Forum - View topicNEWS: What's in an Exaxxion Edit?
Goto page Previous 1, 2, 3 Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
Author | Message | |||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Mohawk52
Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Mischief
Posts: 7 Location: Milpitas, CA |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
No I am saying the CGE predates the period manga became common enough for regular book store patrons to notice that manga existed. CGE predates the period where manga readers began looking outside of comicbook stores for manga. I am not ignoring the fact the DH knew that Sonoda is capable of maintaining an enticing storyline with attactive females, wearing clothing. I could be wrong, but it is my understanding that the only changes made to GSC where very early in the comic's print run and Sonoda was able to continue with the comic while keeping the girls dressed. Sonoda gave DH no reason believe that he wouuld not continue the trend with CGE. There is nothing draconian about stoppping production on something that will not sell well enough to cover production cost. With CGE that is the problem DH is looking at. They cannot justify printing CGE if a large percentage of the readership is suddenly unable to purchase the product. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
GATSU
Posts: 15305 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Mischief:
Not on hand, but the fact that DH has acknowledged disappointing sales obviously indicates it hasn't reached its target audience.
And that audience wasn't in the U.S.
Why? Kodansha is his exmployer, not Dark Horse. And Sonoda probably only makes a fraction of the royalties from U.S. sales compared to Japanese sales, since he's likely not the one making the deals. Therefore, he has no moral or financial obligation to live up to Dark Horse's editorial standards. But Sonoda agreed to those standards, anyway, and it still didn't make a difference. So is he really to blame for Dark Horse's failed speculation of the market for Sonoda's manga? |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Mischief
Posts: 7 Location: Milpitas, CA |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Disappointing enough that any reduction potental readship would result in a loss. In order for DH to break even with volume 5, they had to make it availible to as many people possible.
Then who do you think DH was trying to sell CGE to?
Why? Because legal systems are the work of the devil. When parties enter a contractual agree all parties (no matter how minor) are bound by law to fulfill that agreement. DH purchased the liscense to CGE at a time when all indication were that it would be suitable for a teenaged audience in the US. DH had demonstrated previously that they may be required to alter material the was not suitable for that same audience. As a direct result of Sonoda creating material for CGE, that DH was forced to edit, people have not only threatened not to purchase CGE v5, but made it clear that they would seek out pirated versions of CGE. If DH can demonstrate that the edits to CGE have resulted in a decline of readership (do to a boycott, etc.) of their other titles, it may also be possible to demand compensation for those losses as well. It might not be fair, but it is legal. Those are the realities of the publishing industry. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
GATSU
Posts: 15305 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
It's a loss anyway.
The run-of-the-mill fan who thinks it's some sci-fi action spectacle.
But Sonoda doesn't technically count as a party, since his publisher retains ownership of his work.
It's not as if they were really buying it before.
DH was the company which made the pitch. If anything, Kodansha could sue them, because it didn't deliver the profits they expected when they signed the contract. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Mohawk52
Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
jgreen
Posts: 1325 Location: St. Louis, MO |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
I'm with Kagemusha. One sex scene getting excised isn't going to affect my enjoyment of the book, and I not only understand Dark Horse's reasons but I wholeheartedly agree with them. These puritanical times are scary for retailers, especially when you have guys like retailer Gordon Lee facing jail time for giving a way a free comic with one panel of artistic nudity to a minor.
I mean, cripes, it's a sex scene. Even if it was cut out entirely and you're forced to read it untranslated, I imagine it wouldn't be too hard to reason out what's going on. As for why DH isn't releasing both an edited and unedited version, I'd imagine because sales on Exaxxion wouldn't support it. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
GATSU
Posts: 15305 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
I understand why they chose to do it. I just didn't see the point. It's a completely different series from GSC.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Greg Aubry
Posts: 224 Location: Detroit, MI |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
What Jason said.
