Despite being less known to manga fans outside of Japan than Shonen Jump, publisher Kodansha has consistently produced top-level manga series over the years that have not only captured the hearts and minds of fandom but have also had a fundamental influence on the medium's development and growing acceptance worldwide.
While Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump gets the lion's share of attention abroad for its catalog of manga titles, the other major producer of manga content is Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine. Like Marvel and DC in the United States, these two producers dominate the manga market in terms of the popularity of their titles, the influence of their content creators, and of course, their sales numbers. Despite both publishers' power and impact, in another similarity with the American comic book market, one (Shueisha) stands above the other (Kodansha) in popularity, at least in the international market for manga.
There are a number of reasons why Shueisha has been able to edge Kodansha in popularity abroad, including Shueisha's decision to first collaborate with, and then invest in the American manga publisher Viz Media, a company that already had a footprint in the American comic book market. However, the difference in popularity between the two publishers is not a result of a gap in the quality of content they publish. In terms of the stories, characters, and subject matter of its titles, Kodansha has and continues to produce some of the finest manga available. To truly understand the quality of work that Kodansha produces and the influence it has on the industry, all one needs to do is review its library of past and present titles.
Perhaps most notably, Kodansha is the publisher of Akira, the groundbreaking manga by Katsuhiro Otomo. This seminal work is not only recognized as starting the manga revolution in the Western World, but it has gone on to influence many of Shueisha's manga creators including Naruto and Boruto creator Masashi Kishimoto, who states that but for reading Akira as a youth, he might have given up on being a manga creator. Kodansha also published the similarly groundbreaking and influential manga series Ghost in the Shell by Masamune Shirow. More recently Kodansha has published the fan-favorite and critically acclaimed sci-fi manga classic Attack on Titan.
What this all adds up to is that fans are seriously missing out on top-level manga content by ignoring Kodansha's library of offerings. In a similar vein, Kodansha is doing itself a disservice by not better marketing its titles and facilitating the fans' ability to access its content as effortlessly as its competitor Shueisha. Indeed, the current line-up of manga publishing in Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine includes some great stories such as action-adventure Tokyo Revengers, the sports manga Blue Lock, the romance-themed Rent-A-Girlfriend, and the fantasy+gamer series Shangri-La Frontier. The tremendous popularity that these and other Kodansha titles enjoy in Japan strongest suggests that they would also find a welcoming fanbase in the United States, especially one looking for an alternative to the manga titles published by Shonen Jump.