Straight Edge launches its horizontal manga label
Straight Edge is getting into horizontal manga, launching a new label called Straight Edge Comic — and it already has its sights set on anime adaptations. The company behind a stack of light-novel hits is betting that a smaller, creator-first operation can make the jump from page to screen without turning every new series into editorial porridge.
The report says the label launched on Wednesday with plans to plan, edit and publish manga in horizontal format. Former STUDIO ZOON editor-in-chief Kento Kaji will join as a manga editing adviser, while Straight Edge founder and overall editor-in-chief Kazuma Miki will oversee production and media-mix strategy.
What's actually going on
Straight Edge Comic is looking for original authors, manga artists and freelance editors. Its motto is “Creator First”, and the label wants a small, elite team around each project, with serialisation targeted for 2027. It also plans a “sliding royalty” system, increasing the royalty rate as sales rise, plus success-based compensation that lets external and freelance editors share profits when a work becomes a hit.
The label says projects must pass an editorial meeting after several storyboard chapters have been prepared. Even if a project does not make it through, creators will receive planning and development costs, with Straight Edge also offering to work with them on their next project. The digital-first titles are planned for major online stores, with printed volumes for hits.
The bigger ambition is familiar but not exactly modest: Straight Edge wants selected titles to reach anime adaptation, using a major Japanese advertising group as a partner for promotion, marketing and screen adaptation. Miki’s previous credits include work on A Certain Magical Index, Sword Art Online and The Irregular at Magic High School, alongside their anime productions.
Why you should care
Horizontal manga simply means the page is designed to read left to right, rather than following the right-to-left format most readers associate with Japanese manga. That makes the label’s digital-first approach easier to understand: it is building for phones and online storefronts first, rather than treating digital as a scanned afterthought.
The royalty and development-cost promises are the interesting bit. Launch announcements are cheap; a creator-friendly contract that survives contact with a breakout hit is much harder. If Straight Edge really gives artists a meaningful upside while protecting projects that miss the first editorial hurdle, it could offer a less punishing route into serialisation.
Our opinion
This is one of the more sensible manga-label announcements because it is talking about the unglamorous machinery as well as the anime dream. Straight Edge still has to prove that “Creator First” means more than a tidy slogan, and 2027 is a way off, but sliding royalties and paid development are the right things to put on the table. Watch the contracts, not the hype — that is where this label will earn its stripes.