From Barefoot Gen to Chi’s Sweet Home: Japanese Manga in Ukrainian

The Ukrainian publishing trade outlet Chytomo writes that the first Japanese manga to appear in Ukrainian translation was volume 1 of Keiji Nakazawa’s Barefoot Gen (はだしのゲン) in 2009. Translations licensed by Japanese publishers began to appear in a steady stream from the end of 2019, starting with Kanata Konami’s Chi’s Sweet Home (チーズスイートホーム), published by Nasha Idea, a publisher in Dnipro. The same outlet’s September 2026 article names nine publishers that put out manga.

Drawing on articles from the publishing trade outlet Chytomo and on publishers’ lists of titles, we look at which publishers have been putting out manga, since when, and under what circumstances (as of October 2026). We do not cover the content of individual works or where to buy them.

The Publishers Putting Out Manga in Ukrainian

In its September 2, 2026 article, Chytomo names Nasha Idea, MALʼOPUS, Varvar Publishing, Molfar Comics, Artbooks, Bimba, and “Vydavnytstvo” as publishers putting out manga in Ukraine, and writes that Vivat and “Laboratoriia” also publish a little. The same article gives the following works as examples for each publisher.

• Nasha Idea: Fullmetal Alchemist, Tokyo Revengers, Vinland Saga, Berserk, Monster, and others
• MALʼOPUS: The Way of the Househusband, Black Butler, and others
• Artbooks: Attack on Titan, Ghost in the Shell
• Molfar Comics: BLAME!

The total number of books published in Ukraine and the share that are in Ukrainian are covered in Ukrainian publishing in numbers.

Barefoot Gen in 2009

Chytomo’s June 4, 2020 article writes that the first Japanese manga to appear in Ukrainian translation came out in 2009, and that the work was Barefoot Gen. It was published by the publisher “Zelenyi pes,” and in the article Olena Kapranova, one of the people in charge of the project, and the publishers Dmytro Kapranov and Vitalii Kapranov talk about those days.

According to the article, when people from “Project Gen,” which was set up in 1976 to translate the work and spread it around the world, visited Ukraine, Nina Vasylenko was brought in as translator. The translation, however, was a relay translation from the Russian edition, not from Japanese. In volume 1, the pages were flipped like a mirror image to make them read left to right, which reversed the way the kimono close, and there was a strong reaction from the Japanese side, so the volume had to be redone. Volume 2 came out reading right to left, as in Japan. The Japanese side covered the costs for only two volumes, sales did not pick up, and no further volumes appeared.

The Eight Titles of 2010 Were “Amerimanga”

The same article also reports that in 2010 the publisher “Pero” put out eight books in manga form, including Warcraft, Star Trek, and Princess Ai, all of which stopped after volume 1. Chytomo takes these up in its discussion of “amerimanga” (амеріманґа), which came out of the contest “Rising Stars of Manga” that the American TOKYOPOP started in 2002, and it calls the 2019 Chi’s Sweet Home a “genuine” Japanese manga (справжній японський комікс) to distinguish it.

2019–2020: Publishers Sign With Japanese Rights Holders

Chytomo calls Nasha Idea’s Chi’s Sweet Home (Ukrainian title «Чі. Життя однієї киці»; translated by Onysiia Kolesnykova and Mykhailo Hnatiuk) “the first licensed edition in a decade of a genuine Japanese manga comic in Ukrainian translation.” The publisher presented volume 1 at Comic Con Ukraine in October 2019. On Nasha Idea’s website, the publication date of volume 1 is November 25, 2019, and the ISBN is 978-617-7678-31-0.

Nasha Idea went on to publish Kamome Shirahama’s Witch Hat Atelier (とんがり帽子のアトリエ). As of June 2020, Chytomo writes, this would be the first “ongoing series” (онґоїнґ) to come out in Ukrainian. The same article also introduces Radiant, likewise an ongoing series, a work by the French author Tony Valente. Iryna Oleshko, the head of the publisher, says that with series, a quick follow-up of the next volumes is expected.

