The Old School Otaku Lounge

I've been following a few of the official manga publishers with tumblrs, and repeatedly Kodansha answers their classic manga title questions with "we're not interested in rescuing older titles". So I asked them this question, and got the same response, as well as an added "other companies have the same stance as we do on older titles".

Very disappointing. Even a title like "Nodame Cantabile" or "Princess Jellyfish", they seem to have no interest in publishing. I'm really hoping with the small wave of anime companies rescuing anime titles, we'll also get a new manga company wanting to rescue manga also.

I don't know if anyone feels the same way I do, but I stopped buying U.S. manga because there was such an influx of moe and yaoi titles taking up bookshelves the last 9 years or so. And I continually go to the bookstore to see if there is anything interesting and most of the time there isn't. I find myself getting the few older titles some companies put out and just plan buying from eBay and Half Price. I even turn to buying original graphic novels more.

Another thing too are these companies that still have the rights to manga and they are not re-releasing them or putting out omnibus versions. I feel like I've been more into anime over manga because there simply isn't any manga I CAN buy.

Yeah, sadly Kodansha's been saying that basically ever since they started publishing their own stuff in-house instead of via Del Rey like they used to. While it's frustrating to be sure (I know I, myself, often complain about Viz for example sitting on perfectly good licenses and not reprinting or finishing them)...I can't really say I'm surprised at their lack of interest.

Over the last few months, I've been doing a lot more research into manga publishing and how it goes on here in the states. Publishing manga (especially now, when the market is so unreliable) is a really tough business. It's completely different than publishing regular books, or even American comics. The Deconstructing Comics podcast recently had a great interview with Deb Aoki about the inner workings of the manga industry in America, and I learned a lot listening to it! http://deconstructingcomics.com/?p=3240 For example, normally when bookstores buy books, the bookstore basically owns them, and if they don't sell, they sell them off to someone else wholesale (like a reseller) to at least get back most of what they paid for the books. With manga, bookstores can send back any and all books theybuy from the manga publishersthat haven't sold if they think they're sitting on the shelf too long, and the manga publishing company has to give them a FULL REFUND. (This is one of the reasons Tokyopop probably went bankrupt--even though they were releasing a TON of manga, sometimes half or more of their titles would be sent back and they had to pay back a lot of refunds to LOTS of stores.)

And even the big name titles still don't make as much money as you'd think. When you see sales ranking lists for manga, they often don't have the actual sales numbers...but when you do find them, they're usually on the low side in comparison to figures you'd see for a top 10 American book sales list. For example, even a title like Sailor Moon--which is extremely popular and lots of fans will buy--will only sell maybe 1,000 copies in a month (IF that, a more realistic number is probably around 900 or so I hear). And that will be the best selling manga title that month, usually. Which means the lowest selling titles will be closer to only 300-400 sales, sometimes even less. Compared to the sales in Japan, that doesn't even come close to the numbers Japan's best-sellers are getting. Manga seems to be reverting back to a niche market here, maybe not as small as it was when, say, the bulk of us were younger...but it's definitely not the hot-selling item it was at the height of the "manga boom" in the early 2000s. And back when it was a niche item, the prices were higher. Because of the pricing standard of "around $10" Tokyopop set in the 00s, customers still expect to only pay that much. So if the cover price is more than that, many will automatically not be interested.

So...because of that, a lot of companies are trying to play it safe. Which is understandable. A lot of companies have folded over, and no one wants that to keep happening. Viz will stay strong because they don't have all their eggs in one basket, but they're still trying to make sure they'll make a decent profit. Kodansha's no different, I'm sure--they may be a huge company in Japan, but in America, they have to make sure that what they release has enough appeal to sell so that they don't lose money. Sadly, right now this is just how the market is.

That's not to say that it won't get better, though. It seems like sales for most manga has steadily increased over time, just veeeeeery slooooooowly. And while Kodansha themselves my not be interested in rescuing older titles, I know for example Dark Horse has been rescuing a lot of CLAMP's previous work from Tokyopop. So, it's not impossible that other companies could rescue titles, or even pick up titles that Kodansha themselves might not want to risk. Stranger things have happened.

Sorry for playing devil's advocate here with the long reply...but after looking into what goes on behind the scenes trying to get manga out to fans, I think I do have a little more sympathy for all the work that goes into doing it (and for such a little return). I do think that sometimes, the interns they get to answer fan/customer questions like these do come off as a little snarky or blunt, though probably unintentionally....(I personally think Vertical's is a little worse, though. Sometimes they seriously just give "No." answers. >__> )

That's pretty insightful, but with me it really begs the question: is there really that much of a market in America for manga featuring moeblobs and boylove gays? In my perspective, as more and more manga is associated with this boring crap, it will be the true death knell for the industry in North America. I guess there's enough kiddie pool stuff around like One Piece and Naruto to appeal to a larger audience, but for those who want to read something a bit more profound, our options are limited and getting smaller, it seems.

I need to get back to studying Japanese...

