Black Belt

Black Belt is an American English-language magazine focused on martial arts and combat sports. It was founded by Mitoshi Uyehara, who published it from 1961; a trial edition had appeared as early as 1958. The beginnings were not easy financially: according to English Wikipedia, the first full year of publishing left the publisher with a debt of 30,000 dollars. In the 1960s the magazine carried articles by Bruce Lee. His materials were prepared for publication by the magazine's founder, Uyehara himself. Black Belt is thus one of the periodicals in which Bruce Lee's texts appeared during his lifetime. Over its history the magazine changed publishers and owners several times. From the mid-1970s it was published by Rainbow Publications, which Uyehara founded, and in the following decades it passed to several media companies. On 27 January 2023 the magazine's then owner launched the Black Belt+ app for iOS and Android, which at launch offered digitized issues going back to the 1960s. We have not been able to document in the sources whether or when the magazine ended print publication. We also did not find who led the magazine as editor-in-chief.

Origin

Mitoshi Uyehara began publishing Black Belt in 1961; a trial edition had appeared three years earlier. Until 1973 the magazine was published by Black Belt, Inc. In 1974 Uyehara founded the publishing house Rainbow Publications, which then published the magazine. According to English Wikipedia, Sabot Publishing bought the magazine in 1999, in 2003 it passed to Active Interest Media, and in July 2023 it was acquired by JungoTV, LLC. We found this sequence of owners in a single summary source and have not been able to verify it independently.

People and martial arts

• Mitoshi UyeharaEditor