2026 HALL OF FAME
CHIGUSA OGINO
The 2026 recipient of the Manga Publishing Hall of Fame Award will be Chigusa Ogino 荻野 千草, Advisor and former Executive Director, Board of Directors for Tuttle-Mori Agency, a leading literary agency responsible for licensing Japanese works abroad, including novels, picture books, non-fiction, light novels, and manga.
Ogino played a pivotal role in international manga licensing. In 1991, Japanese publisher Shueisha received faxes in Spanish that they couldn’t figure out. It was an inquiry to publish Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama, but at the time, most Japanese publishers focused on manga as something mostly for readers in Japan.
Ogino was born in Japan, but grew up in the UK and Germany, so she was well-equipped to help Shueisha bring Dragon Ball and other beloved manga series to readers around the world. As part of Tuttle-Mori Agency, Ogino built and led their manga licensing division, which is today, responsible for manga translation rights to over 20 countries around the world.
Born in 1959 in Osaka, Ogino grew up in the UK in the 1960s, and then Germany in the 1970s. From this background, she always wanted to be in touch with the wider world and explore.
One day in November 1991, as an agent working at the Tuttle-Mori Agency in Tokyo she was tasked with looking through a pile of faxes that had come through from Barcelona to the very prestigious Japanese publishing house Shueisha who did not know what to make of them at that time.
These faxes were enquiring about the publishing rights to DRAGON BALL and Shueisha had wondered if they were a hoax. She wondered: Spain? What? Why? Manga? At that time, publications in Japan were only for Japanese people.
Now 35 years on, our Manga Team at Tuttle-Mori Agency works with 36 languages connecting 200 publishers worldwide with 160 Japanese publishers. We have licensed over 25,000 titles amounting to 120,000 volumes of Manga – just to mention a few, FULL METAL ALCHEMIST, FRUITS BASKET, MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO.
Ogino used to be responsible for managing two teams of 10 people each while simultaneously serving as a main board Director of the Tuttle-Mori Agency. At present, she continues to be actively involved as an advisor.
