By the way, there are other ways to become a mangaka, like self-publishing your own manga (called doujinshi), and then being recruited by a publisher (I’ll write a post detailing how to do this one day). Some artists, like CLAMP (Magic Knights Rayearth, Chobits, XXX Holic) got started this way. And some artists, like Watashiya Kaoru (Kodomo no Jikan), even keep making doujinshi after they are publishing professional manga.