My plan is to pick up the Dark Horse edition, *and* find the scanlation for that one scene, so I'll see what I missed. I don't see the harm in *that*. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Kagemusha
Posts: 2783 Location: Boston |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
EXCEPT the scanslators are probobly one of those groups who just scan english volumes and post them online. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Death&Rebirth
Posts: 4 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
There's Japanese Scans avaiable (or material translated from the original japanese books) for that matter, you only need to know where and what to look for, but that's not the point. I, for instance, dl manga scans has a away to find and to sort what manga in it's phisical form to buy. To see if i like certain title or not, if i should speen my income in this or that title. By now the market that buys manga is fans that know what they want (They know the title, the artist, ect.) because they already read or saw the original versions. Do people really believe that "Timmy" that sats his fat ass on a chair, every saturday morning watching his pokemons, digimons, Beyblades or other simillar titles is going buy manga they don't know or never heard of before becuase it has "pretty drawings"?
That's really BS in it's prime. The target audience of our "friend Timmy" is manga and anime that can provide a lot of merchandaising (toys and toys and more toys with a sparkle of video game heaven and other silly stuff like pikachu-pencil or a ruller with all your digimon buddys). I doubt the GDE can produce such mainstream products (ok, you can find GDE action figures but i doubt that you'll find it general stores). By the way can you provide thoose really fun numbers that 75% of the buywers of GDE are pre-teen fanboys (and girls) like our friend "Timmy". Like Gatsu said "the readers for CGE are essentially hardcore Sonoda fans". Ifthere are people away from this target market (aka, Sonoda fans) i doubt it that they are more then 7.5% to 9% of the sells (and i can see this at the three comic stores where i buy my manga, my comics, etc.). GDE is an evidence that DH screw up with the figures. Even if by the time that DH aquired the licence for publishing in english GDE hasn't been finished or the volume 5 hasn't been produce (strangely they didn't check the "Afternoon" edition first), they already knew what they would get. Sonoda's not a low-rated artist making a breakthrough in the market or unknow guy in manga and his works have already a fairly good fan movement. By the way the DH licence was obtain in 2001, in Japan the volumes started to came out in 1998. Sonoda doesn't do his work for worldwide audience. He works like any other manga artist for the japanese audience. If we can get their works is because conpanies like DH, Viz, Tokyopop, DC manga branch's CMX, Del Rey, Glenat, Norma, Pika and so on, decided to pick thoose titles and give it to a larger audience. And saying that "No I am saying the CGE predates the period manga became common enough for regular book store patrons to notice that manga existed. CGE predates the period where manga readers began looking outside of comicbook stores for manga." is utterly false. Care to do a better research with a cronological study of the manga introduction in the US market, European Market, and you will find that GDE predates nothing. GDE was a DH attempt to milk more money (like any other attempt) were they didn't researched fully (if they had check the "Afternoon" edition they would know that this title wasn't suitable for teens) and are getting a lousy income of it. It's normal for conpanies to milk more money to pick a title that doesn't sell and make it more "user-friendly". It's understable at some point why DH went this way, but i don't like this process. It shows only a retreat to cover their huge mistake to acheive their quotas. By the things i've saw in GDE, at least it should be avaiable only to older teens (16+). I doubt that human bodies cuted to pieces and that amount of fan-service (nudity, sexual innuendos, sexual jokes)can be suitable for it's target (at least in the US). spoiler[ Ok...we have a under-age "girl" with breast that make any other porn star cry and to transform herself in a space-bike-thingy she cuddles herself to the main carachter says "mount me"... ]. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
jgreen
Posts: 1325 Location: St. Louis, MO |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Wow, you have NO idea what you're talking about, do you? Back 10 years ago when I started buying, the only people buying were hardcore fans, but now a HUGE portion of the market is made up of casual readers who walk into the graphic novel section of their local Borders and pick up and read whatever looks cool. Just because the only people who post on these message boards are hardcore fans doesn't mean that hardcore fans are the only ones reading manga. It just means that hardcore fans are the only ones with the dedication to spend time talking about their hobby on the internet.
