime seasons, multiple OVA’s, and a stage musical. It was big enough to get an official translation and print release in English. But to Fredrick Jones, it’s irrelevant.

In all fairness, he’s a busy guy. He’s not going to have the time to keep up with every anime. And that’s true of most of us as we take on more responsibilities.

If I can analyze his tastes and judge him as a public figure: Fredrick Jones’ tastes are generally aligned with many shonen-loving Gen X Americans who maintain a working, but not particularly deep, knowledge of pop culture and anime. And if I may speak with the broadest of generalities to describe the tastes of people in this group:

If it aired in his childhood, he remembers it (Please consult Buzzfeed or IMDb to learn the top 25 movies/shows only Gen X remembers. I am unauthorized to disclose such secrets).
If it’s MCU-related, he has an opinion on it.
If it aired on Toonami (especially before the advent of streaming), it has a special place in his heart.
If it’s a Shonen Jump series with an anime adaptation, he’ll be able to reference it to some degree (This is where most of his knowledge of new/seasonal anime comes from)
Also, he’s into professional sports (It’s real-life shonen, after all)

I’m not outlining this as a “gotcha”. If you look up anyone’s age/country, it can give you a general idea of their taste in media and cultural touchstones. Fredrick Jones is very open about what kind of media he enjoys, and there haven’t been a lot of curveballs. Again: not trying to dismiss him, he’s too busy running his business to indulge in deep media consumption.

The biggest shift in Saturday AM’s podcasts/streams from when they started vs. their most recent reviews is how they treat “niche” media. Instead of insisting that no one knows what a series is, they’re now more inclined to admit “I don’t know that series, let me look that up.” Despite this shift, the heart of the elevator pitch is the same. If they don’t have to look it up, you’ve got a better chance of getting approved.

Editor’s ears will perk up when you pitch something that would help their diversity quota. But you’ll need to keep in mind your (mostly American, certainly Westernized, undoubtedly shonen-loving) staff that’ll review entries.

If you’re going to use your ethnic/cultural background in your pitch, do it carefully. Speaking in generalities is more likely to get approval. And if you’re going to use something outside of the Gen X comfort zone, be sure to anchor it with something they find familiar.

Here’s some hypothetical bad examples and how I’d improve them to suit the SatAM taste:

Pitch 1: “The Legend of Sangkuriang meets Lozen the warrior/prophet”. Odds are, they don’t know what either of these are, so you might as well have said nothing.
How to Improve It: “Sundanese Mythology meets Marvel’s Black Widow”. Don’t get specific about which Sundanese myth you’re using. Just tell them you’re bringing Sundanese mythology (I want to stress this for anyone looking to add their culture to their elevator pitch). Lozen was a warrior/prophet of the Chihenne Chiricahua Apache, and a total girlboss - just like Black Widow! However, Black Widow is the more recognizable pop culture figure, so you should use her in your pitch.
Pitch 2: “The Myth of Jūratė and Kastytis meets SSSS.Gridman”
How to Improve It: “The Little Mermaid meets Godzilla”. Jūratė and Kastytis is a ‘mermaid forbidden love story’ from Lithuania, so just use the one they’re more likely to know. SSSS.Gridman is a Studio Trigger anime that enjoyed a run on Toonami - but again, we have to play to their tastes. I’ll guess (hope) most of the SatAM staff has at least heard of SSSS.Gridman, but playing it as safe as possible is what gets you from step 1 to step 2. Switch out Gridman for Godzilla, which is going to be more of a recognizable franchise.

Pitch 3: “The Biblical tale of the Tower of Babel meets Women’s Sepak Takraw”
How to Improve It: “Fullmetal Alchemist meets Women’s Volleyball” Even the Bible isn’t safe. If there’s a roughly comparable mainstream shonen anime with similar themes/characters, swap it out, because that’ll get you more Cool Points. They love sports at Saturday AM, but again, remember your audience.

I can see my more sensible readers shaking their heads. “You know Gridman and Godzilla are nothing alike, right? You know how offensive it is to swap out Lozen, a real historical figure, with Black Widow?!” Of course I know that. All of my suggested “improvements” severely whitewash and generalize the original pitch - but they’re closer to Batman Meets Yugioh, which gets you closer to winning.

Now compare my hypothetical rejected pitches with 4 real pitches that were rejected:

1.) “The Boondocks meets 7 Deadly Sins”

Featured on Saturday FM podcast, episode 2

Adult Swim cartoon meets a popular Shonen series feels perfect for Saturday AM, so this one surprised me. Fredrick Jones said this premise was too stifling, and he couldn’t imagine where it would go. He then brought up Batman Meets Yugioh to compare, and how that pitch gives endless possibilities.

2.) “Kuroko no Basuke meets Slam Dunk”

Featured on Saturday FM podcast, episode 3

I’m siding with Fredrick Jones on this one. It could be better. This pitch doesn’t say much other than “I want to make a basketball manga.” And hey, maybe that is what you want to do.

