Thread:Arima no megane/@comment-25787298-20160921170135/@comment-25787298-20170112140726

Well asking for an acceptable deadline isn't an option. When first serialized, you sign a contract to that magazine, and I would assume that in that contract somewhere, its stated that the mangaka needs to abide by the schedule of the magazine, or you'd see irregular series all the time. There are certain magazines that allowed this though, like the first and perhaps even the current one that Berserk is in (at least, back then). If your of Oda's level, and its known your only sleeping three hours a night, you can probably convince them to give you more periodic break weeks. My understanding is that Oda takes a week off every month, but he also is the author of the most popular manga in Japan. Togashi made one of their most successful hits, Yu Yu Hakusho, and then came right back around with Hunter X Hunter, which also took off, so his Haitus' over his health is not much of an issue to Jump, because Togashi is one of their biggest assets.

So all in all, unless your a huge name like Oda, Togashi, or Toriyama, you do what they say or are terminated of your contract.

But, to your point on health, yes, I'd agree. It seems that the healthier ones are more often the ones with the lighter work load.

The rumors aren't exaggerated by the way, but some mangaka's statements are. xD Gintama's mangaka said "meeting a deadline is like walking a tightrope made of toilet paper across the Grand Canyon, and theres a monkey that looks like my editor standing on the other side peeing on the toilet paper". Of course, realistically, thats impossible to achieve, but the average mangaka gets 3-4 hours a night, and only 3 hours of the day for food and hygiene. 2-4 hours of freetime a week. This is for weekly artists with assistants according to a survey taken by WSJ's authors.