The Manga Curmudgeon

Spending too much on comics, then talking too much about them

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Mangazon

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Yet Another Comic Blog’s Dave Carter recently took a look at the 50 best-selling graphic novels at Amazon, so I thought I might take a look at the manga category (which update hourly like all of Amazon’s best-seller lists, so what’s there now might not track with the titles listed below).

1. Making Comics: Storytelling Secrets of Comics, Manga and Graphic Novels 2. Death Note Vol. 6 (Viz)
3. Target in the Finder Vol. 1 (CPM)
4. Bleach Vol. 17 (Viz)
5. Absolute Boyfriend Vol. 3 (Viz)
6. Death Note Vol. 9 (Viz)
7. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories 2 (Tokyopop)
8. Fruits Basket Vol. 15 (Tokyopop)
9. Virtuoso Di Amore (DramaQueen)
10. How to Draw Cartoons for Comic Strips
11. Our Kingdom Vol. 5 (Juné)
12. Fake Vol. 5 (Tokyopop)
13. Lies and Kisses (DramaQueen)
14. Vampire Knight Vol. 1 (Viz)
15. Gorgeous Carat Vol. 4 (Blu)
16. Loveless Vol. 4 (Tokyopop)
17. Death Note Vol. 1 (Viz)
18. Death Note Vol. 5 (Viz)
19. The All-New Tenchi Muyô Vol. 2: Doom Time (Viz)
20. Naruto Vol. 2 (Viz)
21. Negima! Vol. 7 (Del Rey)
22. Yotsuba&! Vol. 1 (ADV)
23. Gravitation Ex 1 (Tokyopop)
24. Hana-Kimi Vol. 16 (Viz)
25. Death Note Vol. 4 (Viz)
26. Ai Yori Aoshi Vol. 15 (Tokyopop)
27. Naruto Vol. 1 (Viz)
28. Naruto Vol. 3 (Viz)
29. Kizuna: Bonds of Love Vol. 7 (Be Beautiful)
30. Naruto Vol. 4 (Viz)
31. Junjo Romantica 2 (Blu)
32. Fruits Basket Vol. 2 (Tokyopop)
33. Blade of the Immortal Vol. 16: Shortcut (Dark Horse)
34. Death Note Vol. 8 (Viz)
35. Negima! Vol. 6 (Del Rey)
36. Death Note Vol. 7 (Viz)
37. Berserk Vol. 14 (Dark Horse/DMP)
38. Death Note Vol. 3 (Viz)
39. Gravitation Vol. 10 (Tokyopop)
40. Naruto Vol. 12 (Viz)
41. Air Gear 1 (Del Rey)
42. How to Draw Cartoon Animals
43. Kare Kano: His and Her Circumstances Vol. 21 (Tokyopop)
44. Bleach Vol. 10 (Viz)
45. Fruits Basket Vol. 3 (Tokyopop)
46. 100 Bullets: Decayed (Vertigo)
47. Dragon Hunt (Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy Book 1) (Tokyopop)
48. Shadows of Ice (Warcraft: The Sunwell Trilogy Book 2) (Tokyopop)
49. Naruto Vol. 5 (Viz)
50. Return to Labyrinth 1 (Tokyopop)

Now, Amazon is having one of its 4-for-the-price-of-3 manga sales, and a number of the titles on the list overlap, particularly ones on the first page of listings. But a lot of those titles are also perennial sellers, so maybe it’s some combination of popularity and irregular discounting. So this snapshot is probably somewhat skewed.

The list actually reminds me in an odd way of the top 50 manga lists from Diamond. A mix of traditionally strong sellers, a fair sprinkling of yaoi, and the occasional oddity, excluding the oddities that result from Amazon’s sorting system.

Charts and graphs

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Since Publishers Weekly Comics Week can’t seem to be bothered to offer commentary on their top ten comics for the month of January, I thought I’d take a stab at it.

