Reality Check: So, you’ve always dreamed of becoming a famous japanese mangaka? Gonna spend all your time drawing, that is, when you’re not rolling in the money you rake in with the merchandise from your insanely popular serialization!? Well, let’s take a look at the schedule of a mangaka who’s published in JUMP! 

• Average 6hrs of sleep a day
• 112 hour workweek, (that’s 16hours a day, 7 days a week). 
• Total free time? 3 hours on Saturday.
• (Sounds like Artist Owl, no?)

Remember, this is a somewhat successful mangaka. This is probably much more strenuous on the less famous artists. Which means, more work for less pay, and working as an assistant when you can’t make ends meet with your own work. Also, you should probably be crazy fluent in your Japanese if you intend to understand and work with your editor. If you do manage to rake in the dough, hopefully you have enough free time to actually spend it.

If you’ve ever followed a webcomic, you’ll notice that the average working speed is about a page a week for full page styles (stick figures and 4komas come out at a page a day) , and artists have trouble balancing just that with real life. Imagine having to produce a chapter a week, with cover and promotional art! Sure, you’ve got assistants, but you’d better hope everything always goes as planned! 

All of this sounds really daunting BUT… If you think you have the cajones to make it, go forth, it’s been done before! Personally, I think I’ll stick to hobby-art.