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NEWS: Kodansha to Publish, Sell Manga in U.S. in September


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Akukaze



Joined: 08 Aug 2004
Posts: 185
Location: Stony Brook, NY
PostPosted: Tue Jul 01, 2008 11:56 pm Reply with quote
Crawly wrote:
TsukasaElkKite wrote:
GATSU wrote:
Hopefully, they'll be better off than Raijin. And, of course, everyone is hoping they'll bring back Sailor Moon.

If they bring back SM, I swear I will DIE from happiness.


I'd hold off on that until you see a translation. Should it ever happen, it's a crap shoot whether or not it would be better than the one released by TP. While I'd happily welcome Kodansha into the market, I'm always a little worried when a Japanese company comes stateside. Let's face it, they really don't have a good record for producing quality products in R1 regardless of how great they may be in R2. The only company to get this right so far is Kodakawa, and that's because they're letting the established R1 companies do all the work for them. I'm going to be cautiously optimistic that something good will come from this, but until I see the finished product, I'm viewing their entry into the market with trepidation.


Having read a few of Kodansha America's novels (Crossfire and Shadow Family, both by Miyabe Miyuki) I must say I was very impressed. The translation was excellent, the production values on the paperback Shadow Family were amazing. The paper was the perfect weight and color and it came with a dust jacket. Kodansha USA will probably be a whole different game, but if they take a page out of Kodansha America's book (no pun intended) they should do fine.
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dormcat
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:03 am Reply with quote
Takeyo wrote:
Genshiken went over pretty well, didn't it? I mean, it's no Naruto or whatever the kids are reading these days, but amongst people with taste. . . . Wink

I know, and Ah! My Goddess has been and still is one of the most recognized and favorite Afternoon title on both coasts of the Pacific. However, with about three dozens of titles in each issue, those indeed belong to a small minority. And those who appreciate Genshiken are still among the minority of fans. Last but not least, Ikki is even more experimental than Afternoon; as far as I know Sexy Voice and Robo is the only Ikki title that has been licensed in North America.
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samuelp
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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Location: San Antonio, USA
PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:08 am Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
Takeyo wrote:
Genshiken went over pretty well, didn't it? I mean, it's no Naruto or whatever the kids are reading these days, but amongst people with taste. . . . Wink

I know, and Ah! My Goddess has been and still is one of the most recognized and favorite Afternoon title on both coasts of the Pacific. However, with about three dozens of titles in each issue, those indeed belong to a small minority. And those who appreciate Genshiken are still among the minority of fans. Last but not least, Ikki is even more experimental than Afternoon.

Has an Ikki title ever been licensed? I don't think so, and the only one with any chance is Bokurano.

Afternoon has a long history... Don't forget Mushishi and Narutaru as other Afternoon titles with licenses. Eden and Seraphic Feather as well, I think.
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fighterholic



Joined: 28 Sep 2005
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:12 am Reply with quote
Hmm, so they've decided to enter the American manga market. This is bound be interesting, and they do it right before AX as well. Perhaps we'll be seeing some titles announced as well?
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dormcat
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:24 am Reply with quote
samuelp wrote:
Has an Ikki title ever been licensed? I don't think so, and the only one with any chance is Bokurano.

See my addendum before you clicked the submit button. To be more specific, however, SV&R was serialized in Spirits Zōkan Ikki (スピリッツ増刊IKKI), an extra of Big Comic Spirits and forerunner/predecessor of later Ikki.

samuelp wrote:
Afternoon has a long history... Don't forget Mushishi and Narutaru as other Afternoon titles with licenses. Eden and Seraphic Feather as well, I think.

Mushishi has the typical response: highly acclaimed but bores the majority to death.

Narutaru: when was the last volume? Jan 2006?! I say forget it; won't be finished in English.

Eden and Seraphic Feather: Sci-Fi titles are much easier to find their places in the West. On the other hand, you are welcome to pick random fans at AX2008 or Otakon and see if they've read or even heard of those. Wink
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samuelp
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:28 am Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
samuelp wrote:
Has an Ikki title ever been licensed? I don't think so, and the only one with any chance is Bokurano.

See my addendum before you clicked the submit button. To be more specific, however, SV&R was serialized in Spirits Zōkan Ikki (スピリッツ増刊IKKI), an extra of Big Comic Spirits and forerunner/predecessor of later Ikki.

samuelp wrote:
Afternoon has a long history... Don't forget Mushishi and Narutaru as other Afternoon titles with licenses. Eden and Seraphic Feather as well, I think.

Mushishi has the typical response: highly acclaimed but bores the majority to death.

Narutaru: when was the last volume? Jan 2006?! I say forget it; won't be finished in English.

Eden and Seraphic Feather: Sci-Fi titles are much easier to find their places in the West. On the other hand, you are welcome to pick random fans at AX2008 or Otakon and see if they've read or even heard of those. Wink

Oh, I wasn't trying to imply that Afternoon titles had been SUCCESSFUL before. Outside of Ah my goddess, they've basically sold like dirt it seems.
But it's not like they've never been licensed before.

Probably has to do with the fact that almost all of those are Kodansha Award winners, and Kodansha actively pushes those titles to NA licensors.

I know Narutaru will never be finished, but actually I have to thank Dark Horse for that: It's one of my main motivations for beginning to study Japanese many years ago.
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GATSU



Joined: 03 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:48 am Reply with quote
Crawly: Actually, Toei's transfers are pretty fugly.
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Moomintroll



Joined: 08 Oct 2007
Posts: 1600
Location: Nottingham (UK)
PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:16 am Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
Methinks the majority of American manga readers are not yet ready to consume most titles in Afternoon and Ikki


I think that's pretty much true though I suppose it depends on what level of profits they'd require to consider it worth publishing Ikki titles and how aware they are of the nuances in the market.