1. Death Note, Volume 9. Tsugumi Ohba. (Viz Media, $7.99 ISBN 978-142150630-2) With so much attention paid to “the Cartoon Network Effect,” it’s a little surprising to see a manga title rise to the top of a sales chart without a concurrent anime release acting as a driver. It’s less surprising that said title is Death Note, which combines a perpetually twisting, suspenseful narrative with excellent art.

2. Fullmetal Alchemist, Volume 11. Hiromu Arakawa. (Viz Media, $9.99 ISBN 978-142150838-2) But it seems that the Cartoon Network Effect isn’t entirely irrelevant, even if airings of the Fullmetal Alchemist anime are sporadic and reserved for the wee hours of the morning.

3. Vampire Knight, Volume 1. Matsuri Hino. (Viz Media, $8.99 ISBN 978-142150822-1) While Fruits Basket (Tokyopop) generally holds the title for highest sales chart shôjo placement, this new addition to Viz’s Shojo Beat line is the first series to join the serialization roster of the line’s monthly anthology since its launch in 2005.

4. One Piece: It’s All Right!, Volume 13. Eiichiro Oda. (Viz Media, $7.95 ISBN 978-142150665-4) Is it the Saturday morning cartoon? The serialization in the Shonen Jump monthly anthology? Or do kids just love pirates?

5. Black Cat, Volume 16. Kentaro Yabuki. (Viz Media, $7.99 ISBN 978-142150610-4) The second entry from Viz’s Shonen Jump line, with its $8 price point and action-rich stories.

6. Ouran High School Host Club, Volume 8. Bisco Hatori. (Viz Media, $8.99 ISBN 978-142151161-0) Another Shojo Beat offering, though not one serialized in the anthology. The higher frequency of releases in Shojo Beat’s non-serialized titles (Yû Watase’s serialized Absolute Boyfriend only recently released its third volume) doesn’t seem to be hindering sales.

7. Shaman King, Volume 11. Hiroyuki Takei. (Viz Media, $7.95 ISBN 978-142150678-4) Okay, maybe they don’t all beg for individual commentary. See comments for One Piece.

8. Punch!, Volume 2. Rie Takada. (Viz Media, $8.99 ISBN 978-142150875-7) Um… ditto. See comments on Ouran High School Host Club.

9. Inuyasha, Volume 28. Rumiko Takahashi. (Viz Media, $7.95 978-1421504681) While many women have had success in shônen manga (like Hiromu Arakawa above), Rumiko Takahashi remains one of the best examples with long-running hits like Inuyasha and the recently concluded Ranma ½.

10. W Juliet, Volume 14. Emurai. (Viz Media, $9.99 ISBN 978-142150567-1) Shôjo releases don’t need to be new (or new-ish) to enjoy strong sales, as demonstrated by this long-running series.

Comics Worth Reading and MangaBlog have also weighed in on the list.

In the city-state

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What manga titles are flying off the shelves in Singapore? The Straits Times apparently ran a big package of articles in Sunday’s edition, and one of the sidebars listed the top five shônen and shôjo titles:

Shônen:

1. Death Note (Viz)
2. Bleach (Viz)
3. One Piece (Viz)
4. Naruto (Viz)
5. xxxHOLiC (Del Rey)

Shôjo:

1. Nana (Viz)
2. Nodame Cantabile (Del Rey)
3. Hana-Kimi (Viz)
4. Vampire Knight (Chuang Yi)
5. Peach Fuzz (Tokyopop)

It’s not entirely clear how the lists were derived, but I suspect the figures might have come from the Books Kinokuniya.

(I found this via LexisNexis and can’t find the article on the paper’s site, so I can’t provide a direct link.)

Fruits nuts

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I should really just add a Fruits Basket category, shouldn’t I?

At Coffee & Ink, Mely has named her favorite ongoing manga series for 2006, and Fruits Basket is among them, along with a bunch of other titles I really enjoy and some I’m going to have to try. Mely offers the usual cornucopia of great observations, but this is probably my favorite:

“You know, every time I read the jacket copy for Fruits Basket I’m amazed at how it manages to sound so bright and cheery and inane, despite being a factually correct description of the plot. And now I see it is just an unavoidable consequence of writing about Fruits Basket.”

