CoroCoro Comic

CoroCoro Comic (コロコロコミック, KoroKoro Komikku) is a Japanese monthly manga magazine published by Shogakukan, established on May 15, 1977. Its main target is elementary school-aged boys, younger than the readers of shōnen manga. Several of its properties, like Doraemon and the Pokémon series of games, have gone on to be cultural phenomena in Japan.

The name comes from a phenomime korokoro (ころころ) which means "rolling" and also represents something spherical, fat, or small, because children supposedly like such things. The magazine is A5-sized, about 6 cm (2¼ in) thick, and each issue is 750 pages long. CoroCoro Comic is released monthly with new issues on the 15th of each month (or earlier if the 15th falls on a weekend).

CoroCoro Comic sold 400 million copies as of April 2017, making it one of the best-selling comic/manga magazines. The magazine has three sisters: Bessatsu CoroCoro Comic (別冊コロコロコミック), CoroCoro Ichiban! (コロコロイチバン) and CoroCoro Aniki (コロコロアニキ). Bessatsu and Ichibian! are published bi-monthly, while Aniki, which targets an older audience, is released quarterly.

The magazine was launched in 1977 as a magazine for Doraemon, which is one of the most popular manga in Japan. Before then Doraemon had been serialized in 6 Shogakukan magazines targeted to students of 6 elementary school grades that target audience has now increased. It collected stories of Doraemon from these magazines. It celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2007 with an exhibition at the Kyoto International Manga Museum. CoroCoro regularly promotes toys and video games related to their manga franchises, releasing stories and articles featuring them. Pocket Monsters/Pokémon's big success in Japan owes to this in a way; the Game Boy game Pocket Monsters Blue was sold exclusively through the magazine at first, which helped CoroCoro's sales as well. CoroCoro is also often a source of information about upcoming Pokémon games and movies.