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NEWS: Megatokyo to Publish in Japan via Kodansha

Though, I'm actually kinda wondering what they call American comic books in Japan now.

Dark Horse has been placing graphic novels in book stores since before you entered pre-school ,

and you say they don't know the market?

Paying your bandwidth through DVD sales? That's not very impressive. It takes a lot more than that to be "big." I certainly hope that they have managed to make more money than that.

With some 50 000+ copies sold, Broken Saints is indeed successful, but it should be noted that the total sales of Megatokyo volume 1-5 exceed 50,000 copies as well.

CMX's treatment of TenTen, which I highly disapprove of, is pretty much unrelated to this issue. If you want to hate a company over their treatment of 1 product,

It wasn't fun. It was difficult. Here, we have Fred creating his own product, marketing and selling it.

Doing something like that takes guts - the kind of guts 95% of us do not have.

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It wasn't fun. It was difficult. Here, we have Fred creating his own product, marketing and selling it.

Technically, he's a co-creator.

Everyone please stop arguing with Gatsu. Please.

Let me try another example. A bunch of white suburban kids are into rap and hip hop. They're blissfully ignorant. They listen to some low brow music. They go around calling themselves by 'the N-word' with no real concept of its history. They go around saying they're from 'the street', when they're really from the suburbs. Do they have the right to do that?

The Xenos wrote:

Also, why does Megatokyo get coverage on ANN meanwhile DC's new Minx imprint of comics for girls doesn't? Minx is clearly another attempt, like MegaTokyo, to get the attention of manga fans. Specifically, it's DC comics trying to make their own shojo line.

Because Megatokyo is about, geared towards, and of interest to anime and manga fans.

Minx isn't about anime fans, Minx isn't geared towards anime fans (where'd you get that idea) and our readers have not expressed any particular interest in Minx.

DKL wrote:

Though, I'm actually kinda wondering what they call American comic books in Japan now.

Sometimes "manga," sometimes "comicsu"

-t

unnamed Tokyopop Employee wrote:

Everything we publish is manga.

For a more related example -- how about all those white anime fans who dream (or actually go) to Japan - wearing kimonos -- and literally turning Japanese like that one 80's song describes.

Furthermore, the Japanese celebrate Christmas. However, roughly 2% of Japanese are actually Christian. Is it right for them to celebrate Christmas? Of course. They can if they want to.

And by the way -- many of us can tell the different between European Eurobeat and Japanese Eurobeat. However, they're both Eurobeat as far as we're concerned. Do I give a crap? No. I like my musics -- regardless of where they come from.

Point: Cultural terms, media, traditions, and distinctions are FLUID. Always have. Always will be. Geographical "origin" of a medium will always be noted -- but -- it becomes moot once that medium spreads.

After all - animation is likely an American invention. (Oh, nevermind. It was in Argentina.) It just happened to spread into Japan.

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While we're at it -- Does anyone have a problem with this!?
animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=40333

No one? Good.

Um.. you wanna tell them how full of crap and just wrong they are.. or should I?

Um.. yeah. I do. These people should be learning how to work in their country of origin and where they live. They shouldn't be trying to get Japan's attention. Really, it's not a healthy way to learn, trying to break into a business that exists halfway across the world and not even try to learn what's going on where you actually live.

Um.. yeah. I do. These people should be learning how to work in their country of origin and where they live. They shouldn't be trying to get Japan's attention.

Tell that to the European Eurobeat artists who are ignored for Japanese 'Eurobeat'.

Actually.. just so you know.. that song was about.. masturbation. shh. See you're eyes get squinty like a terrible Asian stereotype when you.. you know what.. never mind I said it.

Going around cons spouting random Japanese phrases and thinking you're actually speaking the language is also an unhealthy problem.

The Xenos wrote:

Also, why does Megatokyo get coverage on ANN meanwhile DC's new Minx imprint of comics for girls doesn't? Minx is clearly another attempt, like MegaTokyo, to get the attention of manga fans. Specifically, it's DC comics trying to make their own shojo line.

Really, Minx books are just as good or better than MegaTokyo. All they need are an audience. Never mind some of the other books by some of their creators. My Faith in Frankie from Vertigo is by some of the same creators and is kinda like Ah My Goddess!. Well, except for going on forever. Street Angel from SLG by another creator and that's a wonderful and wacky comic about a homeless girl on a skateboard that fights crime. Plus it has ninjas. That makes it manga, right?

Hell, if Avril's comic book posing as manga gets noticed, this excellent book should too. I had to laugh when I saw that book in Japanese as well as her CD while over in Japan. Is it manga now? Of course, that same month I bought a comic book from SLG by the same artist. Oh and that's another one, SLG's Nightmares and Fairy Tales. It has the same artist, right now, as Avril's 'manga'. Though before this they had other artists, most notably Singaporean artist FSc (Foo Swee Chin).

