How unfair is it that, when reading the PWCW interview with Digital Manga’s President Hikaru Sasahara, I kept thing, “Yeah, Mr. Edgier Brand of Manga. Where’s the rest of Bambi and Her Pink Gun?” I like to think it isn’t entirely nitpicking, and I’m pretty sure there are Worst fans out there who asked essentially the same question.
I also thought it was kind of funny (and irritating) that Kai-Ming Cha framed what distinguishes DMP as offering titles that are an alternative to market-dominating “formulaic shojo titles aimed at teen girls,” then went on to talk about DMP’s massive success with arguably formulaic shônen-ai and yaoi, which is… well… really popular with teen girls, right? (Not just teen girls, obviously, but shôjo’s audience isn’t entirely homogenous either.) I mean, the Juné site is subtitled “Where Girls Gather & Boys Play.”
It’s weird to think how DMP has reinvented itself from a purveyor of off-kilter seinen to a BL-yaoi house with a scattering of interesting fringe titles like the Project X series. And I’m all for publishers finding underserved niches and successfully popularizing them. Heck, it’s what the publishers who initially started licensing shôjo did, and now that category’s getting knocked for having a stranglehold.
I think Simon Jones makes an excellent point about the comic-shop potential of more mature yaoi, like DMP’s new 801 imprint. Books from Juné and Blu already do incredibly well in comic shops, just judging by the graphic novel sales lists at ICv2. They handily outsell just about everything else in the manga category when they show up, unless it’s a mega-hit or a comic-shop favorite from a publisher like Dark Horse.