This type of rejected pitch happens semi-frequently. It’s typically found from artists in love with a genre of manga who don’t want to complicate things. They’ll use their platonic ideal of that genre to describe their aspirations (“Black Clover meets Fairy Tale” was another rejected pitch, for similar reasons).

I know these two series have very different tones, styles, delivery, despite being about the same sport. I’m sure you could make something unique with “Kuroko no Basuke meets Slam Dunk”, especially if you’re someone who has a sincere love for sports manga.

See it more like this - You already used Slot A to let SatAM know you’re making a basketball manga. In your oneshot, are you going to focus on player’s strategy? Are you going to focus on emotional drama riding on whether or not the protag gets a scholarship? The comedy beats between the teammates? It’s true that most sports manga will have these different emotional beats. Try to think of the primary one you’d showcase in your oneshot.

3.) “Dragon Ball meets Static Shock”

Featured in ‘Cowboy Bebop Vs. John Wick! Reviewing YOUR MANGA’ on the Saturday AM Youtube Channel - Note that this was from a Youtube stream where Fredrick Jones was not present

The round-table consensus was dismissing this pitch for being too “basic” and there was nothing to really grab their attention.

This pitch is better than Kuroko no Basuke meets Slam Dunk, but it has the same issue. It’s a “Shonen meets Shonen” pitch, so it could be better. Try to avoid having a pitch that draws from the same genre/demographic

4.) “Chainsawman meets Jujustsu Kaisen but with Muslim cultural themes”

Featured in ‘Sailor Moon meets WWE?! Pitch Your Manga!’ - Note that this was from a Youtube stream where Fredrick Jones was not present

This one goes outside of the typical format, and is another Shonen meets Shonen like my last two examples, but that’s not why it was rejected.

Since I’m gonna really get into it, here’s the plot summary attached to this pitch:

After Mia had been shooed away by the DED (Demon Extermination Department) trying to exit the south London quarterly district, she breaks down into tears not being able to see her terminally sick brother who is kept outside. Being confined in such a place for her whole life where it is filled with the most amount of shayateen, the worst type of jinn from the criminal activity in the area. Walking back, cursing her faith out of frustration she sees a Korean boy who seems new to the area, while heading home to her slightly dilapidated apartment. The following morning walking over to the shops to get milk and bread for a late breakfast, meets the same boy named Kai, who points her out for not wearing her hijab. Annoyed at his statement she scoffs at him not to judge, slightly teared up from embarrassment, but before she has time to ridicule him further he heads off an emergency to deal with a posessed individual. Mia is conflicted internally about what Kai said, but before she enters her home after buying groceries a dead dog like shaytan crashes through her apartment complex and Kai as well as his team, but before he is able to kill him Mia stops the blow and takes care of him in her transformed jinn state. Seeing Kai, an individual inflicted with a curse like her, opens her mind to following his advice. For the first time, ever, wearing her hijab.

(This isn’t explicitly stated in the pitch, but my impression was Mia is able to amplify her powers from wearing a hijab, and that’s why Kai, a presumably non-Muslim stranger, was so concerned about her wearing one).

The main critique from SatAM was if you’re going to use cultural elements in your pitch, it should be from your culture. In the Youtube stream, there’s no mention if this artist is Muslim, an ally, or living in a Muslim-majority place (This stream kept all of the artists anonymous, so there’s no way for a nosey person like myself to do a quick search and see what they put in their Twitter bio). From this pitch, I would’ve guessed this artist is Muslim, or enough of an ally to convey mixed feelings someone might have about Muslim modesty.

It is then all the more baffling that 18 minutes are spent (timestamp: 39:15-57:16) telling this artist to do their research. Everyone gets their turn saying a different iteration of either ‘write about your own culture!’ or ‘if you did your research about Muslim culture, you would know that the hijab is bad!’ as if mandatory veiling is both something kept secret to the non-Muslim world and the only dimension of Muslim modesty.

I’ll boldly take the very popular opinion and say if the hijab is mandatory, that sucks. So I’m not too quick to disagree with the opinion presented on-stream, but it felt like a simplified, outsider’s interpretation of this issue. Full disclosure, as a man I will always be an outsider to women’s issues, and the (presumably) all-female staff on stream has dealt with sexism in a way I’ll never experience. You don’t have to be a Muslim or a woman to have an opinion about mandatory hijabs - and this group of (presumably) non-Muslim women showing concern over this concept is totally normal. My main issue is 1.) that they spoke as if it would be impossible for someone to write a story where a protagonist is empowered by religious practices, and 2.) the way they’re conflating mandatory hijab with all of Muslim modesty.

Furthermore, this manga pitch takes place in London, and in-universe the hijab isn’t mandatory! So all of this pontification about mandatory hijabs (both mine, and theirs) are totally useless. A boy asks the protagonist why she isn’t wearing her hijab, and she gets embarrassed. Not the morality police, not her demanding parents, it’s just some kid. The female protagonist was able to be in a public space uncovered and presumably lives alone. When some kid asks a nosey question, she was embarrassed, but she’s not in any particular danger or risk. And at the end of the pitch, she accepts wearing the hijab.

