Kadokawa runs a vertical-scroll comic imprint beside manga

What was announced or recorded

Kadokawa's own product catalogue, as retrieved on 16 September 2026, lists タテスクコミック (Tatesuku Comic, or “vertical-scroll comic”) as a named imprint alongside established manga labels such as Comic Alive and Comic Flapper. The publisher's holding-company page, group.kadokawa.co.jp, sets out six business segments in English, including “PUBLICATION/IP CREATION” as a line distinct from “ANIMATION/FILM,” and lists an Integrated Report 2025 released 31 October 2025. Separately, Kakao Corporation's own milestones record states that in November 2020, “Piccoma, a manga-novel app by Kakao Japan, ranked No. 1 in worldwide sales.”

What the documents establish

Kadokawa's site names a vertical-scroll comic label as one imprint among many, without an accompanying description of the format or a title count on the catalogue page itself. Its holding-company site confirms a structural separation between making IP and adapting it into animation or film — the same publication-then-adaptation pattern found in Korean webtoon groups, run instead by one of Japan's largest print and anime publishers. Kakao's milestone entry credits its subsidiary Piccoma, a full-colour digital manga and novel platform, with a specific dated claim — a worldwide sales ranking in November 2020 — stated by the parent company itself, without naming the ranking's source or methodology. Shueisha's corporate page confirms it maintains a dedicated メディア化 (media adaptation) section in its navigation, without detailing its contents on the page retrieved.

Announced versus delivered

What is recorded: a named vertical-scroll imprint at Kadokawa, a segment structure separating publishing from adaptation, and an unverified sales-ranking claim for Piccoma. What is not established: how large the Tatesuku Comic imprint is relative to Kadokawa's traditional manga lines, whether any Tatesuku title has been adapted into television, film or vertical drama, and what evidence supports Kakao's own ranking claim about Piccoma. This dossier does not cover BUMP or DMM's short-form services, both already documented on this site; the evidence here is deliberately about the print-publisher side of Japan's vertical-comic adoption.

What to watch

Editorially, the useful next document would be Kadokawa's Integrated Report 2025 itself, which should state whether Tatesuku Comic or any other vertical-scroll line is treated as a growth segment, and whether the company names any adaptation drawn from it.

• Does Kadokawa's Integrated Report 2025 name Tatesuku Comic as a segment with its own disclosed revenue or title count?
• What source or methodology backs Kakao's claim that Piccoma ranked first in worldwide sales in November 2020?
• Has any title from a Japanese vertical-scroll imprint been adapted into a vertical, phone-shot drama series?

Japan's largest publishers have named vertical-scroll comics as a product line and kept adaptation as a separate business function. Whether the two connect for any specific title is not yet something their own public pages say.