Forum - View topicNEWS: ICv2: North American Manga Sales Down 20% in 2009
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Dakaran
 Posts: 347 |
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That hits it :p |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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I have some doubts with this white paper as they attempt to explain why sales are down without any evidence whatsoever. For example, scanlations: have they actually done research on what are the most scanlated series, and approximately how many downloads they get? I bet if they did, they'd find that the most declines, especially in the shoujo and josei sector cited here, occur with the least scanlated, or the least popular.
Secondly they hardly touch upon one other important factor: price It's significantly more expensive than Japan, especially compared to big serialized manga magazines, and more expensive to collect manga than it is to buy anime. The $10 - $15 you pay per volume goes by in a flash. It'll be interesting to see how the electronic forms of manga via Kindle and others online readers, via publishers or independently, are doing. |
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Bah, aging shoujo fans? I dunno what they're talking about. I'm 21 and holding it!
Really though, I'm a huge shoujo fan but I don't like yaoi. Once you take that out of the equation what really has the market to offer me lately? Gimme some manga I want, and I buy. Really I've just been buying a lot of older shoujo titles, mostly used over the last year (Mars, Please Save My Earth, various minor CLAMP titles, Hana Kimi) and the only "new" titles I can recall buying recently would be Kaichou wa Maid-sama, a Gakuen Alice volume, and Alice in the Country of Hearts. I plan on buying Kobato in May, and Ouran as well as CLAMP's Okimono Kimono book in July, and that's about it with shoujo titles. Gimme manga I want and I'll buy it. |
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domino
 Posts: 373 |
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I stopped buying manga in the US because 1) I ran out of shelf space and 2) I realized if I really really want to buy a volume of manga I can often get it for 1/4 the price in Japanese; as someone said before, $10~$12 for just one volume of manga doesn't go a long way, especially when you can often get a DVD box for that series instead with 7 hours of animated content for only $20~$30
I dunno why they think "aging shojo fans" is a major cause. For every girl who ages and stops reading manga, another young one usually pops up to take her place. The real issue is whether or not the younger girl's parents will give her the pocket money to buy manga in this economy. I look forward to when North American Manga publishers can take advantage of ebooks and the iPad to solve these problems. They would make distribution a LOT cheaper and can drive down the cost per volume, while I don't have to bother with buying another bookshelf. If they can use the iPad and have English versions of manga release weekly the same day they hit stores in Japan (release digital copies of Shonen Jump each week, for example), that would be amazing for the industry. Last edited by domino on Fri Apr 16, 2010 11:10 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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britannicamoore
 Posts: 2618 Location: Out. |
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For myself personally I just haven't found much Shojo i'm interested in.
Besides Honey Hunt and Kimi no Todoke I can't really think of any titles i'm actively buying. |
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domino
Posts: 373 |
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Also, about the biggest decreases being at major chain bookstores instead of specialty comic book retailers.......
This is because major chains have no idea how to sell manga. Every time I go to one lately, the manga section is shrinking more and more. Half of the shelf space is dedicated to stuff like Naruto and InuYasha (which most people casually browsing for manga stopped caring about long ago). The only shojo series I DID like enough to commit $300 to (to buy all 28 volumes), I couldn't find in ANY major store and had to special order every single volume. Put the good stuff on the shelves and we will buy them. Or find that next big shonen hit and stick it on Cartoon Network to sell more manga; TV exposure like that can sell any action show. (air Gintama already, Adult Swim; it's like Bleach with the black humor of other Adult Swim stuff) |
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CCSYueh
 Posts: 2707 Location: San Diego, CA |
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So you're expecting sales to stay the same when we have fewer titles? TP dropped titles, titles were rescheduled all over the place. I'm waiting for 14 titlesthat were due out last year. And there was that global money meltdown. I'd say most of us are being a bit more cautious in our purchases. Yes, we're allegedly in recovery, but it's apparently going to be a long recovery. So if those aging shojo fans are in college & can't find enough work to cover entertainment, then it makes sense they have less money for manga. I thought movies & the like took something of a hit this recession. I also seem to recall teens are allegedly having a harder time picking up work right now because all those laid off workers with more work experience are taking their jobs. Really, most people I know prefer reading manga in hard copy form. I could see manga cows going for scans. There have been fewer titles I want to buy. I'm nervous about trusting TP. They left me hanging on Tactics for about 2 yrs, wasn't it? I have no faith we'll ever see any more of that, Saiyuki, BTx, King of Hell, Queen's Knight, Lilling Po, Rave Master, Wild Adaptor, Devil's Bride, Voice or Noise, Love Pistols...I know there's more. Oh yeah, Del Rey keeps shuffling titles I'm interested in like Sohryuden & DMP keeps missing release dates & Deux has apparently vanished. If one interested in shonen & thus maybe in on Viz's dump on the market of this or that shonen title (One Piece). From Eroica with Love seems to have vanished. Dark Edge-was it 2009 or 2008 that one was cancelled? Are we going to see any more Crimson Spell? So while I hate fansubs overall, I put more blame on the economy & the industry itself. Give me the titles I was following. Offer me stuff I want to buy |
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Nineofclubs
 Posts: 78 |
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My problems with manga have always been as follows...
