MediaWorks (publisher)

MediaWorks, Inc. (株式会社メディアワークス) was a Japanese publishing company in the Kadokawa Group known for their Dengeki (電撃) brand magazines and book labels. These included such well-known magazines as Dengeki Daioh, and Dengeki G's Magazine, along with MediaWorks' main light novel publishing imprint Dengeki Bunko. The company was merged with ASCII on April 1, 2008, and became ASCII Media Works.[1][2] They mainly catered to the Japanese male otaku crowd, covering such topics as anime, light novels, manga, plastic modelling, and visual novels. However, MediaWorks had published three magazines targeted towards females—Comic Sylph, Dengeki Girl's Style, and Character Parfait—but each one was a special edition version of another magazine. MediaWorks ran yearly contests for original novel and manga submissions, such as the light novel Dengeki Novel Prize contest.

In addition to publishing printed material, MediaWorks had been involved with the production of other media. They had developed and published visual novels for popular Japanese

History

In 1992, Kadokawa Shoten's president Haruki Kadokawa was devoting himself to the movie business, and his younger brother and vice-president of the company, Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, was in charge of magazines the company published. At the same time, Tsuguhiko was the president of Kadokawa's subsidiary Kadokawa Media Office which was in charge of publishing video game magazines like Comptiq, and manga magazines targeted towards the male otaku crowd in Japan centered around "media mix" Japanese series where many different forms of media are published for a given series. Citing differences in the interests of business direction, Tsuguhiko resigned from Kadokawa Shoten to start MediaWorks on October 15, 1992, with a large contingent from Kadokawa Shoten employees joining him.

In 1993, due to an influence from the Tokyo Shock Boys, known in Japan as the Dengeki Network (電撃ネットワーク), MediaWorks launched a series of magazines under the Dengeki line. These magazines were taken from previous publications that Kadokawa Media Office had published. The new magazines were named Dengeki Super Famicom (from Kadokawa's former magazine Marushō Super Famicom), Dengeki PC Engine (from Kadokawa's former magazine Marushō PC Engine), Dengeki Comic Gao! (from Kadokawa's former magazine Comic Comp), the now-defunct Dengeki Oh (taken from Comptiq), and the now-defunct Dengeki Megadrive (originally a special edition of Dengeki PC Engine). Also in 1993, Haruki Kadokawa was arrested for cocaine smuggling and lost his presidency at Kadokawa Shoten, which was soon taken over by Tsuguhiko Kadokawa in addition to his presidency of MediaWorks; MediaWorks was later made a subsidiary of Kadokawa Shoten in 2002. MediaWorks became a member of Kadokawa Group Holdings, and after Enterbrain became a member of the same group, Enterbrain's Famitsu line and MediaWorks' Dengeki line started to compete against each other, especially in terms of presenting information pertaining to bishōjo games. By 2001, MediaWorks specialized in publishing light novels, manga, video games, and magazines pertaining to such media. The company was merged with ASCII on April 1, 2008, and became ASCII Media Works.[1][2]

Contests

Dengeki Comic Grand Prix

The Dengeki Comic Grand Prix (電撃コミックグランプリ) is an award handed out annually (since 2001) by the Japanese publisher MediaWorks for original one-shot manga. Between the first and fifth contests held, there were two divisions: original, and anthology. This was changed from the sixth contest on to a Daioh/Gao! division which covers seinen manga, and a Sylph division which covers shōjo manga. There are four types of prizes given out each contest: the Grand Prix Prize (one-million yen), the Semi-Grand Prix Prize (five-hundred-thousand yen), the Excellence Prize (two-hundred-thousand yen), and the Honorable Mention (one-hundred-thousand yen). There was also once a Dengeki Moeoh Grand Prize division which was held twice with a Grand Prize and Honorable Mentions.

Dengeki hp Tanpenshōsetsu Shō

The Dengeki hp Tanpenshōsetsu Shō (電撃hp短編小説賞) was an award handed out annually between 2000 and 2006 by the Japanese publisher MediaWorks for exceptionally written short stories and novellas. The prize was associated with MediaWorks' now-defunct light novel magazine Dengeki hp. Between the first and fourth contests held, the editorial department of MediaWorks' included the narrowed-down novellas in an issue of Dengeki hp, and the winner was decided from a reader-participation voting poll. This was changed with the fifth though seven contests by the use of a committee to award the prize.

Dengeki Taishō

The Dengeki Taishō (電撃大賞) is an award handed out annually (since 1994) by the Japanese publisher ASCII Media Works with two divisions: the Dengeki Novel Prize for light novels under Dengeki Bunko, and the Dengeki Illustration Taishō (電撃イラスト大賞) for illustrations. Each division consists of the Grand Prize (one million yen), the Gold Prize (five hundred thousand yen), and the Silver Prize (three hundred thousand yen).[3] The first two rounds also had a game design division called Dengeki Game Design Taishō (電撃ゲームデザイン大賞), and between the third and eleventh rounds there was a manga division called Dengeki Comic Taishō (電撃コミック大賞).

native name	株式会社メディアワークス
fate	Merged with ASCII Corporation
defunct	March 31, 2008
successor	ASCII Media Works
num locations	Japan
location	Chiyoda, Tokyo
homepage	http://www.mediaworks.co.jp

MediaWorks (publisher)

History

Magazines published

Publishing imprints

Contests

Video games

External links

References