Monthly Afternoon (月刊アフタヌーン) is a Japanese monthly manga anthology published by Kodansha under the Afternoon line of magazines. The first issue was released with a cover date of January 25, 1986. Afternoon has spawned many successful manga series such as Oh My Goddess!, Genshiken, Blade of the Immortal and Big Windup!. It is part of Kodansha's "1day" series, which also includes the magazines Morning and Evening. A spin-off magazine, named good! Afternoon, started publishing on November 7, 2008.

History

The magazine was founded as a sister to Morning by the same publisher. According to Frederik L. Schodt, stories that did not convince the editors of Morning would often land in Afternoon. Many of the artists working for the magazine used to publish amateur and were influenced by amateur manga. Sharon Kinsella claims that around half of all series featured in Afternoon between 1994 and 1997 were inspired by aesthetics. She lists Discommunication, Gunsmith Cats, Assembler 0X, Seraphic Feather, Aqua ańd ''Oh! My Goddess'' as examples. From 1999 until 2002, Afternoon Season Zōkan was published as a quarterly spin-off magazine to Afternoon. After the magazine was suspended, some of its series, like Mushishi and Mokke, were transferred to Afternoon.

Newcomer award

Since 1987, the magazine hands out the newcomer award Afternoon Shiki Shō. In 2000, Kodansha published a selection of winners of the award in a book.

Circulation and demographic

Like with most major manga magazines, the magazine's circulation has been declining since the 1990s: In the late 1990s, the magazine's editors guessed that about a third of the readers of the magazine could be called.

Features

Ongoing

There are currently 25 manga titles being serialized in Monthly Afternoon. Out of them, Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ī and Wandering Island is on hiatus.

Past

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

2020s