What's your opinion of the current quality of manga (so stuff that's currently being released in Japan right now) compared to the quality of manga from previous years?

Question: Do you think the quality of manga is currently declining?
Choices:
Yes, everything only gets worse - votes: 635 (5%)
In general, yes, but there are some really good works lately - votes: 4866 (38.4%)
No difference at all - votes: 2372 (18.7%)
In general, no, but some new manga are really bad - votes: 4063 (32.1%)
No, the new manga are a lot better than older ones - votes: 725 (5.7%)
There were 12661 total votes.
The poll ended: March 16th 2012

Last edited by lambchopsil at 11:28 pm, Mar 16 2012

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A just ruler amongst tyrants

i dont really read previous works cause theyre ongoing..

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oh please do click this!
The sweeter the apple, the higher the branch. The quieter the fart, the nastier the smell.
GUESS WHO??

I imagine that there were just as many 'bad' manga in the past as there are today, they just aren't well known because they aren't 'good'. Whereas manga currently being released is more likely to be scanlated/known simply because it is current, so it may just seem that older manga are better because only the good/popular ones are read.

Also, manga quality is really subjective anyway, (consider twilight, I hate it and consider it an insult to literature, but my best friend adores it. It is like marmite) and our opinion often changes with age. I used to like action manga - not really much in the way of depth or plot beyond ensuring a steady stream of fights. Now I can't stand the cliches and my interests lie more in drama stories, with deep, meaningful plots. So, I would have loved some of the manga currently being released 10 years ago, but now I'm not so keen on it. This could give rise to the illusion that manga has gotten worse, when in reality I've just grown up.

However, I do think it is becoming harder to find original manga. All my favourites, Banana Fish, Sanctuary, Let Dai, are decades old now. Most of the current manga I read gets tiresome and I don't find myself as engrossed. That could just be an inevitable consequence of reading a lot of manga though, and I have some modern ones which I adore which are really original and captivate me, so I have no complaints.

Last edited by CuthienSilmeriel at 9:19 am, Mar 10 2012

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The pen is mightier than the sword...and considerably easier to write with.

hmm well generally yes...i think the quality has somewhat declined(compared to manga in the 90s, 80s and 70s)....even shoujo back then wasnt as annoying as now, and what with the moe and ecchi manga nowadays...
even yaoi; try comparing Zankoku na Kami ga Shihaisuru and Kaze to Ki no Uta to the yaoi of today....theres a huge difference
there are good works too. ofcourse. im just trying to say that manga is becoming a bit too generic
especially shoujo and shounen

shoujo:
-in manga: weak female lead, cold male lead, same old cliches, happy ending
-in manhwa: violent female lead, jjang crap, same old cliches, happy ending

shounen:
-either packed with panty shots and huge tits
-or same old never-ending-battle-against-evil-to-save-the-world

but theres a decent amount of amazing works popping out every now and then so i wont complain

I have to agree with sarah-eats-cupcakes...
shounen and shoujo are starting to get really cliched

but on the other hand seinen (at least those that I read) get better and better. The same happens with web-comics, there are more and more really good works recently, but imho not enough to oppose the flood of fan-service based, plotless shounen or overdramatic, cliched shoujos...

but this is definitely true for me as well
I enjoy my few gems though I often wish for a better balance of ressources, so that the better ones get published more frequently than the members of the trash-flood... Well I guess that won't happen, because nowadays even trash sells and it's easier to produce...

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in need of romance?
uncommon, sad, sweet

i think original manga works are on decline lately
the plus is that a lot of new manga are made from light novels, and they are generally good.

cliche is inevitable, as you read 100+ manga you bound to get repeated storylines here and there but the storyline is still somewhat unpredictable and unique for most major works

the bad thing is that the manga now are created to carter certain markets eg harem ecchi and everything is controlled by the magazines editor, is it not? that's why a lot of mangas are getting boring nowdays. and some good works are axed

I do like old manga better.
Of course the fact that I'm growing older influences my taste

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I don't think quality of manga have declined but rather that it didn't improve at all for a few years now.
To me it seem like Japanese are scared of change.

You read 100 action shounen manga and they will be pretty much be all the same, weak guys suddendly need to fight a bad guys and lose miserably,train a bit and now he beat the bad guys,another bad guys appearand rince and repeat.

Romance shounen you have a weak guys with no redeeming quality at all and all of sudden every girl around him start to fall in love with him only because he's kind...You also almost always have the tsundere girl,the quiet girl, the excited girl, and violent girl ( often the violent girl is the tsundere girl)

Anyway japanese have been using the same concept for years now without much improvement, but it seem like it's what the population want since everytime something new appear it get axed pretty fast or it change after a few chapters to be similar to other manga.

Same shit, different name.
If the manga you read starts to suck, you've changed.
Pick up some other themes or demographics.
10 years ago I could read generic flashy skill spam action
and enjoy it. Now it's just dumb.
I prefer my stuff down to earth.
or really far out. A lot is in the middle, so usually
really far-fetched, but not ridiculous enough to pass
without an explanation, which most often sucks ass.

The past 20 years, only the art has changed.
Themes are the same, just like the readers.

I think that - on the one hand - there is more and more rubbish thrown on the market (esp. the huge amount of shallow and spiritless love stories), but on the other hand there are still manga which surprise me with their originality and profundity sometimes and I find myself thinking: "Wow, this won't be overcome by anything else so soon!" and yet some time later I read something even better ...

In the end I think that the quality of manga is actually increasing instead of declining, but this is only true for a (probably relatively small) group of mangaka who keep on trying to express themselves in producing deep and authentic works and who view themselves more as artists than as fabricators of whatever promises the highest sales quotes.

Pretty much this.

Also, lambs, in the poll question, shouldn't it be "think", and not "thing"? >_>

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Everyday I'm tumblin'

I don't think the quality is dropping so much as that the popularity of manga and scanlations is on the rise. Instead of just getting the best of the manga (as in most popular) pool like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, etc. we are getting pretty much everything. Kind of like picking up a volume of Jump. You get their best but your also get those on the verge of getting axed.

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Banana Gecko!!

[B]

This.

Also, lol @ the spelling error. I guess he was tired when he posted this one.

or maybe the spelling error was from Original Post and he only copied and pasted it

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I think it's the same as always.