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NEWS: Toren Smith predicts manga industry to go bust

Kal: Ok, what shonen manga do you read?

And I don't think it's impossible for a guy with a small build to be strong, but when even the guy who played the Punisher is shown carrying an assault rifle in both hands, you have to recognize that those things are pretty heavy.

So when the industry gets oversaturated, and they leave, who's going to publish what I like, because they'll all be wary about publishing anything, unless they can pull off some cheap publicity stunt like the death of Superman.

Such as?

Actually, I live in West Hollywood, gay capital of L.A. I just like strong males in my entertainment: gay or straight. It's annoying when people categorize gay people in terms of Richard Simmons or that psycho from American Beauty.

Ah, yes, I suppose I had forgotten that shounen manga are the height of believeablity when it comes to slender pretty boys being able to take down muscular people five times their size. But a guy in a manga lifting an assault rifle with one arm for less than a chapter...man, that's just crazy talk!

Anyway, my original point was that the picture, accuracy or not, was hardly an indication of fluffy or watered down violence.

While I can't speak for her, I know I like a wide range of manga. Anything from Ring ni Kakero (so shounen it will hurt your teeth)

Not everyone in shonen manga's like Trunks. Well they weren't always like that anyway. But if you want to get into it, they use stratetgy most of the time to win. Now the only strategy for holding a machine gun is to use both hands, because you can't navigate it otherwise.

I think it is, because the author can make the violence more appealing to a wider audience by taking away its impact.

Just comparing the photos of it to photos from Ashita No Joe and Hajime No Ippo, and the latter two seem to have more realism.

Can't find any links for Marginal or Moon Child.

So yeah, I guess I like my stuff gritty and simplistic or deep, not something that's trying to be both, because it ends up being conceited.

I kind of agree with what Toren is saying. I've seen some of the manga coming out from Tokyo Pop. I'm more impressed with Dark Horse's quality than Tokyo Pop's crap. Only time will weed out the crap to bring out the better quality manga (i.e. Ghost in the Shell). Now a days I usually read Liberty Meadows, PVP, Street Fighter, Usagi Yojimbo, Vampi.

I also see the market is changing for the better. I'm glad to see so many girls are intested in Manga especially Shoujo.

Time will tell on how well the industry does in the coming years.

Ranmah

Also note that he's not using it to shoot in that picture. He's just holding it up.

Could you rephrase that? I'm not quite sure what you mean.

Don't bother. They're really not your type of story, I can tell. (Marginal is a sci-fi story about a future where the Earth is inhabited entirely by men.

Moon Child is a retelling of the Little Mermaid with a sci-fi twist)

Pardon me for sounding rude, but reading three shoujo titles hardly gives you an overview worth considering on shoujo manga as a whole.

Quote:

Could you rephrase that? I'm not quite sure what you mean.

It makes the violence "cool" instead of "believable".

It makes the violence "cool" instead of "believable".

Sounds like Bronze to me.

Yep. See I don't even like when Disney just takes a story from public domain and tries to modernize it, so it's not personal when I don't like manga and anime writers who do the same.

As I said before, I'm sure there are shoujo titles which don't fit the stereotypes I've made earlier, but they probably don't sell as well in either country.

The fact that you're reading utter garbage like Vampi and then calling Tokyopop's output "crap" is, to me, proof that you simply have poor taste rather than any sort of valuable judgement on the manga industry.

So, what shounen manga do you read where the violence is 100% realistic? I'd say the violence in Banana Fish is a lot more realistic than much the shounen violence I've seen...

Which Bronze are you referring to?

Nice you can say that without even reading the series.

"I know nothing about what I'm talking about,

but I feel perfectly confident my blanket statement is correct,

despite probably knowing next to nothing about the actual Japanese shoujo manga scene."

The one where men are pets or whatever.

Unless the ending's different, what's the point?

No, I know what I'm talking about. People just aren't ready to deal with it yet.

I know enough.

Considering you don't even know what's happening in the situation where the scan takes place

nor have read the series,

Ai no Kusabi. And, in any case, they're nothing alike.

Not that I'd, again, expect the name Hagio Moto to hold any sway with you.

(If you do, as you say, know what you are talking about, then you wouldn't be comparing her work to Ai no Kusabi in the first place)

Because it's a completely different take on the situation.

Again, you hear a one sentence blurb and decide you already know everything about the series.

So, you've read three shoujo manga and suddenly you know everything there is to know about shoujo manga both in the States and Japan.

I really don't see the market busting, because, well, I think we're all the generation that will cause the graphic novel market to expand here in the us. When the majority of the "anime fan" generation get older, I bet we'll be seeing a lot more of those more mature, older generation manga sacchan mentioned, while at the same time more new stuff for the newer generations will be coming in.

1. Pretear isn't even out yet in Manga form. What "sales figures" are you using here?

2. Crappy manga (subject to interpretation but most will tell you that these aren't "good" titles):
Ai Yori Aoshi
Bride of Deimos
AI Love You
Campus Detectives Duklyon
Demon City Hunter
Demon City Shinjuku
Demon Palace Babylon
Dragon Hunter
Chronicles of the Cursed Sword
Galaxy Angel
King of Hell
Rebirth (This one is particularly terrible)
Just a Girl
Let's Stay Together Forever
Negima
ALL of the "Kung Fu Comics"
Rave master
Red Prowling Devil
Revenge of Mouflon
Skull Man

So check your facts next time, pal. No offense.