ICv2 reports “A Second bad Year in a Row for Manga,” noting a 20% drop in sales. This doesn’t reflect my personal experience, but we all know how irrelevant that is. Since it’s Saturday and I don’t want to start it off on too gloomy a note, I’ll quote the article’s marginally positive paragraph:

“In European markets where manga boomed before it hit it big here in the States, there was a post-boom drop-off, but sales then stabilized at a substantial level. Manga continues to dominate sales of graphic novels (in units) in bookstores.”

The report notes that “manga is now facing its own crisis created by the availability of free unlicensed scanlations on the Web,” and a Japanese publisher has spoken publicly on the subject. Over at Anime Vice, GodLen finds a message from Weekly Shonen Jump (Shueisha) to its readers:

“The unjust internet copies are deeply hurting the manga culture, mangakas’ rights, and even mangakas’ souls.”

Hardcore. It probably won’t have any impact, but… hardcore.

Update: ICv2 has rather drastically altered the portion of the report that covered scanlations:

“While comic retailers tell ICv2 that they believe scanlations (translations of scanned manga, which appear on the Web within days of their publication in Japan) are hurting their sales, the evidence is not conclusive. Scanlations were around through the growth of the manga market as well as its decline, and some feel that they actually increase the market for manga collections by creating greater exposure for new properties. While it may be true that more manga buyers are telling retailers that they’re reading online rather than buying, that may be due to economic conditions (they’re buying fewer titles over-all), or to the lack of a major hit that stimulates buying.”

Tom Spurgeon points to a welcome development at The New York Times: new comics sales figures to further muddy the waters! Suck it, BookScan! You’re so last month. I think weekly lists will be very interesting indeed. Heck, they already are, seeing how seriously seinen-y seinen from Dark Horse muscled its way onto the manga list amidst all the Naruto. I also love how the Times at least kind of explains its methodology right out of the gate instead of treating it like some seven-herbs-and-spices trade secret.

And, via Brigid Alverson, the School Library Journal delivers a report on the New York Comic-Con panel I would have most liked to attend.