CCG Hires Rui Couto, Highly Respected Manga Expert, as a Consultant

Certified Guaranty Company® (CGC®), a division of the Certified Collectibles Group® (CCG®), is excited to announce that Rui Couto, a highly respected manga expert, has been hired as a consultant as CGC prepares to launch grading services for manga. Couto will be advising CGC on all aspects of the manga market in addition to building a talented team of experts and working on the design of holders and labels for manga.

Couto began collecting as a child when he and his brother discovered hockey cards in a local card shop in their hometown in Canada. When the outlet added a comics section, Couto quickly fell in love with the graphic arts and began a serious collection of comics, culminating with a Superman #1. Eventually, Couto discovered that many culturally significant characters in pop culture, such as Goku, Vegeta, Godzilla, Naruto and Luffy, originated from manga, and his interest took off from there. He now owns a collection of over 600 Zasshi spanning from 1940 to 2024 and has immersed himself in Japanese culture and the manga community, amassing 12,000 followers on Instagram @drivenforward_collectibles.

At CGC Comics™, Couto looks forward to working with CCG's highly experienced team to develop a grading service that provides high-quality authentication, grading and encapsulation services that benefit the hobby. He anticipates much excitement for manga grading, with CGC Comics offering the confidence to collectors that will further grow and strengthen the booming market.

"As a lifelong comic book collector and a huge fan of anime, it only made sense to combine the two things that made up a big part of my life,” Couto said. “I am excited to be working with CGC Comics, the authority in grading. The idea of holding a graded Zasshi in a CGC holder is incredibly exciting. The comic collecting world is in for a real treat.”

“I’m thrilled Rui is joining the CGC team,” stated Matt Nelson, President of CGC. “I’ve had the pleasure to get to know him over the past couple of years, and I’m deeply impressed with his depth of knowledge. He is the perfect person to help us launch manga grading.”

CGC is hiring manga experts, including senior manga graders, who will be based at the company's Sarasota, Florida, headquarters. Are you ready to turn the page in your career? Apply today at collectiblesgroup.com/careers.

About CGC

CGC revolutionized the comic book marketplace when it was founded in 2000 by providing clear, objective and impartial assessments of authenticity and grade. Today, CGC is the world's largest and most trusted third-party grading service for comics, magazines, TCGs, sports cards, non-sports cards, video games, home video collectibles and more, with more than 15 million collectibles certified since 2000.