Meiji Milk Chocolate turns 100 this year, and the company marked it by asking 40 manga creators to draw their own characters holding a Meiji bar. Another 21 contemporary artists contributed original pieces for the anniversary event. Meiji announced both lineups on Wednesday.
It is a small campaign with a very long reach. The list of 40 reads like a history of Japanese manga publishing over the last five decades, and the range of magazines behind those creators is the interesting part. Shueisha, Shogakukan, Kodansha, Hakusensha, Akita Shoten and Square Enix are all represented, which almost never happens in one commercial campaign.
The names on the list
Chieko Hosokawa, whose Ōke no Monshō has run since the 1970s, is on it. So are Yōichi Takahashi with Captain Tsubasa, Mitsuru Adachi with Touch, Tsukasa Hōjō with City Hunter and Keisuke Itagaki with Baki.
The shōjo side is just as heavy. Yōko Kamio (Boys Over Flowers), Wataru Yoshizumi (Marmalade Boy), Ai Yazawa (NANA), Kaori Yuki (Angel Sanctuary), Karuho Shiina (Kimi ni Todoke), Yoshiki Nakamura (Skip Beat!), Yuki Suetsugu (Chihayafuru) and Mizuho Kusanagi (Yona of the Dawn) all drew something.
Recent hits are represented too: Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe with Frieren, Tsubasa Yamaguchi with Blue Period, Norio Sakurai with The Dangers in My Heart, Suu Morishita with A Sign of Affection, Yana Toboso with Black Butler and Yuki Shiwasu with Tamon’s B-Side.
Sports manga gets its own row. Yūji Terajima (Ace of Diamond), Asa Higuchi (Ookiku Furikabutte), Wataru Watanabe (Yowamushi Pedal), Shūichi Shigeno (MF Ghost) and Yūgo Kobayashi (Aoashi) are included, along with Takuya Mitsuda (Major) and Shinichi Ishizuka (Blue Giant Momentum).
The remaining names cover food manga, period drama and children’s titles: Masayuki Kusumi and Jiro Taniguchi (Solitary Gourmet), Tomoko Ninomiya (Nodame Cantabile), Reiko Shimizu (Himitsu), Hiromu Shinozuka (Milmo de Pon!), An Nakahara (Kirarin Revolution), Rino Mizuho (The Magic of Chocolate), Nao Maita (Age 12), Minako Narita (Alien Street), Ryo Ikuemi (Kiyoku Yawaku), Kotomi Aoki, Nanpei Yamada, Yuki Fujimoto, Yuuki Obata and Eriko Ono.
The 21 artists
The gallery half of the campaign works differently. Takeru Amano and Yukino Ohmura are among the 21 artists who made new pieces for the anniversary event, and their work is commissioned rather than archival. Where the manga illustrations lean on nostalgia, the artist contributions give the campaign a second audience.
Both lineups are posted on Meiji’s official X account, along with the copyright lines for every creator involved.
Why a chocolate brand bothers
Meiji Milk Chocolate launched in 1926, which makes it one of the longest-running chocolate brands in the country. Food companies do anniversary campaigns constantly. What is unusual here is scale: getting talent from six publishers into one promotion means a lot of separate approvals, and every one of them apparently said yes.
For readers outside Japan the takeaway is simpler. The illustrations exist and they are public. Several of the creators involved almost never draw promotional art, so a fresh Touch or NANA piece is not something that turns up on a normal week.
There is also a pattern worth noticing in which series were chosen. Frieren and Yona of the Dawn are both still running and both still moving adaptations forward, and Frieren just got its third-anniversary visual ahead of a 2027 season. Yona’s sequel is in production at Pierrot Films. A brand choosing anniversary art is probably also choosing which series it expects to still matter a decade from now.
What is not part of it
Meiji has not announced an art book, an international release for the artwork, or plans to sell the pieces. The campaign is tied to the standard Milk Chocolate bar rather than a special edition, and no dates for the anniversary event itself have been published.
That last gap is the one worth watching. Sixty-one pieces from names this size, if they ever end up collected, would be the sort of book that sells out before anyone reviews it.
Source
Anime News Network — 40 Manga Creators Celebrate Meiji Milk Chocolate’s 100th Anniversary
Meiji official X account
Featured image: Meiji Milk Chocolate 100th anniversary illustration lineup, via Meiji and Anime News Network.
