Hello guys and gals recently I have been thinking wether or not it matters if a volume is first print second print etc. does the content change between prints? Do they change the order? Reason I'm asking is because some people I have seen make a big deal about getting first print volumes of the series they are buying.

With U.S. publishers, I always try to get later prints because there's occasionally mistakes in the first printing that gets fixed in the later ones. (One of my Spiral volumes, for instance, had an enormous translation error in the first printing on the last page, which I assume they've fixed in later reprintings.)

With Japanese publishers, a first printing of a manga volume will occasionally get special limited edition items, like a keychain or a small figure or a CD or even sometimes a BD. There are also occasionally special limited edition volume covers. These special goodies often do not translate over to the English-language editions.

English-language licensers, though, will always encourage folks to preorder manga because these preorders are often how they gauge initial interest and hence subsequent print runs. If a manga doesn't get many preorders, the publisher will be less likely to reprint volumes. (And some publishers, like Kodansha, have the right to drop manga if profits are down, like the threat that Vinland Saga has been living under with each new volume release. Most publishers do not have this right. So most of what we're worrying about is less print runs leading to harder to obtain later volumes.)

For Japanese publishers, whether there are differences between first and later editions is mostly up to the artist. If the artist does choose to revise his work, the differences range from minor retouches to substantial changes to the story (though it would be unusual for the order of the story to change).

For example of a manga that underwent drastic changes between editions, Tezuka completely redrew New Treasure Island from scratch for the 1984 edition published by Kodansha, including a different ending closer to the one he originally wanted. (His coauthor/editor, Sakai Shichima, rejected his ending and cut a number of pages in the original version.)

As for why first editions are more desirable/valuable, in addition to the extras Suxinn mentioned, first editions are necessarily older and (usually) out of print. As such, they are more difficult to acquire.

I see thank you for replying. Basically try to get the mangas and don't worry about the content too much is what I'm understanding. I heard about Vinland saga and it's a same that the publisher is literally gosling the fan base hostage to buy more or they drop the series. I also thought that all companies like viz and dark horse had rights to drop unpopular manga. For example viz dropped gintama and dark horse has dropped quite a few of them as well I think.

@hahhah42
Makes sense I finally got my hand on a complete set of Gantz from England of all places lol. But the thing is 4 volumes are the later dark horse print with the new spine (which is stupid in my opinion) and I want to get the older volumes with the old spine. For some reason I want them to match on my self lol that the ocd personality in me.

Btw do either of you know if the blade of the immortal series that was released by dark horse in normal ish volumes a while back, why do some of the spines not have the volume number on them? Are the ones without later prints?