These books are good for anime fans... if you know, they like good stories and not just cliches and inside jokes.

Well, let me know when Protoculture Addicts will make enough dough for you to keep those streaming files of AX uploaded longer than a month.

So at its current price point, Broken Saints made more money than one volume of MT.

Going back to Christmas. I don't even recognize it as a Christian holiday anymore. It can keep its name "Christmas". However, the meaning behind it among people changed. Instead of this Jesus story -- people look more into Christmas about giving/receiving presents, increased commercial marketing, people coming together to do these things, etc.

Well that's the trick, isn't it. Maybe they haven't expressed interest because they don't know about it. You are a news outlet. This is one place where they hear about new books.

If you guys are going to cover pseudo-manga crap like the Avril thing

manga has proven they're a market to tap into now.

Sales, yeah. But it didn't take 3 years to make 1 volume of MT.

They have the right to take words from another culture and toss them around ignorantly?

Let me try another example. A bunch of white suburban kids are into rap and hip hop. They're blissfully ignorant. They listen to some low brow music. They go around calling themselves by 'the N-word' with no real concept of its history. They go around saying they're from 'the street', when they're really from the suburbs. Do they have the right to do that?

While it's not quite as bad as that, some of these self proclaimed 'otaku' seem to be doing the same thing. They want to be different from the culture around them, so they hijack someone else's, usually getting many things wrong. I think it's wrong not to correct them,

The Xenos wrote:

]They have the right to take words from another culture and toss them around ignorantly? Let me try another example. A bunch of white suburban kids are into rap and hip hop. They're blissfully ignorant. They listen to some low brow music. They go around calling themselves by 'the N-word' with no real concept of its history. They go around saying they're from 'the street', when they're really from the suburbs. Do they have the right to do that? While it's not quite as bad as that, some of these self proclaimed 'otaku' seem to be doing the same thing. They want to be different from the culture around them, so they hijack someone else's, usually getting many things wrong. I think it's wrong not to correct them,

Man, I hate to burst your bubble, but YOU are the one taking a word from another culture and tossing it around ignorantly. In japan "Manga" is, like it or not, used to refer to any and all sequential art/comics/manga/manwa.

Don't throw stones at glass houses, man. Its a really bad idea.

Especially when your "example" sounds alot more like you than your opponents.

The Xenos wrote:

Well that's the trick, isn't it. Maybe they haven't expressed interest because they don't know about it. You are a news outlet. This is one place where they hear about new books.

This is an anime news outlet. It's not our responsibility to introduce our readers to material that is non-topical. In fact, it's our responsibility to not annoy them with such content. If they want to know about new chick-lit, some of which is mildly influenced by manga, then they will go to Newsrama.

I have to agree with Xenos here. If you guys are going to cover pseudo-manga crap like the Avril thing, some minx titles deserve equal recognition, if only just an occasional appearance in the "World Manga of the Month" section with RTO. We've been getting a bunch of advance readers of MINX at the bookstore I work, and they're great, and a lot of the titles are about as manga-influenced as any of the Ameri-manga things Tokyopop release. Plain Janes was an excellent slice of life, but some other titles, like Re-Gifters, definitely could appeal to the usual anime/manga fan. The art with Re-Gifters is heavily manga influenced (actually, it's a Singaporean artist, but still...), and the subject, well, a Korean American dirt poor girl lives in LA, and her only outlet is an ancient martial arts style, and she goes off trying to win some martial arts tournament, and then this surfer dude shows up to bring in the love conflict and... well it was enjoyable, and a heck of a lot better read than that Avril crap. The author is Mike Carey of Vertigo fame who has worked on such titles as Lucifer and Hellblazer/Constantine, and that alone makes the title something rather interesting in the comic community, since it is a GIRL comic.

That being said though, I don't know if I'd go so far as to call MINX an attempt to bring in all of the anime/manga fans. They're targeting at least the female manga/anime readers, but they're targeting girls in general due to the fact that manga has proven they're a market to tap into now.

Going back to Christmas. I don't even recognize it as a Christian holiday anymore. It can keep its name "Christmas". However, the meaning behind it among people changed. Instead of this Jesus story -- people look more into Christmas about giving/receiving presents, increased commercial marketing, people coming together to do these things, etc.

Point: Cultural meanings change.

Business expanding into a foreign market. That's all part of Capitalism. It's nothing new. It happens all the time. If it's truly a problem, the complain to McDonald's or Coca-Cola. Oh wait, they've been tapping foreign markets for more than 30 years now.

Fred has had well 7 years of experience tapping into the American and Canadian market.

In the Western market, it seems that the foreign (non-Japanese) manga artists are relegated to making Anime Convention logos or frowned upon for even attempting their own manga series. So, why not turn to Japan?

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Going around cons spouting random Japanese phrases and thinking you're actually speaking the language is also an unhealthy problem.

Indeed. We have a 4chan derogatory term for that problem.