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INTEREST: Online Survey Explains Why Mail Order Doujinshi Aren't Selling in Wake of Canceled Events




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Kougeru



Joined: 13 May 2008
Posts: 5521
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 3:35 pm Reply with quote
Lol. I guess I'm one of the few that feels the same IN PERSON. anime conventions and such vastly overprice things. I don't see the fun in paying insane prices for stuff.
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Horsefellow



Joined: 01 Jan 2020
Posts: 262
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 4:19 pm Reply with quote
Kougeru wrote:
Lol. I guess I'm one of the few that feels the same IN PERSON. anime conventions and such vastly overprice things. I don't see the fun in paying insane prices for stuff.


It's all about the social aspect. It's neat to thumb through doujinshi and books in person, chat with the artist, talk to other fans, etc. Online shopping might be more convenient but not as fun. Kinda why I've found all these 'online conventions' this year have been pretty boring. I go to cons to socialize and do things. If I wanted to just watch a prerecorded video, I'd go watch one of the millions of videos on YouTube that do it better. A group of people doing a Zoom chat in their homes doesn't compare to actually going to a convention.
Like, I've seen so many movies I have zero interest in just because spending the day hanging out with friends and going out to eat after is still fun. Things are a lot more fun in person and in groups. Can't put a price on that.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 4:49 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Director D noted that this was a strange reason, considering that the price of attending Comiket, including food, lodgings, travel, far outweighs the cost of mail order shipping.

Well yeah, but for all that money you're getting a whole experience package, not just a bunch of doujinshi - that you can't even really check before you buy them. Who knows, maybe it has a downer ending! Maybe the circle's best artist made the cover but the insides are clunky! Maybe the writer did a bait-and-switch and the main or end-game pairing is not, actually, what is advertised! And so on.

Personally, I'm sad that so many creators cling to physical releases. :/ I'm so far from Japan that the shipping costs really make it not worth buying literally anything that requires shipping. I'd buy so much more doujinshi if more creators were willing to sell them digitally... One of the manga I'm following has been cancelled, and on Twitter the mangaka said she's planning to continue it as doujinshi, but she's only planning to do print releases at various events. Which sucks so much because I really like the manga, but I just can't justify the costs of buying it this way.
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xxmsxx



Joined: 06 Sep 2017
Posts: 556
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 5:10 pm Reply with quote
I really liked all the online conventions. I don't have to stand in lines all day at all. Walking around all the time is exhausting. Cost barrier is a lot lower, sometimes even free. I don't have to commute between the convention centre and where I am staying. I don't have to look for food. If I missed a panel, I can usually go back and watch a recorded version.

I used to go to conventions with friends, but it was so cumbersome and frustrating all the time. I ended up just going to conventions on my own. It has become a lot more of an enriching experience. The social elements people enjoy was actually a huge inhibitor to my convention experience. I enjoy conventions a lot more now that I don't go with friend anymore.

Items from AA or Exhibitor Hall are never that attractive to me. I have never gotten more than 3 things for one convention at an AA or Exhibitor. Sometimes it is not even related to anime or manga. Most of the artists I do follow are all from Japan and I am used to the shipping costs already.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4566
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 6:45 pm Reply with quote
Given the content of much of the doujin being sold there, you'd think that being able to buy it from the anonymity of your own home would be a massive selling point. Laughing
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tsog



Joined: 16 Sep 2017
Posts: 221
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 7:28 pm Reply with quote
SHD wrote:

Personally, I'm sad that so many creators cling to physical releases. :/ I'm so far from Japan that the shipping costs really make it not worth buying literally anything that requires shipping.

Me too. If they can sell them through Amazon JP I'd buy; I'm on track to dump another $300 on art books there soon.

But having to pay as much (or more) for shipping as the goods themselves is a hard sell, and staggered releases make it harder to combine shipping or risk the goods selling out.
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FlamingFirewire



Joined: 03 Jun 2013
Posts: 461
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 8:23 pm Reply with quote
I think a big part of making something like this successful digitally is to have someway for people to interact in real-time & to build a community - enjoying things as they come together live.

If you were able to have a conversation with a group of people over Discord, buy goods within that environment with sellers, and engage online in a "meaningful way" (the way people do when they play video games with others online), there would be enough interest for people to lay down the money to not only buy items with others, but enjoy the different take on conventions.

