The Manga Curmudgeon

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

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Regional specialties

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The Mature Graphic Novel section has not yet reached north-central West Virginia. I swung by Books-A-Million last night to see. It did look like there were fewer Juné and Blu titles than usual, so maybe they’ve been sorted out and it’s in the works. (The manager, who’s an acquaintance, wasn’t on hand to ask.)

One thing did strike me as I was browsing. It’s too bad Viz didn’t put out a Bleach box set in time for the holidays, like Tokyopop did with Kingdom Hearts. A conveniently bundled, nicely packaged chunk of the early volumes might entice the curious.

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I’m kind of baffled by the ComicList for the week. The list itself says the only Del Rey offering for the week is the second volume of Basilisk. Jog seems to think that the fourth volume of Love Roma is arriving. The e-mailer from the local comic shop suggests that the seventh volume of Genshiken will arrive. Should I focus on the happiness of new Genshiken, or wallow in the bitterness of delayed Love Roma gratification?

There does seem to be general consensus that this week will see the arrival of the second volumes of Off*Beat and The Dreaming and the fourteenth of The Kindaichi Case Files from Tokyopop. Okay, so maybe it would be nice if these suspenseful stories had dropped the day before Halloween instead of the day after. But it’s close enough.

Not to be outdone in the second volume category, Seven Seas releases the sophomore installment of Inverloch, a web-to-print fantasy story from Sarah Ellerton. I liked the first a lot.

It seems like it’s been weeks since a new volume of a post-apocalyptic survival manga showed up. Dark Horse leaps into the breach with the fifth volume of Eden: It’s an Endless World! For more science fiction, you could always check out June from Netcomics.

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There seems to be a mad flurry of manga reviews of late, and MangaBlog’s Brigid has been staying on top of them.

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So I’m glancing at the Taiyosha Top Ten over at MangaCast, and I can’t help but notice that Nodame Cantabile has really parked itself there. Volume 16 debuted at number one, with a special taking eighth place the same week. And it’s still in the top 10.

No particular point to that observation, aside from the fact that I like the book and its success makes me happy.

Twice in a lifetime?

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ICv2 compares the size of the bumps enjoyed by Naruto and Bleach after their Cartoon Network debuts:

“Comparing the first four weeks of Bookscan sales after the first appearance of the Cartoon Network effect, sales of Bleach Vol. 1 were 52.4% of the numbers attained by the first volume of Naruto in 2005.”

The piece goes on to analyze some of the factors that may have led to the slighter performance for Bleach, including the fact that it has more than twice as many volumes in print as Naruto did when it started airing in September of 2005.

Though the article doesn’t mention it, the performance of Fullmetal Alchemist would seem to bear this out. The anime’s debut preceded the release of the manga in that case, so there was no catching up needed.

Another factor that isn’t considered in the Naruto-Bleach comparison is the fact that Naruto has a much better time slot. Airing at 9 p.m. on Saturdays surrounded by similar programs, supported by lots of commercials, has to give it some kind of advantage over a show that runs at midnight. And I’m pretty sure Cartoon Network doesn’t advertise Adult Swim programs during its daytime programming.

And while it’s probably nowhere near as significant, it can’t hurt that Naruto is serialized in Shonen Jump, making it cheaper to sample if someone isn’t certain they want to make the jump from anime to manga.

Still, the Bleach bump isn’t exactly insignificant, even if it isn’t astronomical. As ICv2 notes:

“Naruto gives every appearance of being a once in a lifetime phenomenon, at least in terms of manga sales in the U.S. market, and its brilliance shouldn’t blind retailers to the promise of Bleach (or Death Note, another Viz Media property with immense potential).”

Good point about Death Note, which has popped up on the BookScan charts and doesn’t even have an anime version available in English. (Yet… the anime just debuted at the beginning of this month in Japan.)

Waiting for the trade?

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Simon Jones notes a MangaNews translation of an article on the current state of the Japanese manga market: floppies down, trade paperbacks up. (Okay, maybe you can’t really call manga magazines “floppies” from a purely structural perspective, but you know what I mean.)

I always thought that the magazines were a loss leader — cheaply produced and designed as a driver for the profit-generating tankoubons. Still, that figure — a 70% decline in magazine sales since 1995 — is kind of heart-stopping, isn’t it? In addition to a resurgence of rental stores and used book shops, the article points to a couple of different forces:

“The reduction of the tendency of the manga magazine sales confirms that there is a flow of manga readers turning to tankobon. Whether it be to school or work, the manga magazine market may have been taken up by a more mobile content market. On the other hand, mobile phone manga delivery service has enlarged. The mobile phone market will probably be significant to the future manga markets.”

So are cell phones replacing the printed anthology? Is this another step towards the paperless society? Or at least the cheap-paperless society?

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Oh, and you have until 8 a.m. tomorrow to enter Tom Spurgeon’s Ode to Kirihito contest.

No-ruto

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There isn’t much in the way of sequential art in the latest top 150 best sellers from USA Today. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories Vol. 1 (Tokyopop) drops from 112 to 134.

I had briefly hoped that the National Book Award nomination for Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese (First Second) might land it somewhere on the list, but no. Hell, a Nobel Prize for Literature doesn’t get you any higher than 94, and poor Orhan Pamuk is barely hanging on at 150, so I don’t know what good I thought a mere nomination would do.

And besides, Wired copy chief Tony Long insists that “the comic book does not deserve equal status with real novels, or short stories. It’s apples and oranges.” Long comes to this conclusion without having read American Born Chinese, and I find that depressing. I was sort of hoping that people would say, “How good must that graphic novel be to earn a National Book Award nomination?” and then perhaps read it to find out instead of dismissing it out of hand. (There’s no word as to where the copy chiefs of Cat Fancy, Town & Country Travel, and Cigar Aficionado will come down in the controversy. File it under “developing.”)

