Yet another post that says everything I think, so all I have to do is quote it.


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I have NO IDEA what you are talking about. Maybe the shounen is in a slump, I have no idea cause I don't read shounen, but Shoujo is BOOMING.




Like seriously I have no idea how they are still alive. Someone needs to draw chibis of all the publishers cause that would be fantastic.

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well, if you really want a breakdown.TP, euphistically speaking take the whole pot of spagetti, toss it onto the wall and see what sticks. If you have enough volume you can make up for everything that ends up on the floor if even one is a surprise hit. Dark Hose has maybe a dozen series going at once, and they're all niche titles and are aimed at primarily people who still have a disposable income. They know exactly who they are selling to and so very little money is wasted on their part. Viz is self explanatory. Del Rey just came at exacly the right time. TP was slipping and the manga boom was at its peak. They picked up all the right titles and the contract between Kodansha and themselves makes them virtually bulletproof since it gives them access to Kodansha's huge library of older series that tokyopop no longer has

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Sarcasm just doesn't work over the internet.

I think it is very slow moving now. The recession furthered this as well as scanlations. Like fads, I don't think manga will ever die out in the US, but might become significantly smaller.

That said, I do believe that there is a trigger out there that will bring it back up again. Whether it's ending scanlations or something else, I believe their is one, I'm just not sure of what it would be...

Sigh... I wish I was into manga during the boom, so I wouldn't have to buy all the older manga online...

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I care waaaaay too much...

Well you can always pick up the big tankobon editions of older series from Viz and Dark Horse. DH is rereleasing some CLAMP stuff in collected editions. Right now they have Chobits and Clover. probably others once their license is up with Tokyopop if it hasn't expired already

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Sarcasm just doesn't work over the internet.

I don't entirely agree with you. Here are my thoughts on some of those publishers.

Tokyopop- They've gotten really selective with the titles they publish these days. Maybe 2-4 years ago the "throw everything at the wall" thing was true, but current Tokyopop is much more streamlined. The editors and staff put a lot of focus on titles they believe in, they make a great effort to reach out to and communicate with their fans, and they SHOW they're listening by doing stuff like switching back to nice-quality paper stock, releasing series that had been put on hiatus for low sales once fans showed demand (Suppli, Gatcha Gacha, Genju no Seiza, Aria, Your & My Secret, V.B. Rose and more went on hiatus at points, but got brought back because fans kept asking for them). Series like Maid Sama!, Hetalia, Shinobi Life, Karakuri Odette, and Gakuen Alice are solid, quality titles (in my opinion) and they put effort into promoting them. (also, I have a bias toward shoujo, so my examples reflect that.)

Viz- They actually had to lay off a sizable portion of their staff recently, and in the past month I've noticed some titles on the schedule getting pushed back—notably, one of my favourite series ever, Kaze Hikaru, has its next release maybe scheduled for 11 months from now (most online sellers don't list it at all). They're still going pretty strong and debuting new titles, but even they're not invincible when facing low sales.

Del Rey has some great-selling titles, but its not-so-great sellers are being quietly dropped or ignored. I've been waiting on My Heavenly Hockey Club 9 for ages; there are rumours of Nodame Cantabile being dropped/hiatus-ed... I don't remember the last time they announced a new title (maybe they've got something planned for an upcoming con?). I'm kind of miffed, but at the same time I know they're probably doing as much as they can for now. It's a little worrisome though.

My conclusion: Tokyopop has improved magnificently from a couple years ago and is currently my favourite publisher; Viz could be doing better but still looks great; Del Rey's status seems kinda shaky. Also, CMX is already dead and this is very very very sad to me. I don't want to lose any more publishers!

Last edited by lys at 7:19 pm, Sep 5 2010

The way I see it, it'd be counter productive to release new titles as fast as before because of the recession and the boom being over. There's not as much loose money right now as there was before and I suppose the number of people who buy random titles just because they're manga has decreased a lot as well. In such conditions it's senseless to release tons of new titles at once and except that the ones interested in them, who can't buy them right away, will buy them later. Since people do prioritize things, if new stuff is released too fast, the buyers won't have time to gather enough money to buy what they've missed before and eventually this might mean they simply don't buy those releases at all. And as it's easier to sell something new that's been put on display, if too many new titles are released at once, they all won't have room to be displayed, which means that people, who don't follow what's released themselves, might miss something completely which equals lost money for the publisher.

