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NEWS: What's in an Exaxxion Edit?

Keep in mind that manga had not reached regular book stores until CGE had begun its run as a monthly title. CGE was bought with the intent to sell to the demigraphic most likely to be making purchases in comic book stores (males 12-17). Any readership still remaining in that demigraphic when the title went "Adults Only" would be lost. If the age difference was large enough, the former reader might not even remember CGE when he could finally purchase it again.

Are you saying that CGE was the introduction of manga into book stores in America, comic, or otherwise? Is it that old? You seem to be ignoring that DH knew what Sonoda was capable of writing and drawing. It's not like they didn't know enough not to expect it. Again this is all irrelevant as Sonoda has agreed to edit CGE, but still stopping publication does seem a bit draconian if it had gone the other way when it is obvious other avenues are available for DH to go without looking like they are trying to protect people from themselves.

Do you have the sells figures proving this?

Keep in mind that the censored material had not been created when he sold the rights to DH. Sonoda knew the addience that DH was aiming for, when he sold DH the rights to CGE.

DH demonstrated that they could not release certian type of material. Sonoda had a responsibility to take that into account when he created content that DH could no longer use.

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?

Disappointing enough that any reduction potental readship would result in a loss.

Then who do you think DH was trying to sell CGE to?

When parties enter a contractual agree all parties (no matter how minor) are bound by law to fulfill that agreement.

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.

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.

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*.

EXCEPT the scanslators are probobly one of those groups who just scan english volumes and post them online.

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They could have chosen to release CGE unedited and labeled, thereby depriving the 75+% of the fan base that could no long purchase CGE of the ability to finish reading the story, just because those readers were suddenly too young for the material. With a marginally profitable title. Such as CGE, a 75% loss in readership would make printing the product a money losing proposition.

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.

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.

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...

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.

Quote:

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.

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.

Mischief wrote:

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.

Then they shouldn't have bid for it in the first place if that was the case. Besides that with todays access within the internet dedicated readers of what ever age will eventually fine it unedited anyway so they are actually stuffed one, way or the other, so the whole exercise is redundant.

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"... ].

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