This is a pretty big contrast with many Western depictions of hijabis. Lina Qaderi writes in her article “This Is What Netflix’s ‘Elite’ Got Wrong About Muslims”:

The Netflix show Elite is polarizing – some Muslim viewers love it and others aren’t so happy with it. The frustration mainly comes from the fact that the TV show presents a Muslim girl taking off her hijab for a guy … This is a common theme in almost every hijabi’s storyline and it’s pretty old to the point where there is almost no point in putting a Muslim girl in a movie or TV show because it just ends with false representation and the girl just being “saved” by a white guy as a “happy ending.”

For more articles weighing in on this subject, there’s also NPR’s “A new test looks at the way Muslim women are portrayed onscreen” Hoda Katebi’s “Feminism, Orientalism, Asra Nomani, and the Hijab: An Open Letter” and Nausheen Rajan’s “Why France’s Hijab Ban Is About Racism and Misogyny”

Anyway, back to the Saturday AM stream. The host, Jackie Star, then absurdly tops off this pitch review by recommending everyone watch the movie The Breadwinner (2017). It’s an animated movie about a girl who lives under Taliban’s rule, and crossdresses to provide for her family. I haven’t watched it, because I only watch Pokemon and big tit milf hentai. But I know The Breadwinner was made by an Irish animation studio, and a quick glance on its Wikipedia page shows that the writer/directors are all white, a mix of Irish and Canadian, and no mentions of them being Muslim.

I will say this clearly and directly. Discussing media on-stream takes a level of thinking on your feet that I’m not capable of, which is why I don’t do it. I can look like a cool smart guy who cites NPR articles because I’ve been given the time to slosh around the Google trough and find sources that support my worldview. The last time I got in a car with NPR on the radio, I immediately turned that hippie shit off and blasted my Chainsaw Man playlist.

Everyone who’s ever done a stream or a podcast is a much more socially competent person than myself. I’m a pathetic keyboard warrior who’s strained over every word in this post. I know I would fall apart if I ever went on stream.

Now with all that aside, I still want to say this.

What Jackie said was funny.

It is absolutely hilarious, after getting an earful of “Write about your own culture” the audience is instructed to watch an Irish-produced movie about Afghanistan. This is funny, and I’m laughing, and it’s not just with the hopes this can build to a beautiful kayfabe rivalry.

Is The Breadwinner an acceptable example because they were able to get input from Afghan refugees in the writing process? How many refugees do I need to consult before it’s acceptable to write outside of my culture? Did the white director get permission to do a movie about a PoC experience after their previous critical/commercial success proved them worthy? When you become a sensitive enough ally, do you get a card in the mail? Or was this the only piece of media about sexism in the Muslim world you could think of?

I’ll stop with the hypotheticals, step back, and say the more I harp on this moment, the more I know I’m the asshole here (look, it’s been awhile since I’ve laughed so much, and I’m finally over the “Anger” stage of grief). And if I can speak a little more parasocially, Saturday AM streams with Jackie are pretty fun to listen to. I’d rather listen to her talk about manga than Fredrick Jones (no disrespect intended, that’s just my personal preference). She gives good manga making advice while being friendly and approachable. So I’d hate for her to find this and feel like I’m only interested in cussing her out for misspeaking on a stream. Any chance for a kayfabe rivalry would evaporate (seriously, can you tell how bad I want this?).

Maybe- possibly - this was an instance of an employee having to remind everyone of their employer’s DEI policy, and their views did not necessarily reflect that of the employer. Maybe - potentially- she does agree with the DEI policy of “Write from your own culture,” but this was the only movie about women in Islam on Netflix at the time, and Saturday AM does have an insatiable, hedonistic lust for referencing media that “everyone” knows. And maybe- just Maybe- this is the only movie she could think of when trying to explain that women in Afghanistan are dealt a rough hand. No shame in that, either. My own point of reference for media about women in Muslim society is pretty weak, since this subject is rarely handled in Pokemon movies or milf hentai.

My long-winded point in summarizing this incident: if any SatAM hopefuls are going to bring a cultural dimension to your pitch, smooth it down for the international (western) audience. If a female protagonist deciding to wear a hijab is too spicy, that kind of tells you where the room temperature’s set at Saturday AM.

I don’t know how many of the pitches are personally selected by Fredrick Jones, and how many are delegated to editors/PR team (I can only assume he’s outsourcing more of this to editors as the company grows). However, I can assume if someone’s in the position to give a pitch a pass/fail, their tastes mostly align with Fredrick Jones’ taste.

So with that in mind.

I have made a shindanmaker to help mangaka generate ideas for their Summer of Manga pitches.

Most of the references are within the SaturdayAM comfort zone, and avoid the common misstep of “shonen meets shonen” pitches. But since it’s automated, it’s not perfect. Leave a comment with any interesting results you get, and I’ll give my best guess if they’d approve it or not.