Even if volumes of a particular series are only released once or twice a year, the most devoted fans will wait for them. Also, you could say that the publishers have began trying to cover all the bases (sources of money) no matter how insignificant they might be. For example titles like GA - Geijutsuka Art Design Class and Dorohedoro don't seem like huge hits to me, but I'm sure there are people interested in them (I do like them both a lot, but I don't think majority of people do have great interest for them). Those series are both released at really slow pace which allows people, who don't consider buying them as their number one priority, to keep up with their releases as well. If the release schedule was faster, it might turn away the casual buyers (the people who like to read a manga-series, but wouldn't really care if they didn't) as too money-demanding.

My answer to the question in the title od the topic would be "No, but it's going through changes as always".

I'd have to disagree especially from a shoujo POV. All I read is shoujo, and I barely have any series that I am dedicated to from Tokyopop at the moment. While I can count the ongoing series from TP on one hand, I have a ridiculous amount of series ongoing with Viz. MOST of my TP series have been on hiatus for the past few years and I'm unimpressed. I have no idea what they did to piss off Kondansha but that was a bad move, and really hope it hurts them in the end.

Not to mention since Fruits Basket died, they've been depending on Yaoi titles to bring them up. And I think it's working.

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From a newcomers point of view (I got into manga in March of this year), I think the problem is a lack of advertising. Yes, if you go to (most) publishers' websites, you'll find a release schedule that states what manga they have, upcoming release dates, and (hopefully) a synopsis of the series. But, how are people who aren't actively searching for the new releases going to know? The problem is, companies shouldn't worry about manga fans buying their titles, because they'll probably check it out and if they like it, (hopefully) buy it. They should instead try roping in non-manga fans and make them manga fans.

Basically, the point I'm trying to make is, if they could find a way to expand the fan-base of manga in general, they wouldn't have to worry as much, whether it be through advertising, or some other way.

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<!--from_quote--><div class="quotehead"><b>Quote from Iruka-sensei</b></div><div class="quote">My magical ninja powers of magic!</div><!--from_quote end-->

Hmmm... I get what your saying but I don't think it'll work. It's a very niche product. They do advertise from their anime and sorts but it's... I dunno. From my perspective as someone whose been reading manga for 8 years, I don't think it would work.

Now I know Tokyopop and Udon go to conventions to advertise and advertising there works perfectly. Otherwise I can see it being a bad investment. I think the smartest thing a company can do at the moment is actually buy mangafox.

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I too have only been reading manga for about 8 or 9 years now, and believe me, there are a hell of a lot more manga and anime fans now than there were back in its heyday. And its still a niche market. I'm in complete agrement with Kitteh_13

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Sarcasm just doesn't work over the internet.

Looking at my organization-nerd-tastic spreadsheet of current series I'm following, I've got 12 titles each from Tokyopop and Viz (not including stuff TP has on hiatus, or series either publisher will be starting within the next couple months). I think at least 5 of the TP titles I follow are also on your list... (and one that's not that I strongly recommend is V.B. Rose! It is delicious, wonderful shoujo ) TP and Viz both have a lot of shoujo I enjoy, and Viz may have more (some of my TP titles aren't shoujo), but as a company Tokyopop feels more personal (using their Twitter and Facebook accounts regularly, running polls and amusing articles in their weekly newsletters) and that's what factors into my "favourite publisher" designation. I'm a little curious, which series you followed went on hiatus? I'm still waiting for more Zig*Zag and Nousatsu Junkie, myself...

Scormio, your point about advertising is interesting. It's a little hard for me to guess what they could be doing more effectively though, with the limited budgets they probably have. Publishers usually advertise their own titles in the back of their books (and Tokyopop and CMX advertised each others' series a couple years ago when they were both releasing series by the same authors). I've seen banner ads for Tokyopop's Neko Ramen series around the internet, but other than this small stuff I don't know what the best way is to get new-series news out. Anime News Network regularly reviews new releases and reports on new licenses and MangaBlog updates most weekdays with interesting manga-related news and lots and lots of reviews, so those are some great ways to learn about new manga. Tokyopop uses Facebook pretty heavily, and a lot of manga publishers are on Twitter, so they're making use of those sites to reach out to potential readers. It still requires some seeking on the part of readers though.