Drawn & Quarterly, Vertical, Fanfare / Ponent Mon and Last Gasp all deal with the underground end of manga but they seem to aim those titles primarily at people who mostly read underground American and European comics rather than people who are specifically manga fans. Indeed, my local comic shop doesn't display the Japanese releases of any of those publishers in the manga section and nor does my local major chain book shop - instead, they're in amongst the general non-Japanese literary and underground graphic novels. The same goes for the more esoteric releases from Viz (e.g. the aforementioned Sexy Voice & Robo and the works of Taiyo Matsumoto).
Nausicaa, Phoenix and Akira all seem to be targeted primiarily at people who aren't specifically manga fans too (or at least they are here in the UK).

There is a dependable market for the more experimental and/or literary works and they seem to be coming out in greater numbers recently but it's a market mostly served by small publishers becuase no matter how well recieved those titles are, they're highly unlikely to make significant profits by Kodansha's standards.

My hope is that they'll want to release at least a couple of their Ikki titles for the marketing value of the critical acclaim, positive press and awards that might follow but I won't hold my breath.
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dormcat
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:31 am Reply with quote
Moomintroll wrote:
My hope is that they'll want to release at least a couple of their Ikki titles for the marketing value of the critical acclaim, positive press and awards that might follow but I won't hold my breath.

Em, Ikki is by Shogakukan, not Kodansha. Basically Kodansha doesn't have a direct equivalent of Ikki but I'd say Afternoon is the most similar one. I should have mentioned it in my previous post.
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Shiroi Hane
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Joined: 25 Oct 2003
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:18 am Reply with quote
Crawly wrote:
Shiroi Hane wrote:
Here's some basic comparisons of Chobits as I happen to have all three versions of the first two volumes:
http://picasaweb.google.com/shirobane/Chobits


Just from those few shots it seems there were some pretty drastic differences in translation/localization. I preferred the one I believe is TP's since the color pages look so bad when converted to black and white. Not being able to understand Japanese, I have no idea which one was the more accurate translation, though.


The one with both English and Japanese is the bilingual one, I'll let you work the others out for yourself. The paper used by Kodansha was whiter, the print was darker and "cleaner". You can get a closer look by clicking the download photo link. I should have just done them one at a time which would have been much easier, but I wanted to try a direct side-by-side comparison in the same photo.
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dormcat
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 10:42 am Reply with quote
Shiroi Hane wrote:
The paper used by Kodansha was whiter, the print was darker and "cleaner". You can get a closer look by clicking the download photo link.

Was to be expected. I can't say for North American ones, but Taiwanese licensees don't get original output files from Japanese publishers. Instead all they could do is unbind the book, scan it, touch up translations and sound effects, then print it out -- pretty much the same way scanlators do, just with professional scanners and translators. The bilingual version by Kodansha could have been printed out from the original file, thus naturally sharper and cleaner.
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Moomintroll



Joined: 08 Oct 2007
Posts: 1600
Location: Nottingham (UK)
PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:07 pm Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
Em, Ikki is by Shogakukan, not Kodansha. Basically Kodansha doesn't have a direct equivalent of Ikki but I'd say Afternoon is the most similar one. I should have mentioned it in my previous post.


Ah, my mistake.

I don't really follow the ins and outs of the Japanese magazines - is Ikki broadly similar in content and readership to what Garo was?
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dormcat
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 2:15 pm Reply with quote
Moomintroll wrote:
I don't really follow the ins and outs of the Japanese magazines - is Ikki broadly similar in content and readership to what Garo was?

I haven't read Garo myself (Seirindo's manga, especially vintage ones, are very rare in Taiwan), but Wikipedia Japan does put Ikki together with Afternoon and Garo.

Quote:
マニア好みの漫画が多く「小学館のアフタヌーン」「小学館のガロ」とも呼ばれている。

Judging by Garo's description I'd say Ikki is more experimental than Afternoon but less so than Garo. You can check it out here.
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Shiroi Hane
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Joined: 25 Oct 2003
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Location: Wales
PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 3:44 pm Reply with quote
dormcat wrote:
Shiroi Hane wrote:
The paper used by Kodansha was whiter, the print was darker and "cleaner". You can get a closer look by clicking the download photo link.

Was to be expected. I can't say for North American ones, but Taiwanese licensees don't get original output files from Japanese publishers. Instead all they could do is unbind the book, scan it, touch up translations and sound effects, then print it out -- pretty much the same way scanlators do, just with professional scanners and translators. The bilingual version by Kodansha could have been printed out from the original file, thus naturally sharper and cleaner.

That is certainly the impression you get, which is unfortunate. With any luck Kodansha US will have access to the same material...
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kirbyboy102



Joined: 04 Jul 2007
Posts: 157
PostPosted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 4:14 pm Reply with quote
minakichan wrote:
Oh snap, this could potentially be awesome.

But that's potentially. Personally, I really hope this means less extreme localization in manga adaption and lower prices without the use of a middleman. Actually, you know, I doubt that either will happen, but I'm hoping on to an ounce of hope +_+.


They probably will make it a bit cheaper to make money in our bad(read:dead) economy, but I wouldn't expect it much more than par with Viz's Shonen jump. ($7.99) I mean, in japan books are easier to sell, so they're cheaper. In america, people don't like reading, so the price of books goes up because of this lack of general purchases. Especially with limited readership books, such as manga and manhwa.
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