Debora Aoki on Muck Rack

Debora Aoki

Verified
(She/Her)
Oakland
As seen in: MSX - The Mangasplaining Extra Newsletter, Mangasplaining, Substack, KQED's Forum, The After Show from Anime News Network (Podcast), LiveAbout, ComicsBeat, Publishers Weekly, The Jeff Gerstmann Show - A Podcast About Video Games
Covers:  manga, anime, comics, manga publishing, Japanese pop culture, webtoons, comics conventions, anime conventions, illustrators, manga mobile apps / websites
Doesn't Cover: games, collectible figures or toys, cosplay, voice actors
Manga addict, journalist & traveler. Co-host for Mangasplaining podcast. Writes about manga for Comics Beat, K-Comics Beat & Publishers Weekly.

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Debora Aoki’s Biography

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Deb Aoki is a life-long comics reader and 4th generation Japanese-American who grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii surrounded by Asian pop culture, including manga, anime and tokusatsu (live action superhero) shows. She writes about manga for Publishers Weekly and is ¼ of the weekly podcast Mangasplaining (www.mangasplaining.com), a show that introduces Japanese comics in English to new readers with co-hosts Chip Zdarsky, Christopher Butcher and David Brothers. Deb is also a comics creator, user experi…

Debora Aoki’s Journalist Portfolio

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Manta Novels debuts with 11 webnovel series from Korea

Manta Novels debuts with 11 webnovel series from Korea

Manta Comics, S. Korean e-publishing company RIDI’s all-you-can read webtoon app/subscription service recentl…

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How Manga and Anime Influence Food Culture | KQED

How Manga and Anime Influence Food Culture | KQED

Deb Aoki joins Luke Tsai, food editor, KQED Arts & Culture and Cesar Hernandez, associate restaurant critic, …

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K-Pop Comes to Comic Books

K-Pop Comes to Comic Books

This fall, hit K-pop bands including BTS, ENHYPHEN, and Tomorrow x Together will make their debut in bookstor…

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Manta announces webtoon adaptation of THE BROMANCE BOOK CLUB romance novel

Manta announces webtoon adaptation of THE BROMANCE BOOK CLUB romance novel

Manta Comics has announced the debut of a new romantic comedy webcomics series based on The Bromance Book Clu…

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Are Sales of Manga Evening Out?

Are Sales of Manga Evening Out?

After two years of explosive growth, sales of manga in N. America appears to be leveling off. However, both p…

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Manga-All Kinds, All Formats-Goes Global

Manga-All Kinds, All Formats-Goes Global

Several years of exceptionally strong manga sales in North America has encouraged Japanese and North American…

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Articles

The state of France’s webtoon creators and print market

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By Deb Aoki, Christopher Butcher, Debora Aoki Verified
| K-Comicsbeat
[Catch up on all of Deb’s travel diary here.] There were a bunch of fascinating talks presented on the second day of the Rencontres Internationales du Webtoon in Monteux, including a survey that captures a snapshot of global webtoon creators’ feelings about their work, the money they make, and the toll it takes on their mental health, and organizer Sébastien Célimon’s report on the state of the K-comics in print market in France.
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K-Comics Shopping in Carpentra France

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By Deb Aoki, Christopher Butcher, Debora Aoki Verified
| K-Comicsbeat
[Read all of Deb’s Travel Diary here.] Tuesday was mostly a free day in Carpentras before the start of the international webtoon conference on Wednesday morning. So I decided to explore the town, hoping it’d be a little more welcoming in the daytime. A few more stores and restaurants were open that morning, and there were more people walking around, but despite the large local tourist information center near the main road into town, Carpentras Centerville wasnt exactly crowded either.
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Kakao Entertainment’s Jayden Kang on bringing webcomics to the world

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By Deb Aoki, Christopher Butcher, Debora Aoki Verified
| K-Comicsbeat
Sponsored by Tapas Entertainment If you love comics, novels, TV shows and movies, you’ve probably noticed over the past five years the growth of webtoons, K-pop, K-dramas, K-movies, and web novels. Whether you’re reading them on your phones, watching K-drama or anime adaptations of webcomics on Netflix, Crunchyroll and Rakuten VIKI, or finding K-comics as printed editions from Ize Press, Seven Seas Entertainment, Inklore and many more, one reason why you’re seeing this is Jayden Kang.
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Interview

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What was your first job as a journalist?

If my high school newspaper doesn't count, then I'd say the nightclub and art articles I wrote for Scrawling Wall, an indie newspaper in HNL.

Have you ever used a typewriter?

Yep! I'm that old.

How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?

I prefer emails since I generally ignore phone calls from numbers I don't recognize. Pls. include photos, artwork or a PDF of the comics.
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