For me, it is.

The release speeds are WAY TOO SLOW. I dont care about anything else as much as how fast it comes out. I get a Shakugan no Shana volume every 9 months. That is far far too long in my opinion. In that time, iv forgotten what happened in the last volume. The series that update with any semblance of speed is Naruto/One Peice/Bleach. And they only ever come out every 3 months. I dont understand how it takes them so long when a good scanlation team can do it in less than a week. Even the less-good ones mostly manage one per month.

Also, they need to start marketing it on the internet. I would pay 99 cents a chapter on an iTunes-like site without a second thought. It would cut costs for them and for us. Thats what, 4-5$ a volume? And they dont have to pay for paper and bookshelf space. Win-win. Manga fans are obviously creatures of the internetz, so WHAT IS TAKING THEM SO LONG TO SELL IT ON THE INTERNET?!?!!!

I could rant on this for hours.

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I've gotten into more than one manga from the ads in the backs of books, and I regularly check ANN, but it's like you said, it required some amount of seeking on my part. I haven't seen that banner add for Neko Ramen, but that seems like something publisher's should want to do. Getting an ad or two on some major sites online could attract more people.


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<!--from_quote--><div class="quotehead"><b>Quote from Iruka-sensei</b></div><div class="quote">My magical ninja powers of magic!</div><!--from_quote end-->

A series on a slow release-schedule may be a result of low sales—if the publisher isn't getting much money back from a book, it's going to be pushed farther down in priority. Of course, this runs a risk of readers dropping the series or losing interest or finding other means to read it... But if you like the series, hopefully you're buying it, requesting your library to carry it, encouraging friends to check it out, etc! Some series I follow (and this may not be the case for Shakugan no Shana) are all caught up with the Japanese releases, so the waits between volumes feel like foreeeever (Ouran and Skip Beat! come out 2-3 times a year in Japan, so the wait can be 4-6 months; sometimes more). It almost makes me wish the publishers wouldn't speed the releases up at the beginning of the series, so the schedule could stay more consistent. But again, then you'd have folks catching up with scanlations rather than waiting for the official releases (it still happens anyway, because new chapters are always coming out while we're waiting months for the volume to be released).

But most of the series I follow come out about 4 times a year (so every 3 months). With all the series I follow, and even older series I'm late to discover, that's more than enough to keep me satisfied with new manga to read. The schedule you refer to for One Piece/Bleach/Naruto probably reflects the Japanese releases. Each volume has... like 9? or more? chapters in it. Viz isn't releasing new Naruto every week, but they're collecting all those weekly chapters and releasing them to you as soon as they can. Licensing the book takes time, having the work translated, lettered, gone over by an editor takes time, sending it back to Japan for approval takes time, distributing it to bookstores all around the continent takes time. So yeah, they can't do all that in one week or one month for every series they publish. Viz is doing simultaneous weekly releases for RIN-NE, though (free!). Have you checked that out?

A lot of publishers are getting into more online distribution (I'm not sure how much cheaper it is for them, as they still have to pay for licensing/translating/lettering/etc—I think an interview I read recently said that printing/distribution costs are about 10% of the total cost). Square Enix has English and French sites with sample chapters of their works; I think the official launch of the site is supposed to happen this fall. Viz has SigIkki and Shonen Sunday sites with regular updates of new manga chapters for the series under those imprints (free!) (its Jump and Shojo Beat sites also have some free preview chapters). Yen Press relaunced Yen Plus as a digital magazine last month. I believe NetComics releases ALL its manga/manhwa online before releasing them as books (for the low, low price of 25¢ a chapter for 48 hours of viewing). And I've heard a number of other manga publishers hinting that they have online releases in the works. It takes time to get it all worked out and agreed on with the Japanese publishers, but it is definitely on its way. ANN has pretty good updates on this sort of news, so I recommend checking there regularly to find out what's up.