Bessatsu Margaret was first launched in 1964 as a sister magazine to Margaret. It initially began as a quarterly one-shot publication, before moving to a monthly serialization in 1965.[6]
In 1966, the magazine started the manga contest Shōjo Manga School (later renamed to Betsuma Manga School), where amateur artists could submit their own manuscripts in hopes of being discovered. At the time, this initiative was considered groundbreaking, and became the basis of the submission systems used among other manga magazines to this day.[6][7]
In 1972, Bessatsu Margaret became the first monthly shōjo magazine to surpass 1 million copies in circulation. By 1983, the magazine had sold 1.9 million copies.[6] In 2018, it had an average circulation of 131,000 copies.[8] In 2019, the circulation dropped to an average of 95,000,[9] and in 2020 sales further declined to an average of 68,000 copies.[2]
The magazine targets readers in junior high, high school, and university.[10] In 2018, its demographic consisted of 12.7% of readers aged 14 or under, 16% of 15–18 year olds, 15.1% of 19–23 year olds, and 56.2% of readers 24 years or older.[8]
In Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook, the magazine was ranked 5th in the list for female readers in the 2012 edition,[11] and 2nd in the same list for the 2014 edition.[12] It ranked 16th among all manga magazine readers in the 2018 edition,[13] and 18th in the 2019 edition.[14]
