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Manga Answerman - Why Do Publishers Sometimes Stop Publishing Manga Before They're Finished?


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VampireNaomi



Joined: 30 Aug 2010
Posts: 146
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 12:05 pm Reply with quote
Does anyone know what's up with Plum Crazy! Tales of a Tiger-Striped Cat? Volume 4 came out last January and there's no release date for the next one, as far as I know. I assume the series didn't sell enough, but if it's been cancelled, I'd like to know for sure so I can strike it from my shopping list.
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pharmboy23



Joined: 05 Oct 2018
Posts: 196
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 12:09 pm Reply with quote
With the general popularity of mystery titles it makes me die on the inside that Kodansha never brought Kindaichi Case Files back. I still have every volume of the truncated TokyoPop run. They’re like manga comfort food.
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 12:10 pm Reply with quote
Personally I don't like to buy ongoing manga that takes a while between volumes and especially those whose US releases are behind on its anime adaptation release. I normally prefer to wait until it's finished or has many volumes released so I can binge through it. I realize that contributes to the problem in a chicken-egg fashion but considering how quickly one can read through a volume and waiting months between tends to dampen my enjoyment of the series.
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Estoma



Joined: 11 Jan 2019
Posts: 11
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 12:10 pm Reply with quote
I really wish the Gintama manga would come back Sad
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invalidname
Contributor



Joined: 11 Aug 2004
Posts: 2434
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 12:14 pm Reply with quote
I hope someday we find out what the heck ever happened to Seven Seas release of Angel Beats! Heaven’s Door. They put out one volume and then repeatedly and indefinitely delayed the rest until they quietly disappeared from the release schedule altogether. Their site still has a page for volume 1, but Angel Beats! is no longer listed on the series list.

I asked about it at Seven Seas’ booth at AX 2017, and they said they couldn’t talk about it. Maybe someday, they’ll be able to.
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Stampeed Valkyrie



Joined: 10 Aug 2014
Posts: 825
Location: PA
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 12:42 pm Reply with quote
The title that had me pretty burned at the time was Tsukihime. By a now long defunct company called DrMaster Publications.

I remember having to hunt this title down while it was in production and then having to scour amazon and like later to get the later volumes before the company imploded.
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LegitPancake



Joined: 26 Jun 2017
Posts: 1291
Location: Texas, USA
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 12:47 pm Reply with quote
Does releasing a less-than-average-selling manga or light novel in an omnibus help minimize expenses from physical distribution? Or do the lower sales due to fewer total volumes on the market have a more negative effect than the increased price of the volumes and decreased cost of distribution? I often see longer series that already had single-volume releases get omnibuses, but rather few manga series start with an omnibus. I would personally be willing to support a more niche series if it is in omnibus, and I would far rather a risky series be compiled than not sell enough and get cancelled.
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FireChick
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Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Posts: 2385
Location: United States
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:00 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, I hate it when a manga gets published and doesn't get finished, or even have more than one volume pushed out! Several titles I really want to see re-released are Koi Cupid, Kon Kon Kokon, Song of the Hanging Sky, More Starlight To Your Heart, Pavane for a Dead Girl, and Cantarella, the latter especially since it only reached volume 10 before the final two volumes were released due to Go! Comi shutting down! Someone please pick that one up already!!
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R. Kasahara



Joined: 19 Feb 2013
Posts: 646
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:11 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
However, it's worth noting that cancelling a series isn't a publisher's only option. Another strategy is to slow down releases of new volumes – so for example, a series that may have started out with new volumes released quarterly may start releasing new volumes every four, six or twelve months, or more!

Kodansha Comics seems to be doing this with Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, which they're also now starting to release as omnibus editions. I'm grateful to them for going this route instead of cancelling the series outright.

Quote:
Similarly, Viz Media quietly picked up several series previously published in print by TokyoPop and Bandai as digital only releases, such as Lucky Star, Welcome to the NHK, and Sgt. Frog.

Except, at least in Sgt. Frog's case, Viz only digitally printed most of what had been previously released by Tokyopop, and never continued with it Confused

Sgt. Frog's cancellation hit me pretty hard-- partly due to its length-- but I also miss The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga, and especially The Drops of God (though I know that in that case, Vertical had only licensed a set number of volumes to start with). There's also a handful of series that I would've considered buying long after publication had they been completed: Saiyuki Reload, Moyashimon, etc.