At least poor Captain Underpants hasn’t been unduly damaged by the recent unpleasantness. The Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People is nestled comfortably at #72. (Though it was at #66 last week.)

Thursday manga linkblogging

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Conspiracy theorists rejoice! Calvin Reid drops by Love Manga to offer some details on the PWCW Comics Bestseller List. Just to clarify, I don’t think the list is inaccurate. I just think it would be more meaningful if I had some sense of how it was assembled. Over at Comics Worth Reading, commenter Ali T. Kokmen notes that the level of available background is just about equivalent to every other bestseller list out there, and elaborates further in an e-mail to Dirk Deppey.

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Pata’s quest for lists got me wondering: what’s already lurking among the manga reading lists at Amazon?

And roughly 2,070 more.

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A Kentucky library is grooming the next generation of graphic novelists. (Thanks, Rose.)

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John Jakala notes that Viz isn’t taking any chances on reaping the potential bump from the debut of the Bleach anime.

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MangaNEXT isn’t until this weekend, but the Frankfurt Book Fair is underway, and the event’s web site has coverage of its manga conference. Lots of interesting nuggets of information about manga around the world (is it the rising tide that lifts all ships?), and this wrap-up paragraph:

“While Chuck Rozanski opined that ‘anything that’s not superheroes in America is a hard sell,’ the Europeans reported an increase in locally-created manga in their markets, illustrating Chigusa Ogino’s remark that, in today’s manga world, ‘you don’t have to have a Japanese passport to do manga.’”

A hard sell? Really?

Consumerism

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Oh, Marvel. When I said I wished you’d take lessons from manga publishers, I didn’t mean for you to adopt nipple phobia. (Images at the link might not be work safe.)

ICv2 has some interesting manga-related content today. Yaoi Press is putting the YA in yaoi, launching a line for the 13-and-over crowd. (Honestly, DMP and Blu already publish a bunch of titles that would suit early teens, or at least what grown-ups think they can handle, but I think this is the first time anyone’s specifically tried to market a line towards them.) And Viz responds to questions about edits in a recent volume of Fullmetal Alchemist.

Comic Book Resources has posted sales figures in the Direct Market for August. Would I be spoiling the surprise if I told you that Naruto topped the manga chart? Update: David Taylor crunches the numbers over at Love Manga.

Lyle loves Yakitate!! Japan. Pass it on.

John Jakala has some issues with Dark Horse’s scheduling problems.

Speaking of Dark Horse, there’s still no sign of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Serivce in this week’s comics, even though it was due out in August. While I’m sure Banya: The Explosive Delivery Man has its charms (and is Dark Horse’s first manhwa release), I will not be appeased by the fact that they did release a book with “delivery” in its title.

In happier new arrival news, Seven Seas delivers the first volume of Boogiepop Dual. Fanfare/Ponent Mon, while still leaving me wondering where my copy of The Building Opposite is, does offer Mariko Parade by Kan Takahama and Frédéric Boilet.

Update #2: The MangaCasters offer their picks of the week.

Drama unfolds…

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Can you stand any more Tokyopop sales talk? Just a little, I promise.

At MangaBlog, Brigid uncovers a Tokyopop title that’s going to be a Diamond exclusive.

At Crocodile Caucus, Lyle wonders why Tokyopop gets labeled as flooding the market while Viz doesn’t, even though both release a similar volume of product. In the comments, Dorian wonders if that isn’t a function of timing.

At Sporadic Sequential, John Jakala wonders if Tokyopop’s initiative might not be a golden opportunity… for someone else.

Part of this week’s comics shop haul was Tokyopop’s Kamen Tantei, a teen sleuth comedy that’s got a nice premise but thoroughly average execution so far. It came with one of the glossy quarter-folds inserted.

On one side of the flyer is a promotion of some of the on-line exclusives (Atomic King Daidogan 1, Neck and Neck 6, and One 10). “And best of all, we will shop the books directly to your home – so no need to leave your computer chair!”

The flip side features titles that aren’t on-line exclusives but a priced at a 20% discount if you order them directly from the publisher. The books are Innocent W 1, Rozen Maiden 1 and 2, Star Trek – The Manga, and Mitsukazu Mihara: R.I.P. Requiem in Phonybrian.

Pop talk

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So what does everyone think about Publishers Weekly Comics Week’s coverage of retailer reaction to Tokyopop’s on-line exclusives?

As for myself, I think Calvin Reid did as well as can be expected. Short of developing telepathic powers or placing a mole inside Tokyopop, these seem to be the answers that the publisher is going to provide no matter who asks them or how often.

I do tend to agree with everyone who suggested that avoiding discounts isn’t a good way to get a realistic picture of what on-line sales will be. I’ve hardly ever purchased a graphic novel at full price from an on-line outlet, unless I didn’t have any other… HEY!

And I think that this quote from Mike Kiley…

“’It’s interesting that people are so fascinated in about 20 books out of the 500 we publish each year,’ says Kiley. ‘It’s not like we’re talking about Fruits Basket or Kingdom Hearts.”

… is not especially helpful. My first reaction to it was, “500 titles? No wonder there’s a problem with shelf space!” Because seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a retail outlet, direct market or chain bookstore, that had room for 500 titles total, much less 500 titles from Tokyopop. And when you factor in the books that always seem to have a complete run available (the really popular ones), the problem compounds. (I vote for “Less is more” as the next big publishing theme.)

No direct quotes or attribution were available for this paragraph:

“While general trade bookstores are not quite as adamant as the direct market, several trade book retailers contacted by PWCW are nevertheless critical of any publisher selling direct to consumers.”

But I did get an anonymous comment from someone claiming to be a Borders employee who’s far from overjoyed.