Forum - View topicNEWS: Weekly Shonen Magazine Circulation Drops Under 2M
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barbapapa
 Posts: 224 Location: Belgium |
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Just to clarify:
Shonen Jump -> Shueisha Shonen Magazine -> Kodansha |
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kokuryu
 Posts: 915 |
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They need to offer them for sale in their original format at the same price they do in Japan here in the US.
I used to get Shonen ACE all the time myself. But the freight is too much. I only occasionaly get some issues of MagiCue and some of the adult titles right now. |
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Malintex Terek
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Sad.
There's nothing exceptional I can think of right now in WSM that would be of any draw to the magazine - the only titles of note, Negima! and School Rumble, are pretty mediocre titles and lack the clout of the earlier, legendary stuff. While Weekly Shounen Jump hasn't had any problems as of late, the manga-ka who contribute to it and Shueisha seem to think that losing "older" fans, who were a solid source of income in the last decade, are moving away from manga and anime in general. |
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Peter Ahlstrom
Posts: 72 Location: Los Angeles |
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Kodansha's magazines mentioned in this article need to include the word "Magazine" in the title. Weekly Shonen should be Weekly Shonen Magazine, Young should be Young Magazine, and Monthly Shonen should be Monthly Shonen Magazine. You don't leave out the "Jump" when you're talking about Weekly Shonen Jump, and you don't leave out the "Magazine" when you're talking about Weekly Shonen Magazine.
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Busaiku Chama
Posts: 65 Location: There |
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That's too bad, I thought Fairy Tail would mean good things.
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Andrew Cunningham
 Posts: 442 Location: Seattle |
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Air Gear? Magajin is definitely the weakest of the big three - Air Gear and Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei are the only two books I'm really following. I'm four volumes behind on both Tokyu and Ahiru no Sora, which are both very good books that I love when I'm reading but don't feel any burning drive to catch up with. Hajime no Ippo is still strong, but I'm 60 volumes behind and don't seem myself catching up. I'm still pissed at them for canceling Toto. And Vinland Saga migrating to Afternoon hurt... But 2006 was a bad year across the board - I don't think there's been a break out hit in any of the magazines. Certainly not one I've been inclined to read. There was a trend for a few years towards unusual art and story styles, which seemed to be working really well. But Magajin and Sunday have both moved back towards generic looking manga, while Jump has started a bunch of books that either sell well with a particular type of audience and get ignored by everyone else, or are just so terrible nobody reads them at all and they die a short sharp death. |
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Malintex Terek
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Apparently not. The "Golden Age" of WSM was compounded with Jump's weakness; OP had just started out, DB had died, Slam Dunk was finished, and WSM had Love Hina, Great Teacher Onizuka, and Hajime no Ippo simultaneously - that's equivalent to when Hokuto, Jojo, and DB were in serialization in the late 1980's at Jump's peak. I'm surprised to hear that Oh! Great is authoring two manga at once; I guess I've never given him all that much credit. |
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Andrew Cunningham
Posts: 442 Location: Seattle |
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It's also worth pointing out that the drop in magazine circulation has seen a rising in tankobon sales that offset it.
A number of more unusual books don't get great results in the polls, but sell extremely well in trades - Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei, for example. Afternoon editors have admitted that the magazine is a loss leader for the trades, which is what keep them afloat, and a lot of books are now being written for the trade. I think the result has led to greater diversity, since the only way to get someone to pick up a book if they haven't read the magazine is to make it look different - cover designs, art styles, concepts, titles, word of mouth, new advertising techniques... Gintama had extremely unique advertisements in the shops, but only after the sales of volume one were far, far higher than Shueisha expected. |
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Velius
 Posts: 36 |
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I guess what is being hinted at by this is that it is possible that Weekly Jump could end up like Monthly Shounen and not be profitable eventually. Most of the target buyers are moving on, but I think that new buyers will make it up, even if it doesn't show right. I think there isn't much to worry about for now.
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BleuVII
 Posts: 672 Location: Tokorozawa, Japan |
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Honestly, this is probably a direct result of piracy. Why pay for the weekly magazine when you can download it and then buy the tankubon in a few months?
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Andrew Cunningham
Posts: 442 Location: Seattle |
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Piracy has little or nothing to do with it.
The magazines cost next to nothing, and you can stand and read them in any convenience store. They've always been obtainable for free. What we're seeing is a combination of two things. (These are the common official theories.) - first, the decline in birthrate means there are less children. As adults grow up and the series they like end, they migrate to older magazines or stop reading manga. Or the number of series that appeal to them drops to a level where it makes more sense to just buy the trades rather than the magazine. - second, cell phones - people used to buy a manga magazine to read on the train, which was a major factor in the success of manga in Japan. Now everyone spends their time texting. I also personally think there's something going on that mirrors the music industry here - diversification. Instead of reading Jump and Jump only, people read the series they like regardless of the magazine they appeared in, and don't buy the magazines at all. Just like people now listen to the music and bands they like, not the bands that were on the radio all the time. |
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Swissman
Posts: 768 Location: Switzerland |
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The decline of big manga anthologies like Jump started already in the mid-nineties, way before digital piracy, and is mostly due to competition from other media like VG, cell-phones and Computer/IT in general. More media means less time to spend in manga only.
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fujiwara
 Posts: 58 Location: Sydney, NSW, Australia |
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I wonder if sales will go back up, or if this will signal the start where WSM has to play second fiddle to some other sorporation. It's probably just a lull though.
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barbapapa
Posts: 224 Location: Belgium |
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I think losing SDK, RAVE and GetBackers all in a short amount of time really didn't help things. Even if one of those authors is already back (and stronger than before), with Fairy Tail.
In general I'm not much of a Magajin fan, though. More of a Jump person, if I have to pick. But even there, it's been a looooong time since I've read something new that I really liked. Eyeshield from 2002... Muhyo from 2004... slim pickings all right. |
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Andrew Cunningham
Posts: 442 Location: Seattle |
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No love for Neuro? That's pretty much my favorite book they have these days...
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