It'll never be the same, but that's the best part - you make a unique, digital version of something beloved that can be enhanced by the format, rather than a facsimile that tries to one-to-one reproduce what's done in person.
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Kokushibou



Joined: 13 Jun 2018
Posts: 39
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 8:43 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Director D noted that this was a strange reason, considering that the price of attending Comiket, including food, lodgings, travel, far outweighs the cost of mail order shipping.


It's not a strange reason to not buy because of price because going there and seeing things, everything there is an experience of it's own.
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Neohybrid_kai



Joined: 29 Apr 2011
Posts: 143
Location: Indonesia
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:23 pm Reply with quote
I may no longer watch as much anime as back then but I still come to events. I love meeting people from the same fandom, buying stuff from creator booth, soaking in the atmosphere, in fact the more crowded the event, the better (obviously not in the pandemic times like now) and this come from a person who rarely go out to socialize. Going to events, especially doujin events is like a catharsis for me.

I agree with the survey's result. People go to comiket for the shopping experience (I've been to comiket twice), unfortunately, that's something that can't be replaced with online shopping. I think people who go to events understand that yes the travel costs high and most of the items bought are impulse buying (add crazy queue and weather for comiket) but every item bought at event has personal story because you buy directly from the artist.

Maybe if they went with air comiket (term for online comiket) they should also sell digital doujin, that way even foreigners can also participate in shopping, though I understand it makes it easier to pirate and piracy is serious issue to artist.
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Suxinn



Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 242
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:55 pm Reply with quote
I think part of the reason too is that, when you go somewhere to shop, sometimes you'll see things you've never even known existed and buy them. You get less of that kind of experience when online shopping because you're often looking for something very specific. I know I've certainly gone to AX before and bought way more things from Artist Alley than I expected because I saw some great artist whom I never knew existed until then.

I think, as noted, having a centralized repository of specific new releases for Comiket, etc. would make things easier too, since I'm sure most find it hard to keep track of what's out there.
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Cutiebunny



Joined: 18 Apr 2010
Posts: 1746
PostPosted: Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:58 pm Reply with quote
xxmsxx wrote:
I used to go to conventions with friends, but it was so cumbersome and frustrating all the time. I ended up just going to conventions on my own. It has become a lot more of an enriching experience. The social elements people enjoy was actually a huge inhibitor to my convention experience. I enjoy conventions a lot more now that I don't go with friend anymore.


It's the opposite for me. I go to conventions to be with friends and to wait with friends in line. We usually all go for the same Japanese guests, so it's basically just linecon with friends. Friends have made the difference between having a horrible convention experience and a good one.

Quote:
Items from AA or Exhibitor Hall are never that attractive to me. I have never gotten more than 3 things for one convention at an AA or Exhibitor. Sometimes it is not even related to anime or manga. Most of the artists I do follow are all from Japan and I am used to the shipping costs already.


Same here. I can only think of a handful of conventions where I've purchased something from either area. I buy hand drawn artwork from Japanese artists and usually they're never selling stuff in the AA.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1752
PostPosted: Tue Aug 04, 2020 5:42 am Reply with quote
tsog wrote:
SHD wrote:

Personally, I'm sad that so many creators cling to physical releases. :/ I'm so far from Japan that the shipping costs really make it not worth buying literally anything that requires shipping.

Me too. If they can sell them through Amazon JP I'd buy; I'm on track to dump another $300 on art books there soon.

Amazon JP, or booth (where I bought the handful of digital doujinshi I own)... but even there so few artists are willing to go digital. :/ I suppose most of them either worried about piracy or they're just old-fashioned and prefer to people to see their work in print. Which is fine and all, and I realize that as an overseas fan I'm not their priority (especially in my fandoms which aren't big outside Japan), but it's disheartening.

And then there are the stores like Toranoana, where you could (in theory) buy digital stuff, but they only allow you to register if you have a Japanese address in the first place. And I'm not willing to inconvenience any of my friends there for something like this. (It's that thing that I really really hate about trying to buy anything digital from Japan, they're doing their absolute damnedest to make it impossible to do so from outside the country. And this is where they lose the right to complain about piracy as far as I'm concerned. Here I am, trying to give them my money for the products they sell, and they're not letting me.)
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gpanthony



Joined: 18 Dec 2013
Posts: 241
PostPosted: Tue Aug 04, 2020 6:26 pm Reply with quote
Can definitely agree with Director D. I'm a small publisher and I go to SDCC in the summer and last year did well and made about $1300, this year I only made about $50 off SDCC@home, probably for similar reasons.
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