You're just making up numbers with absolutely NO evidence to support them. That's not an argument. Here's Dark Horse's argument in a nutshell (and remember they actually have numbers that aren't made up ): There's two kinds of readers for CGE: diehard readers who will buy anything Sonoda draws and casual readers who are buying it because they've liked the story so far. They have two options... 1. If they publish an unedited version, they please the diehards, but may lose the casual readers who can no longer buy it at bookstores or whose comic shops will no longer order it because of adult content. They also risk getting comic shop owners arrested for not noticing the change in content in a previously PG-13 book. 2. If they publish an edited version, they will displease the diehards (some of whom, like me, will still buy it anyway), but they can keep all casual readers. Dark Horse has the sales numbers to look at, and their sales numbers said that route #1 wasn't feasible. There aren't enough of the diehards to support an unedited release. It's really that simple.
This makes no sense. How were they supposed to know that Sonoda was going to start drawing sexual content before he drew it? Read his mind?
According to the ANN encyclopedia, Vol. 4 came out in Japan in 2001. That means DH did not have vol. 5 to look at before acquiring the license. Or are they supposed to have mastered time travel at this point?
BZZT! Wrong! Care to try again? The majority of manga sales was in comic shops as recently as 2003. Read more here. I like how you keep saying Dark Horse didn't do their research and yet you keep just making things up and quoting them as gospel fact...
A company tried to MAKE MONEY?! Oh, my god, I didn't know they did that!
Look, Dark Horse is a business, not a charity. They publish comics first and foremost to make money so that they can then make more comics. If the only way to publish the book so that wouldn't hemmorhage money is to slightly edit the book, I'm all for it....I'd rather be able to read the book than NOT be able to read the book. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Death&Rebirth
Posts: 4 |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
You really are away of your territory. First, my enquiry state that i got my figures from three diferent comic stores/book stores and not web forums or alike. And by that i mean the import and export numbers of certain volume of certain title, get it now? And believe me some sells, imports and exports, sometimes (and enphasis on sometimes) don't get to be count in but by that i would need to explain throughly all mechanism with big distribuition conpanies and little distribution conpanies, what counts and what doesn't.
Like i said earleir i'm aware of a part of the numbers and i never said that DH numbers were wrong or false, but that they didn't achieve their desire quota of selling of this title because they didn't research it ("the market") well. If they hadn't trouble selling this title i doubt that we would have this convversation in the first place, but that's pretty obvious. And their first problem started with the age rating...
...like per example the pg-13 (or "teens") rating of this book. First by the book countents they are lucky to get this kind of rating. I've seen lighter things get "16+".
Agree on that notion, but things aren't black and white. DH doesn't have the sells of GDE they hoped for, because they did a bad market study. Let's face it, who knows how things would turn if they had waited for Sonoda to finished or just had a certain number os board mettings with Sonoda and his legal representative (Kodansha) to see what content could they preview.
Well...by have meatings with him and Kodansha to equiry of what is this titles and what could they expect. Usually (enphasis on "Usually"), for a non-japanese conpany "A" to adquire a licence to publish in their own language of manga "1" of Japanese publishers "B" and the rights of it's author, they must have a contract that specifies the following terms: Size of the pages, color/b&w, age rating/Desired Target, etc. Something that both conpanies can agree upon. Percentage of sale and cost of publish can be divided or not. And for conpany "a" to iniate negotiayion with conpany "b" about the publishing rights, they must have a pretty good idea of what are they publishing (meetings with author or is legal representative for that info)...
...Even if Vol.5 didn't come out before they acquiring licence, it already had been published in the japanese manga anthology "afternoon". If volume 4 was published in japna in 2001 that only means that the anthology already had the chapters of volume 5. At least at some point Kodansha had that material. But you can say that with publishing volume 5, sonoda could had some scenes that couln't publish on the anthology. Bu that's not the case: 1) the anthology is routed more for mature audiences and 2) if theirs any change from anthology to volume (something that rarely occours, except the "cleaning procedure"), it's normally the volume that gets toned down (example, Hiroki Edo Short Stories has R-Rated material that was toned down when they passed his works from the anthology to the volume, it still maintains his rating and mature content but is slighty less explicit). Sometimes (and i think this might be what happend) conpany "a" creates a "package contract" by buying the licence to publishing everything of the author: a) they can buy in "parts", by that means every title that the author produces has a first-option type of clause that enables any other conpany to get licence if Conpany "a" doesn't want it (it's like marking territory) or b) but not very usual to use this, buy the all of it. But anyway their proposition must state all the over-cited terms of publishing and the legal owner of the publishing rights (Kodansha and Sonoda) must agree.
