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NEWS: Japan's Kodansha Reports Its Largest Annual Loss Ever

The two reason are why Kodansha took a loss.

"Advertising revenues declined under the effects of the recession, and a drop in magazine and comic sales led to 135.058 billion yen"


Kodansha is in the same spot as the American newspaper and magazine companies a decline in readership of the hardcopy due to the internet. The internet is more current then the daily newspaper or/and magazine.

It would be in Kodansha's interest to hold off establishing a USA company at this time. VIZ is having problem staying on top with the current economy.

sdhd wrote:

The two reason are why Kodansha took a loss. "Advertising revenues declined under the effects of the recession, and a drop in magazine and comic sales led to 135.058 billion yen" Kodansha is in the same spot as the American newspaper and magazine companies a decline in readership of the hardcopy due to the internet. The internet is more current then the daily newspaper or/and magazine. It would be in Kodansha's interest to hold off establishing a USA company at this time. VIZ is having problem staying on top with the current economy.

In addition to the sales drop for magazines and comics in the west the value of the insert add slots have been dropping as well. If you pick up a Marvel or DC you will see the same trend with the ads. Using X-Factor as an example #40 out of the 12 ads spots 8 are for internal products. If you go back to issue #30 there were 14 ad spots and only 4 were for other marvel products. This means one of two things, 1) they can't sell the ad spots or 2) the ad space price is so depressed that it is worth more to try and boost sales. Marvel Editor Joe Quesada said at Comic-Con (i think it was Comic-Con) that the advertisements make almost the same amount of revenue for comics and magazines as the cover price. From the sounds of it Kodansha is dealing with the same issues.

So whatever this guy was whining and complaining about is nothing more than a stubborn & spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum.

DomFortress wrote:

So whatever this guy was whining and complaining about is nothing more than a stubborn & spoiled child throwing a temper tantrum.

His point is completely valid and correct. In the same way that the game industry makes a major stink about gamestop hurting their sales, the manga industry has the same issue with used book dealers. The big difference is that there isn't just one but multiple used books chains throughout Japan. This issue technically also applies to manga cafes which usually let you get away with a ~3:1 cost ratio (about the same as used manga). Especially in troubling economic times, people will turn to cheaper solutions like the 100 yen used book store section. This has next to nothing to do with piracy.

I loved the lack of hesitation from users to jump and begin attacking the fansubs. Hey, whatever is cool to hate, you gotta hate, right? Let's not develop opinions after all, those are dangerous.

Nice try, kid. But the problem is manga scanlations got their sources from just one copy of the latest ad supported manga magazine, stole the companies' ad sponsored intellectual properties that were the latest releases of serialized mangas, while removed all advertisements from the magazine scans. We're not talking about second hand books, older series, or manga graphic novel releases, no. We're talking about manga scanlations stealing the latest manga releases on manga magazines that's paid by companies' advertisements. And those companies are had it with manga scanlations leeching off from their advertising venues.

Kyogissun wrote:

I loved the lack of hesitation from users to jump and begin attacking the fansubs. Hey, whatever is cool to hate, you gotta hate, right? Let's not develop opinions after all, those are dangerous.

And there are just as many people attacking the people attacking the fansubs, which is why these threads always descend into the exact same arguments. The people you are replying to have an opinion, it just doesn't agree with yours, nor all the other people who have differing opinions.

...what in God's name do scanlations into other languages have to do with domestic manga sales and advertising revenue in Japan?

Seriously. Give us all a straight, sensible answer. That's all we want.

But this much I do know, the anime fansub and the manga scanlation groups had been telling two biggest lies for as long as this disclaimer had been in circulation: "This is free fansubs/scanlation. Please support the anime/manga series when it gets licensed."

And the truth is, anime fansubs and manga scanlations are not free, they are stolen intellectual properties.

No. Instead of just another answer based on opinions alone, you'll have the truth.

Furthermore, when the Japanese audiences are relying on illegal duplications of stolen intellectual properties instead of authentic licensed releases that's paid by advertising venues, available legally on Japanese medias, for their latest anime & manga gratifications. They don't get to see any advertisements paid by the Japanese companies because they've all been removed. That's why the Japanese companies no longer want to sponsor the anime & manga industry with advertising venues, because people are stealing the intellectual properties that they paid for with ads, yet they removed all ads as they continue to steal.

THIS is what happens when people don't purchase company products. If I were a fansubber, I'd have trouble sleeping at night, knowing I just put a honest hard working person out of a job because of my own personal greed.

This is horriable news, I hope Kodansha is able to recover from this.

Teriyaki Terrier wrote:

THIS is what happens when people don't purchase company products. If I were a fansubber, I'd have trouble sleeping at night, knowing I just put a honest hard working person out of a job because of my own personal greed. This is horriable news, I hope Kodansha is able to recover from this.

No kidding.I have a nasty feeling that it's because of those fansubbers and illegal streaming websites that was the cause of the fall of geneon (pionner ent).

If this ain't proof that the industry needs to take actions against fansubbers and video websites that stream their content without permission,then i don't know what will and by the time they do,it may be too late to save the US industry.