I maintain a list of cancelled manga here, which doesn't include "on hiatus in Japan" series like X or Nana. Someone gave me a huge list of titles to add last year, plus I recently expanded it to include manhwa and light novels; those two factors essentially doubled its length during the past few months. A lot of the series on that list were cancelled due to the Manga Crash. It's crazy how many of them there were.

(ETA: Before anyone asks why [blah] is missing from my list, I'll be editing it over the next few days with any new[s] to me cancelled series mentioned in this thread)


Last edited by R. Kasahara on Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:03 pm; edited 1 time in total
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CatSword



Joined: 01 Jul 2014
Posts: 1489
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:24 pm Reply with quote
Let's have a moment of silence for Gintama. And Reborn. And Strawberry 100%. And Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs (which only had five volumes left). And Zatch Bell. And Bastard!!.

Man, Viz used to be bad about this.
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:31 pm Reply with quote
D.N. Angel, Beyond the Beyond (final volume), and Brave Story are just some of the series left unfinished on my shelves.
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Lord Geo



Joined: 18 Sep 2005
Posts: 2532
Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 1:31 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Which previously published but so far, unfinished manga series are you hoping to see come back from publishing limbo?


Without a doubt, my #1 pick for this is Bastard!!, which Viz published up through Volume 19, & even solicited Volume 20, but then stopped. I'm sure it wasn't an amazing seller by the time the releases stopped, but if Viz had kept up with the twice/year release schedule, they would have caught up with Volume 27 in 2013, which is where it's been stuck at in Japan since 2012. I have bought the remaining tankouban to fill out my collection, but I'd love to see Bastard!! be given a second chance here, as miniscule of a chance as it has.

My #2 pick would be Eat-Man, which was an old Viz release during the 90s that only went two volumes before stopping; it went on to run for 19 volumes. I just love this manga, & it'd be amazing to see the 10-volume deluxe edition from a couple of years ago be given a release over here.

Finally, my #3 pick would be Immortal Rain/Meteor Methuselah, which TokyoPop released eight volumes of during the mid-00s before stopping. Granted, this one was mostly because TP more or less caught up with Japan, but since the last release in 2007 the manga went on to finish in 2011 at 11 volumes, and some of Kaori Ozaki's other works have come over, like The Gods Lie., but last I heard there might be some problems in Immortal Rain being given a second chance. Hopefully that isn't the case, though, because I really want to see how this outstanding manga ends.

I think an interesting case, though, would be Beet the Vandel Buster, which Viz did technically release all there was of back in the 00s, but then the manga returned long enough for Shueisha to release a brand new compiled volume for just a couple of years ago. Viz, however, seems to have no interest in releasing that new volume of Beet, even though the manga's original release here was technically never actually cancelled.
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myskaros



Joined: 13 Jun 2011
Posts: 598
Location: J-Novel Club
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:16 pm Reply with quote
RIP Ichigo 100% Sad
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SheRrIs





PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:17 pm Reply with quote
I hope Gintama will return one day... Sad

Quote:

Finally, my #3 pick would be Immortal Rain/Meteor Methuselah, which TokyoPop released eight volumes of during the mid-00s before stopping. Granted, this one was mostly because TP more or less caught up with Japan, but since the last release in 2007 the manga went on to finish in 2011 at 11 volumes, and some of Kaori Ozaki's other works have come over, like The Gods Lie., but last I heard there might be some problems in Immortal Rain being given a second chance. Hopefully that isn't the case, though, because I really want to see how this outstanding manga ends.

Same! I managed to collect all the published volumes, it's still painful not to be able to have the whole set.
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whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
Posts: 2242
PostPosted: Fri Jan 11, 2019 2:51 pm Reply with quote
Maybe one day the rest of Swan will get picked up. CMX made quite a bit of headway, but I'm guessing most publishers would want to do it over from scratch (so you can buy all their versions instead of library versions on eBay).

I loved that series to death, but I think its dated (though gooooorgeous) art style doesn't help, so I'm guessing this is more of a niche title. :<
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