Exactly.

In other news, the fifteenth volume of Fruits Basket owns the top slot for manga sales in the Direct Market, and comes close to owning the whole graphic novel category, landing in second place on ICv2’s December chart. (Okay, it isn’t exactly a photo finish, with the considerably more expensive Fables trade moving about 3,000 more units.)

Whither and yon

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A Comics Journal reader stops by the magazine’s message board to ask:

“[D]oes anybody else find it disheartening that Michael Dean’s opening shot (in which he discussed the possible futures of comics in general and the Journal in particular) failed to even hint that manga exists? Michael talked a lot about the pros and cons of covering super-hero comics, and even promised a new super-hero column, but there was at best, only a single, oblique reference to shoujo and its (relatively) enormous audience.”

Dirk Deppey first suggests that the reason TCJ’s manga coverage hasn’t expanded since the shoujo issue isn’t due to a lack of interest on the magazine’s part, but owes instead to finding writers who combine ability, knowledge, and availability. But he comes back to point out another conundrum for some comics pundits: that manga often manages to be both commercially and creatively successful:

“The contradiction that writers will need to overcome is the fact that the better manga are simultaneously populist yet still well-constructed and even literate. We’re conditioned by American comics history to assume that most genre comics are created (at best) under assembly-line conditions by creators using comics as a way station until better, more legitimate work comes along, or (at worst) hacks with low standards who genuinely think they’re the soul of the medium. This isn’t true in Japan — its better creators approach genre work as the fulfillment of their worth as creators, strive hard to be worthy of such fulfillment, and it often shows.”

It’s an interesting thread, and a nice palate cleanser for another recent conversation in that forum.

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And speaking of commercially successful (at least in the context of comics specialty shops), Brigid sifts through ICv2’s November graphic novel sales figures for the manga and finds the usual suspects: comics for boys and young men, and comics about boys and young men falling in love with each other. Not that those two categories suggest mutually exclusive audiences, obviously.

October numbers

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Direct market sales figures for the month of October are up at Comic Book Resources and The Pulse. As with bookstores, Tokyopop’s Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories leads the manga pack, coming in at number 9 in graphic novels overall.

It’s a good month for Juné, with three manga titles and a novel making the manga top 10. They all lag behind Tokyopop’s Loveless in the BL stakes; the third volume came in second in manga and 22 in graphic novels. And while Juné’s books ranked higher, Blu’s books were nipping at their heels.

A total of 28 manga titles made the top 100 GN list. I’m particularly glad to see Dark Horse’s Ohikkoshi (reviewed here by Jog) crack the GN rankings, placing at roughly the same spot Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (reviewed here by Christopher Butcher) did in September.

On the much-discussed global front, the second volume of Svetlana Chmakova’s Dramacon leads the pack, hitting #25 in manga and #89 in GNs, Kingdom Hearts aside. The second volume of Sokora Refugees just missed the cut, hitting #30 on the manga list.

For me, the oddest question posed by the list is why did the fourteenth volume of Fruits Basket (Tokyopop) return to the list when it’s been on the shelves for months? It hit 17 in manga and 75 in graphic novels in October, and came in 32nd in GNs in August. I love the series, and I’m used to seeing earlier volumes crop up on these lists from time to time, but the resurgence of this chapter seems odd. Did Tokyopop ship it again?

Based on the hit manga…

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Speaking of Nodame Cantabile, it seems to be enjoying a bump from the release of its TV drama adaptation. ComiPress shares the latest Tohan Top 10, and Nodame occupies three spaces on it, with the most recent volume just ahead of the first and third. It’s like the Cartoon Network Effect, only with live actors.

And what does the Daily Yomiuri think of that program?

“[I]t displayed potential for the first 15 minutes.”

In other multi-media news, Anime News Network notes the joyous arrival of the Sgt. Frog anime in February, and that the invasion began a little early.

