Kevin Melrose found it, Immelda Alty contemplated it. Tokyopop, having made inroads into young women, want to extend manga’s hypnotic influence to an older audience of women with its Manga After Hours line. (I’m not sure about that tag, actually. It reminds me of that clot of syndicated shows that used the hook “It’s too hot to sleep!” Moving on.)
It’s an intriguing idea, but I do wonder about a couple of things. First, there’s the quote cited by Immelda:
“Susan Hale of Tokyopop preceeded to explain, that there isn’t Manga out there at the moment for one “who’s a little bit older, intelligent, independent and discerning”.”
Hey! I like to think of myself as older, intelligent, independent, and discerning! (Okay, the discerning part is probably open to debate.) I find plenty of manga that I enjoy. But I suppose Hale’s comment could just be code for “readers who haven’t picked up a comic book since they were in elementary school, don’t have any idea that their bookstores carry graphic novels, and wouldn’t care if they did know.”
And that will make the marketing part of this launch interesting to watch. As Immelda notes in the comments section of her post, “LOL, I can see someone walking to the shelves now, and a shriek as they realise someone’s stolen all the text and replaced them with pretty pictures.”
Honestly, I’ve always thought most chick-lit cover art looked like manga to begin with, and the average digest is sized the same. It wouldn’t be difficult for a bookstore to stock a couple of manga titles in the chick-lit display, if they could be convinced to do so. Then you come to Immelda’s point.
I haven’t read a ton of chick-lit, and I’m hesitant to make any generalizations. The small sampling I have read tends to feature quirky, relatable protagonists juggling work, friends, and romantic complications that range from screwball to steamy. In other words, the subject matter is mighty similar to a lot of popular manga stories. So Tokyopop has that going for it.
But how does Tokyopop communicate that similarity to their likely audience and overcome their prose-over-pictures preference, or at least get them to make an exception or two? They sure as heck won’t be able to do it through their traditional outlets. I’m not saying that there’s no overlap between manga and chick-lit audiences, but I wouldn’t think it’s very large.
One approach that could work would be to serialize or sample some of the Manga After Hours titles in general interest publications. It works in Japan, if I’m not mistaken, with manga showing up in fashion magazines and other titles. Magazine publishers might resist the idea, though, which would leave the option of Tokyopop buying “$pecial adverti$ing $ection$” in targeted monthlies. So right there you have the advertising cost along with the probable necessity of flipping at least part of the material for that purpose.
And chick-lit gets plenty of critical coverage. Entertainment Weekly does a periodic chick-lit round-up, covering a sampling of titles. Since EW has shown a willingness to cover comics, they might be persuaded to fold in a couple of manga reviews in that context. And there isn’t exactly a shortage of interest in the “girls like manga” story in major news outlets, so Tokyopop could easily pitch this as the logical follow-up. (If The New York Times can be convinced that Identity Crisis heralds a new maturity in graphic storytelling, they’ll clearly buy just about anything.)
All this speculation might be irrelevant. It’s entirely possible that part of the existing shojo audience, which isn’t inconsiderable, is at the point that they’re ready for more mature material. Tokyopop might not need to push too hard into an indifferent customer base if they can capitalize on an existing group that might otherwise outgrow its reading choices. The “publish something for audiences at every stage of life” philosophy has worked pretty well with Japanese audiences, so maybe this is a translation of that.
Ultimately, though, I like this idea. I’m selfish, and I’ve been eager to see manga titles targeted at an older audience. (No, not the “now with more nipple” titles; stories with older protagonists.)
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Following up on the Tenjho Tenge fiasco, you really should go read what Christopher Butcher has to say on the subject at his blog. Here’s a sample:
“I see fanpages for various manga and anime that put any North American PUBLISHER’s site to shame. These are people who are heavily invested in their fandom, and here’s the best part: They’re considerably more functional than comics fans. It’s true. I personally think it’s because manga and anime came up from nothing here, the people enjoying the material now are barely a generation removed from the people who were importing big clunky expensive video-tapes from Japan, taped right off the TV without subtitles. The fans actively defined what the medium would be in North America, and the key-word was ‘authenticity’.”
Go read.