is a Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese publisher. It was established in 1886, under the name . In 1999, it was acquired by The Yomiuri Shimbun Holdings

Yomiuri Shimbun

The is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five national newspapers in Japan; the other four are the Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, and the Sankei Shimbun...

, subsequently changing its name to Chūōkōron-shinsha.

Profile

The company publishes a wide variety of material, including numerous novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

s, book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

s, manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 and several magazine

Magazine

Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

s, including the famous literary magazine

Literary magazine

A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...

  and . It also organizes a variety of prestigious literary awards and prizes across Japan, such as the renowned Chūōkōron Prize.

Among the numerous novels published by the company include Hiroshi Mori

Hiroshi Mori (writer)

is a Japanese writer and engineer. He is famous for writing mystery novels – particularly his debut work The Perfect Insider, which won him the first Mephist Award in 1996 – but he considers himself to be a researcher as well as craftsman....

's The Sky Crawler series, which has recently been announced to be adapted into an anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 film directed by the renowned director Mamoru Oshii

Mamoru Oshii

Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker, television director, and writer. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of popular anime, including Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer, Ghost in the Shell, and Patlabor 2...

. The company has also published numerous manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

, including Keiji Nakazawa

Keiji Nakazawa

is a Japanese manga artist and writer.He was born in Hiroshima and was in the city when it was destroyed by an atomic bomb in 1945. All of his family members who had not been evacuated died in the bombing except for his mother, and an infant sister who died several weeks after the bombing...

's famed Barefoot Gen

Barefoot Gen

is a Japanese manga series by Keiji Nakazawa. Loosely based on Nakazawa's own experiences as a Hiroshima survivor, the series begins in 1945 in and around Hiroshima, Japan, where the six-year-old boy Gen lives with his family...

series, Monkey Punch

Monkey Punch

Monkey Punch is the pen name of Japanese manga artist Kazuhiko Katō , creator of the successful Japanese manga series Lupin III...

's famed Lupin III

Lupin III

, also known as Lupin the 3rd, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazuhiko Kato under the pen name of Monkey Punch. The story follows the adventures of a gang of thieves led by Arsène Lupin III, the grandson of Arsène Lupin, the gentleman thief of Maurice Leblanc's series of...

series, Keiko Takemiya

Keiko Takemiya

is a Japanese manga artist. She is included in the Year 24 Group. She resides in Kamukura, Kanagawa Prefecture. Takemiya was one of the female authors who in the early 1970s pioneered a genre of girls' comics about love between young men; in December 1970 she published a short story, "In the...

's Hensōkyoku, Riyoko Ikeda

Riyoko Ikeda

is a Japanese manga artist and singer. She is included in the Year 24 Group. She was one of the most popular Japanese comic artists in the 1970s, being best known for The Rose of Versailles.- Biography :...

's noted works The Rose of Versailles, Jotei Ekaterina and Ten no Hate Made: Poland Hishi, Kaoru Kurimoto and Yumiko Igarashi

Yumiko Igarashi

is a female Japanese manga artist and artist. She is a resident of Sapporo, Hokkaido. She is also the cousin of fellow manga artist Satsuki Igarashi; a member of Clamp....

's The Sword of Paros

The Sword of Paros

is a 1986 yuri historical fantasy manga composed of three volumes written by Kaoru Kurimoto, a science fiction author best known for Guin Saga, and illustrated by Yumiko Igarashi, best known for Candy Candy...

, Go Nagai

Go Nagai

, better known by the penname , is a Japanese manga artist and a prolific author of science fiction, fantasy, horror and erotica. He made his professional debut in 1967 with Meakashi Polikichi, but is best known for creating Cutie Honey, Devilman, and Mazinger Z in the 1970s. In 2005, he became a...

's Violence Jack

Violence Jack

is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Go Nagai in 1973. It has had several serializations and one-shot stories which have run in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s...

, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko

Yoshikazu Yasuhiko

is a Japanese animator and manga artist in the anime industry.Yasuhiko dropped out of Hirosaki University and was hired by Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Productions in 1970 as an animator. He later went freelance and worked on various animation productions for film and television. In 1981 he won the Seiun...

's Waga na wa Nero, and numerous others.