Like i said earlier there are some numbers that aren't acounted for because they don't use the big conpanies. But still GDE doesn't predates anything like i said earlier (even by carefully reading that post and by checking every ICv2 logs), since manga volumes was already published way back in the 90's. If bookstores are now (by "now" i mean "2003") getting (slowly) into the manga selling business only accounts that it thanks to mainstrem titles (or in other-hand big cult titles and authors). I didn't quote anything (yet) from DH, i leave that to DH editor that posted some explanations why (and funny how he contradicts himself) the editing.
Point taken (and a point that is old as my grandmother but that's not the point). I too prefer read my books in their phisical form. But sometimes things can get very awkward like GitS editing, although this isn't the case (a simple sex scene that the only major importance to the plot could be is character development). But like i state earlier, all this noise is because they didn't a good job (a real in deph market study). If this is happening it's because something isn't working inside DH. Right frankly, DH has been for all my life time one of my favourite publishers, not only with manga titles but also with comics and western graphic novels. I comes a bit as a disapointment since i didn't get any complains of the DH procedure (oh...and i did get my head full of people crying because of GitS, some years ago) And that argument that i don't know what i'm talking about it's really disapointing, because i'm running my comic store for 15 years and i create more profit then loss during that time (even by getting some hard to get titles and selling them a bit cheaper). In this business is all about the right timming. And believe me i know a lot more that u can assume from my initial post. The bottom line is and face it.They screw up. Someone inside DH didn't the job propelly and now everyone takes the heat. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Mischief
Posts: 7 Location: Milpitas, CA |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Like I said previously, it depends on the wording of the contract. The two liscensing agreements that I have detailed knowledge about did not include figures of projected sells. But that does not mean that other agreements do not. Personally, I do not beleive that DH would hold Sonoda responsible, that might interfere with DH getting rigths to more of Sonoda's work. Nothing is more annoying to somebody that liscenses products, then to see a competitor a desided liscense.
I would suspect that five years ago, DH was expecting the realities of today's manga industry to be a bit different.
Manga that is supplimented with merchandise has little bearing on a company like DH. DH is not gaining profits from that merchandise. Their profits come almost exclusively from comics/graphic novels. I did not mean to imply that 75% of Exxaxion's redership consisted of minors (I never said pre-teens). I was talking about the general comic book audience. The demigraphic of a single title is much harder to pin down then that of a publishing company. I admit that my experience on that front is rather dated (10+ years), but it is my understanding a majority of a comic book store's patronage comes from minors.
DH has stated that they did not know about the material that they would have to censor until after they had aquired the liscense. A lot can happen between the time a liscensing agreeing is made and the agreement is legally finallized. Especially if accounting is not communicating regularly with the creative team. I have seen this happen more times than I care to think about.
In 2000/2001 when DH was negotiating for Exxaxion, where were you finding your manga? Were you gettting it in issues or graphic novels? Were you finding finding monthly issues of manga in standard book stores? I was getting my manga in comic book stores. II was buying monthly issues. I could barely find any comics at book store much less manga. Graphic novels were tucked in a small part of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section.
I see DH's handling of more of a side-effect of looking at arrogance resulting from personal experience rather then reading into market trends. They were use to sharing the manga market with one other company (Viz). Shortly after picking up the liscense DH was finds themselves competing against companies that could buy them outright, in what was a near exclusive market.
It shows how much DH is trying to get away releasing as much material as they can to as large of an audience as possible.
I'm glad to see somebody from the retail side of things speaking up. My experience with the artist/publishing side of the equation causes me to be sympathetic with publishers. I have an uderstanding of why publishers make post-liscensing descisions. My experience of the retail side is limited and I can only go with person experiences as a consumer or publisher(though the publishing experience in the gaming industry rather than comics).
I still say that there were mistakes on both sides of the liscense. |
||||||||||||||||||||||
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
||
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group