×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
NEWS: Manga Sales in Japan Decline for Fifth Consecutive Year


Goto page 1, 2  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
minakichan





PostPosted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 9:34 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
a growing dissatisfaction with the lack of originality found in many manga.


Yes please. It might just be that all the good ideas have already been done, but geez, this is pretty terrible recently.
Back to top
Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4352
Location: New York
PostPosted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 10:04 pm Reply with quote
I'll take "Growing dissatisfaction" for $400 Alex.

Well, it seems that manga on cellphones, the equivalent of third party material going up in sales merely confirms this theory.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Asrialys



Joined: 12 Dec 2006
Posts: 1159
PostPosted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 10:23 pm Reply with quote
They need to stop making a manga out of everything.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
cloud1989



Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Posts: 274
PostPosted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 10:35 pm Reply with quote
since this seems to be related to manga "magazines", perhaps people would rather buy the books to the series they like instead of using a magazine, I for one would rather just have the series I like instead of buying a magazine with various manga which I only like about half of if that, and don't they only put like 1 or 2 chapters each in a magazine, I would also hate the fact of draging them on longer like that, many manga series are long enough as it is.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Aromatic Grass



Joined: 31 Dec 2003
Posts: 2424
Location: Raleigh, NC
PostPosted: Sat Oct 20, 2007 10:55 pm Reply with quote
How can you NOT buy manga? It's inconceivable! Mad
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
Spotlesseden



Joined: 09 Sep 2004
Posts: 3514
Location: earth
PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:28 am Reply with quote
they forget about illegal free download. it hurts sale too.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Sir Hamilton



Joined: 31 May 2007
Posts: 63
Location: Massachusetts
PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 12:36 am Reply with quote
Spotlesseden wrote:
they forget about illegal free download. it hurts sale too.


I was just about to suggest that. I must say that my interest is lacking manga as of late. not many creative things have come out of manga in the last few years in my opinion. The only few that have even taken my interest from a year ago till now is NANA Death Note SKull Man and Strawberry Panic.

I've read alot of stuff but its just not as entertaining as it was before.


Last edited by Sir Hamilton on Sun Oct 21, 2007 4:03 am; edited 2 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website AIM Address
Hon'ya-chan



Joined: 31 Jul 2007
Posts: 973
PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:00 am Reply with quote
Asrialys wrote:
They need to stop making a manga out of everything.


Video games are slowly going that way as well. I think Capcom just released a DS game on playing the Stock Market.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
britannicamoore



Joined: 05 Dec 2005
Posts: 2618
Location: Out.
PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:28 am Reply with quote
So..these manga cafes- do you go in a pay a fee to read? Is said fee cheaper than buying all the new manga?

Last edited by britannicamoore on Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:43 am; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website AIM Address
Dargonxtc



Joined: 13 Apr 2006
Posts: 4463
Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋
PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:35 am Reply with quote
Aromatic Grass wrote:
How can you NOT buy manga? It's inconceivable! Mad

Laughing True!


Also the Japanese need to start making better use of there love motels Smile

britannicamoore wrote:
So..these manga cafes- do you go in a pay a fee to read? Is said fee cheaper than buying all the news manga?

I asked this same question once and it was said that at some point the publishers and cafes were at odds with each other. But that point has pretty much passed now. However I never got a more complete answer than that.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
CCSYueh



Joined: 03 Jul 2004
Posts: 2707
Location: San Diego, CA
PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 3:05 am Reply with quote
The articles on people living at manga cafes said they often had attractive overnight rates so obviously they charge.

I opt for younger people not reading as much. I know I've seen the comment "I don't like to read. I prefer watching anime" We've seen reading decline in the US also. Our own comic book industry has been tryng to overcome this same issue (declining readers). I can tell you there's a big push in schools & parenting mags on how to make young people readers, how to encourage one's child to read books rather than watch tv.

The cost of the mags is practically the cost of a manga. BeXBoy is 562 yen for about 524 pages/14-21 segments. Some are chapters of on-going serials while others are stand-alone stories such as we see used to fill out graphic novels when the company is stretching the release.

Shonen Jump is cheaper than that-219 yen for about 480 pages of about 18 chapters. This is less stand-alone-more a chapter a week

It's easy to give a pat answer like "It's all the same " as an excuse for giving something up. I used to buy tons of American comics, but they cancelled a bunch of the titles I was reading & I just lost interest in the domestic scene. I had my child & I was pretty busy with all the baby stuff & costs. Life happens. I'm sure the same happens in Japan all the time
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
kokuryu



Joined: 07 Apr 2007
Posts: 915
PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 3:25 am Reply with quote
As the great survey has reported, it is the dissatisfaction with the story and plotline that have turned people off of different stories.

Secondarily, the drop in the sales of manga in Japan is also due to the sucess of manga sales in the US - it used to be that I would buy several whole series a year from Japan because they would never make it to the US. Now I only buy the ocassional hentai manga and magazine, or a few specialty books - everything else has been already translated into English - and I can even buy an overwhelming number of the books I currently have in Japanese in English now as well. Every time I see an intresting manga series listed, when I check to see if there is an English version, its already done.

So - they decline in sales in the Japan is the price of success for the industry. They just didn't realize how much manga and anime they had been exporting all these years - and they will probably never admit it either.

They wanted Japan to be isolationists with regards to sales - well they got it - the sales figures are primarily for only Japan now - and the end result is wholesale bankruptcies and companies going out of business.

Finally, the net increase in sales for online manga outweighs the loss of physical book sales by a margin of 2 to 1 - so the overall industry has gained, rather than lost - this is also another sign - the industry is changing from print to digital distribution.

And some companies have embraced the online scanlation community and turned it into a legal venture by scanning their own books, offering them for sale at a reduced price versus the print books, and allowing fans to make their own translations available - and allow the fans to make a profit from their translations.

This is the start of a new era where some companies that embrace what has become popular in the fan communities and become the new business models for the future, and other will complain and persue legal actions, and eventually go out of business never realizing the root causes for their demise lie within themselves.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Rawler



Joined: 31 Aug 2007
Posts: 11
PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 8:54 am Reply with quote
I used to love to read.. however recently i have found myself paying little/no attention to books. This does not mean that i do not read however, i spend a lot of time reading through articles on the internet. I believe the internet can act as somewhat of a replacement for a lot of books. Reading is still popular--but the medium can change.

Also, illegal downloading is a factor not mentioned in the article.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Vantos



Joined: 20 Feb 2005
Posts: 102
PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 9:34 am Reply with quote
They did not mention sales of "tankobon" or graphic novels. According to Jason Thompson's "Manga: The Complete Guide":

Jason Thompson wrote:
"But manga itself are still popular; despite slumping magazine sales, graphic novel sales are higher than ever. Traditional Japanese bookstores are doing poorly, but fan-oriented niche stores such as Tora no Ana are thriving."


So I believe that manga will do all right for itself, but I think there will be two trends:

1) It will spring up anew here in the USA.

2) In Japan, tankobon will still be sold, but the magazines will shift to online distribution.

A little originality can help, though.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 1:31 pm Reply with quote
I have to agree with thier speculation. Older fans are now too busy trying to pay the daily outgo and with them still feeling the affects of a recession money is still best kept in the pocket incase it's needed later. Also there are more people over the age of 21 then under, so there isn't the large amount of kids buying manga. I also agree that their market is way over saturated with too much of it either for the perverted otaku, lolicoms, and paedophiles, or ero-goro
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group