1) The bindings on a lot of the mangas make the panels toward the middle harder to read. 2) They cost about as much as a book, and can be finished in a fraction of the time. 3) Scanlations sadly tend to come out much quicker then the stuff being put on the shelves. I do buy still buy Negima because its my favorite series, but i only really do it to support the series considering reading it online is much easier, more accomadating, and up to date. Some bookstores have offered buy two get one free deals and thats helped quite a bit though, i don't think its all going to be doom and gloom or anything. Oh yeah, i really wanted to mention how much i like the manga "super books" that some company (viz maybe?) releases. Those things are awesome, good pricing, lots of content, don't have to hunt down individual issues numbers, ect, ect. Maybe more manga getting published in the US will start going towards that trend kinda simmilar to how anime tend to be released in two part sets these days as opposed to the 1 dvd at a time strategy. I really hope the bigbooks catch on. |
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glitteringloke
 Posts: 160 |
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the dropped titles and delayed releases stopped me from buying manga. Actually, most of it is imported for me now.
i waited 2 YEARS for vol. 8 of tactics, but i have up to 10 on my shelf in japanese. and i won't ever get to find out what happens in Getbackers. 27 vol. in and way to lose the license. *sarcastic thumbs up* i can now use that saved money towards my monthly asuka subscription Since Pluto just ended, it looks like the only thing i'll be picking up from the american market anytime soon is my junjou romantica 12, the remaining FMA (it's very hard to be good and not read scans of this) and natsume yuujinchou. |
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littlegreenwolf
Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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From a business standpoint, that's not really a good thing. When a bookstore gives you a "deal" like that, they aren't making much of a profit at all. A bookstore usually gets a book at an average of 40% off the MSRP price. So that 9.99 manga volume was bought from the publisher for around 6 bucks. If you buy two volumes of manga and are getting one free, that's pretty much the bookstore getting rid of inventory at practically no profit. They paid around 18 bucks for those 3 volumes you just bought from them for 20 bucks. Keep in mind the discount a bookstore buys books from a publisher with fluctuates, it's sometimes more than 40%, or sometimes less. You'll very rarely see a non-chain store doing this. Chain bookstores are probably doing it in either hopes for you to buy more than just that, or the store is trying to free up shelf space, whether to bring in more manga or make the section smaller, only time will tell. That profit from that "deal", if there is a profit at all, is so insignificant in the long run that at some point the bookseller will probably not see it worth carrying manga anymore. |
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Hon'ya-chan
 Posts: 973 |
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I'd buy, but the titles i'm currently interested in (High School of the Dead, Triage X, Bartender, Wangan Midnight) haven't been released in the USA, or got cut in the USA (Initial D).
Come on guys!! Come to a compromise and i'll gladly pay for them!! |
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Bell02
 Posts: 168 |
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Uh, yeah because the economy being in the s**thole has nothing to do with anything. All I can say is in 2007 I was buying 10takubon a month, now I'm lucky if I buy 1.
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14761 |
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But the gatekeepers in this situation are the TV networks. It's not the anime companies decision. Sure, they can put 'em on niche anime networks that only higher-tier cable/satellite households get, but that's not much. TV networks only get money from the anime ratings - they don't get a piece of the holy grail merchandise pie. So if the anime won't get enough ratings to offset another show where they could earn merchandise money, they won't show the anime........ Unless the anime companies pay the TV networks for buying the timeslots (like they do in Japan), but we know that's not affordable. In the meantime, there won't be as many newcomers to maintain the same number who came in during the manga boom. It's only natural. When something is shiny and new, people's interest is sensational. When that something then becomes a commodity, it's not as sensational, and buyers become much more selective. So there won't be as many young girls getting into manga as the manga boomers aging - no 1:1. Last edited by enurtsol on Sat Apr 17, 2010 1:24 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Seljuk
 Posts: 139 |
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Adding to the flock saying expensive. 2-3x the price that the racial slur removed paid to buy the same content? I love Dark Horse's releases (many of my favorites), but at $15 bucks a pop, no thank you. Money is tight. I haven't bought a new volume in almost a year.
I browse used bookstores for volumes, making my shelves a hodgepodge of half-finished series (All picked up for 2-4 bucks). I'd like to finish them, but at that price? No. Rent, insurance, gas, school, and food. Not necessarily in that order. Last edited by Seljuk on Sat Apr 17, 2010 9:53 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Tamaria
 Posts: 1512 Location: De Achterhoek |
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Volume 15 was released a couple of weeks ago. Good luck finding it oe the shelves of a regular old bookstore though. It's kind of funny. Of those 900-something books released last year, I probably bought around 50. I'm from Europe, English isn't even my first language and my interest in shoujo is fairly new even though I was 12 when the boom started! |
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