In 2020, other publishers began to move as well. Molfar Comics of Khmelnytskyi was, as of June 2020 when the article appeared, preparing to publish volume 1 of Another by Yukito Ayatsuji and Hiro Kiyohara (the article does not give a publication date). The translator is Anastasiia Skotar, and it was reportedly translated from Japanese. Co-founder Anton Haiur says that they print in Ukraine, that they use the right-to-left reading direction as in Japan, and that they made the softcover format the same as Nasha Idea’s in order to keep Ukrainian manga editions uniform. Fireclaw Ukraine of Kyiv published an electronic edition of Shuho Sato’s Give My Regards to Black Jack (ブラックジャックによろしく) on its own website from April 13, 2020. Editor Kateryna Klopenko says that the agreement with Kodansha was the first to come together. The translation was done by the entire editorial team from the English edition provided by the rights holder, sometimes consulting the Japanese as well.

The Difficulty of Licensing, as Publishers Described It

In the same article, the publishers also talk about the hurdles around licensing. According to Anton Haiur, because of the COVID pandemic many Japanese publishers were restricting licensing until autumn, and some agreements were stalled. Publishers were often turned down on the grounds that Ukraine has no manga market. In addition, there are works for which a Russian publisher has bought sales rights that include Ukrainian territory, and as an explanation he quotes, in English as it was, the sentence “When contract was made with Russian publisher, they were not expecting offer from Ukraine.” Kateryna Klopenko, too, acknowledges that there are works that cannot yet be published because Russia has bought the rights, and says, “But licenses are not perpetual.”

Counting Nasha Idea’s List of Titles

The “Manga” (Манґа) category on Nasha Idea’s website lists 345 products as of October 31, 2026. This is a count in which each volume, collector’s edition (колекційне видання), coloring book, art book, and volume open for pre-order is counted separately. Counted by title rather than by volume, and excluding coloring books and art books, it comes to about 80 titles. This includes four works that the site also places in the “Манхва” and “Маньхва” categories (comics from Korea, China, and elsewhere), as well as the French Radiant. We do not know whether there are out-of-stock or out-of-print books that are not listed on the site.

The publication dates of volume 1 of each series, taken from the product pages on the site, are as follows.

How to Write Japanese Sounds in Ukrainian Letters

In manga translation, a problem is how to write personal names, place names, and words like “shonen” and “shojo” in the Ukrainian Cyrillic alphabet. Chytomo reports that the 2009 Barefoot Gen wrote names and things using the “Polivanov system,” which was created to write Japanese in Russian Cyrillic. The same article points out that Fireclaw Ukraine’s Give My Regards to Black Jack also had spelling errors from this system.

The 2024 Debate Over the “Polivanov System”

According to Chytomo’s October 9, 2024 article, a working seminar to standardize how Japanese is written in Ukrainian was held at the A. Yu. Krymskyi Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The translator Andrii Nakorchevskyi argued that the lack of a unified system causes confusion among translators and researchers, and called for the existing way of writing found in a 1999 paper and elsewhere to be made the standard; the institute entrusted him with drawing up a draft of an academic system.

In response, Vydavnytstvo, Nasha Idea, MALʼOPUS, Bimba, and Artbooks voiced opposition on social media, and Safran called for scholars of Japanese and scholars of Ukrainian to examine a system together. The opposing publishers rejected the system presented at the seminar as the “Polivanov system” and argue that another system, one made to fit Ukrainian sounds, should be used (Bimba says it uses the Kovalenko system). The translator Ihor Dubinskyi, for his part, countered that the “Polivanov system” is a system for Russian, and that no evidence has been shown that the way of writing used in Ukrainian translations came from it. The Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Lviv asked the institute to bring in a wide range of specialists who use various systems for discussion.

On Nasha Idea’s website, the Japanese g sounds are written with the Ukrainian “ґ,” as in the category name «Манґа» and Masaaki Ninomiya’s Gannibal (ガンニバル) written «Ґаннібал».

The Treatment of Books Published in Russia

In Ukraine, since June 25, 2023, the import and sale of books published in Russia and Belarus, or brought in from there, has been prohibited by law (Law No. 2309-IX, adopted June 19, 2022). The content and background of the law are summarized in Ukrainian publishing in numbers.

Timeline: Japanese Manga Published in Ukrainian