Keizo Shimada (島田 啓三; May 3, 1900 - 1973) was an early Japanese mangaka (漫画家), best known for his comic The Adventures of Dankichi, serialized in Youth Club (小年俱樂部) magazine, published by Dai Nippon Yūbenkai Kōdansha (大日本雄辯會講談社). The comic, based around the adventures of a young boy shipwrecked on a remote island in the South Pacific, was similar to The Adventures of Tintin. Like Tintin, it was later criticized for celebrating imperialism and denigrating other races. Dankichi also resembled its contemporary, another pioneering manga, Tagawa Suihō's Norakuro, in that both became a tool for propaganda during the Second Sino-Japanese War (World War II). More by this mapmaker...

Satō Yasutarō (佐藤裕太郎; March 5, 1893 – March 7, 1977), or Satō Yūtarō, was a Japanese educator active in Tokyo during the Taisho and Showa Eras. During and just prior to World War II, he worked with the Japanese Youth Club (少年俱樂部), a popular magazine which published several important manga maps of East Asia. After the war, Yasutarō became a professor at Tokyo University of Education and later, the the Senshu University. Learn More...

Kodansha (式会社講談社, 1909 - Present), also known as Dai Nippon Odankai Kodansha, is a Japanese publishing house founded in 1909 by Seiji Noma (野間淸治). Seiji founded Kodansha as a spin-off from the Dai-Nippon Yūbenkai (Greater Japan Oratorical Society) and produced the literary magazine Yūben as its first publication. The name Kodansha, a derivative of the defunct magazine Kōdan Club (Storytelling Club), in 1911, which it merged with the Dai-Nippon Yūbenkai. In 1925, Kodansha launched King (キング) , the first magazine to sell 1,000,000 copies in its first printing. Kōdansha published several other magazines including Women's Club (婦人倶樂部) and Boy's Club (少年倶樂部) and had become a major shaper of Japanese culture and public opinion by the 1930s, controlling 70% of the magazine market. Kōdansha suffered difficulties during the war period, due to both intense censorship and the 1938 death of both Noma Seiji and his son, Noma Hasashi (野間恒), within weeks of one another. Still, the company survived the wartime era and, after a period of difficulties during the U.S. Occupation due to Kōdansha's endorsement of militarism, benefitted from a postwar publishing revival. Although King and other magazines ceased publication in the postwar period, Kōdansha branched into other areas, including manga and music recording, and is now the largest publisher in Japan. Learn More...

Yukosha (株式會社有恆社; 1872 - 1943) was a Japanese paper manufacturing company and occasional publisher that existed in the Meiji and Taisho eras. In 1874, it was a pioneer in the Japanese paper industry, being the first company in Japan to produce Western-style paper, using an imported paper machine. Established in 1872 by the Asano family, the former lords of the Hiroshima domain, it was gradually absorbed by the Oji Paper Co. (王子製紙株式會社) between 1918 and 1924. Oji continued to operate Yukosha's mills until they were switched over to producing munitions during World War II and converted to other purposes after the war. Learn More...