Can't argue there. I agree with Chevi in the respect that in the past 5 years or so,probably half or more of my manga purchases have been on older titles that have been out for a while & not new ones. But when I think about it, really it is kinda similar to buying manga in the early 90s....I mean, I had to wade through a LOT of crappy released to find good ones back then, since getting licenses was probably even harder....and back then, it seemed like your only choices we're action/violent titles or odd ball scifi ones to try to compete with American comics. Thankfully we had companies take chances on random titles here and there (lik e Ranma, Maison Ikkoku, Oh My Goddess, etc.) to prove fans didn't JUST care about those types of titles. Now the market has changed, and instead of companies trying to license stuff full of action & violence, they've noticed that cutesy fanservicey titles and boys love titles sell a lot....so of course we're seeing a huge influx of them.
I think another part of that problem also lies in the fact that those types of titles are also pretty popular in Japan at the moment, too, so companies are trying to claim they're releasing what's hot & hip & cool from Japan right now...and we get that, along with whatever s running in Shounen Jump, too, since they have name recognition here. It also doesn't help that Japan has it in their heads now that American fans all WANT moe fanservice titles, either, so some creators are making titles with that kind of thing in mind now.
So...its kind of a vicious cycle. The only way I can really see it changing is if more people buy the few good titles that are coming out. I've been making sure to buy the re-releases of Sailor Moon as they've been coming out. Vertical has been taking chances on a lot of more unusual and/or older titles. The best way to prove there are fans out there who want this stuff seems to be with our wallets. If we can buy more of those titles than the fanboys buy for now releases, companies will be more interested in releasing more of what we want.

Oh I've done a bit of research too and I am sympathetic to some degree. I went to a panel at Comic Con for it too, and it certainly isn't easy. I'm still unsatisfied with the answers and I feel they had to be a better way, which I think will take a lot more hard work.

I had mentioned moe and yaoi because I think it's one of the main reasons why manga hasn't had better sales. It doesn't appeal to those that have no interest in either subject and it's slim pickings for anything else. I am aware we're no longer in the 90's or the anime boom but I also thing it's because there's nothing appealing to those hanging on a thread with anime or people like us.

I think another problem might be that the publishers don't always know what fans want--or they THINK they do, which is almost worse. A lot of the stuff I see published now (as well as the stuff that's popular) seems to fall into one of 3 categories: Shounen Jump & Similar, Sappy Romance of Somekind (be it hetero or gay), or Total Fanservice (moe, yaoi, straight-up hentai, whatever). All the stuff that doesn't fall into these 3 are usually ones that fall under the radar of younger fans, simply because those seem to be the elements most of them care about or spend their money on...thus, some publishers might have it in their heads that they can't take many chances on these because they're too "risky".

Which is just ridiculous, but it's gonna be hard to convince some of them otherwise. I know Kodansha has tried to rescue SOME of their titles, but I guess they weren't getting as high numbers as they'd anticipated, and just don't want to gamble taking any more losses? To their credit, they rescued Sailor Moon, Tokyo Mewmew, Gon, Rave Master, Akira, Battle Angel Alita: The Last Order, and the Ghost in the Shell novels, I believe. Which isn't bad, really...but I do agree that I wish they'd consider the possibility of maybe doing a Kickstarter for older titles (like DMP did for "Unico" and Kansai Club is doing for Tezuka's "The Crater"), or even just agreeing to try e-books or even print-on-demand would be cool. But I guess until more companies are willing to do those kinds of things across the board, again, they're probably gonna worry about losing money.

It's a shame, really, because Kodansha has a great catalog of titles that they could be releasing or re-releasing here. There are times I wish I could grab some of these teenagers and shake them, screaming "WHY AREN'T YOU BUYING ENOUGH GOOD BOOKS?!" without...y'know...looking like a crazy person.

I absolutely think publishers don't know what people want or think they do know. I read an article from 2012 that stated publishers are scared of trying digital, but at the same time haven't honestly tried, and I think with so many people looking for manga reading apps, it's going to have to happen eventually in the next couple of years. And maybe then people can have a say on what gets released.

I think that's why I've been so adamant on maintaining a blog and putting out really just classics that I don't want to fall into obscurity. But more and more on tumblr I read awesome posts like "Husband got me into Ranma 1/2" or "friend forced me to watch Macross, and it's amazing" and this makes me believe that there is a way, there has to be, to rescue old titles and get people reading them. Get them into it. Because the people who are friends with those that don't read much manga or aren't into yet, they're the only ones keeping it alive at this point.

This is true. I find myself talking about old titles with people on Twitter and Tumblr as well, and whenever and old title's being released, I always try to tell people about it and spread the word because a lot of people have no idea they're getting re-releases. (I remember I had at least 5 people thank me for telling them about when Unico was put out on DVD because those movies were part of their childhood! <3 ) The companies themselves have social media accounts, but a lot of people are clueless when it comes to the names of publishers or localizers...so they have no idea who owns what, or when titles are being released. I guess because some fans are just oblivious, don't pay attention, or just don't care. Either way, I find that word of mouth is still a great way to get people interested in stuff lately.

And then of course, seeing things like this is definitely not encouraging at all...

Unfortunately, I can say that from the Japanese side of things, which I have been part of a good number of business meetings, sometimes they wonder what is the use.

I have seen reports of where people are accessing things illegally, I have seen companies contact hosting, I have seen the e-mails of hosting companies requesting the companies show them proof they are owners of the title, I have then seen companies going through their corporate lawyers of writing cease and desist letters and then after they take down one site, another one pops up and it became very costly for them of having to hire lawyers.

But there is also another side that I have seen where there is an over-expectancy of how much they would make in the U.S. and when it doesn't happen, everything is dropped.

Many times even through recent business where they have employees in America giving their opinion of what it takes to succeed in the U.S. and realize, not enough money, let's focus on countries like Singapore, France, Germany, Indonesia, etc.

And they manage to make things work over there than here.

With that being said, in terms of Kodansha, I have had an awesome working relationship with Kodansha when Kodansha International was still around and it was sad to see them go away in 2011 (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2011/0 ... aZikus1aHk).