And last but not least, that trailer for the Death Note sequel is really, really creepy. But so is the trailer for the first one.

Curling up

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I was looking through USA Today’s top 150 best sellers for any graphic novels, and I found myself distracted by prose.

At #47 is Erik Larson’s Thunderstruck, another look at murder near the turn of the century. Larson also wrote the generally excellent The Devil in the White City; the paperback version is at #140. While Larson does have a tendency to try and go further into the heads of the people he writes about than non-fiction usually permits, I found White City really fascinating for its look at the intersection of crime, culture, and history. (There’s a great graphic novel version of roughly the same material from Rick Geary in his Treasury of Victorian Murder series from NBM.)

At #73 is I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris. You might know Sedaris as inspiration for some of the more disturbing essays from brother David, or you might have seen her as middle-aged prostitute high school student Jerri Blank on Comedy Central’s Strangers With Candy. She is also famous for her cupcakes, which surely will play a role in this combination of useful party-planning advice and twisted comedy.

At… well… okay, it isn’t on the list, but I was at Barnes & Noble the other day, buying some manhwa, when I noticed that there’s a new collection of short stories from Susanna Clarke, author of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. The book is called The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories. Most of the stories in the collection have been published elsewhere, but they’ll all be new to me.

Blood test?

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Is another example of the Cartoon Network Effect in the making? ICv2 announces that Cartoon Network has added Blood+ to its line-up, most likely during the Adult Swim programming block. ICv2 thinks the Blood: The Last Vampire franchise has legs:

“It has the kind of highly detailed backstory (stretching back to the early 19th Century) that fans love, and it has spawned three different manga series and two novels, which, if the anime proves popular, should find their way to the North American market.”

But does the Effect apply to prose? Dark Horse has Blood: The Last Vampire: Night of the Beasts, a novel by Mamoru Oshii, though I could swear I just saw it relisted in a Previews catalog. Viz has published one of the manga versions, though I can’t seem to find it in their on-line shop. It is in stock at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

I can’t seem to find much information on the other two manga series. Anyone know if they’re different adaptations of the same story, or are they sequels or “set in the same universe” deals? Could there be another Train Man scenario coming, with different publishers vying for different Blood manga?

In other news, ADV has picked up the rights to the anime version of Chevalier D’Eon. The manga version will be released by Del Rey.

Comics as lavender-scented air

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Ack! Where did the goalposts go?! While it seems like bookstores are the Promised Land for graphic novel publishers, prose houses and imprints are increasingly finding that Borders and Barnes & Noble are so last year, at least according to this fascinating piece in the New York Times (free registration required).

The new retailers of choice, it seems, are places like Anthropologie, Restoration Hardware, and Starbucks:

“With book sales sagging — down 2.6 percent as of August over the same period last year, according to the Association of American Publishers — publishers are pushing their books into butcher shops, carwashes, cookware stores, cheese shops, even chi-chi clothing boutiques where high-end literary titles are used to amplify the elegant lifestyle they are attempting to project.”

A lot of familiar names crop up in the course of the article, many with graphic novel imprints or partnerships with graphic novel publishers. Simon & Schuster, which handles distribution for Viz, has been making the most of the new trend:

“In the last four years Simon & Schuster’s special market sales, as they are called, have grown by 50 percent, surpassing total sales to independent bookstores, said Jack Romanos, the publishing house’s president and chief executive.”

And some chains are taking the initiative to fold books into their shopping experience:

“Martin & Osa, a new clothing retailer aimed at 25-to-40-year-olds, stocks dozens of titles in its four stores and is planning to add more, including a ‘reading list’ of graphic novels [emphasis mine], fiction and nonfiction for customers. ‘We try to offer them things that aren’t mainstream, more unusual, more unique,’ said Arnie Cohen, the chief marketing officer.”

Is it the next big thing for graphic novel publishers? I have no idea, but it seems like an idea with potential. Viz just announced a special deal with Hot Topic for Bleach merchandise, so why not actually put copies of the manga in the store?