This article in Mainichi Daily News has lots of interesting nuggets about sales of Japanese manga in other countries. Like this:
Currently, reports Tsukuru (June), Shonen Jump enjoys sales of between 300,000 to 350,000 per issue (of which subscribers account for 90,000 copies). Currently the manga are handled by such major retail chains as Waldenbooks and Wal-mart, and roughly two thirds of each issue are sold. Figures for Shojo Beat, however, have been somewhat less favorable so far, but it appears that about half of its 90,000 print run is sold.
I didn’t realize the difference in sales was that great; maybe it’s time to stop beatin’ on Viz for charging more for Shoujo Beat titles.
In Japan, sales of tankoubon are up while comics magazine figures are down. In fact, magazine sales have been dropping for the past ten years in a row, to 24.21 billion yen (still pretty respectable) in 2005. Meanwhile tankoubon sales have risen to 26.02 billion yen. That’s an interesting switch. I can see buying trades over floppies in the U.S., because it seems like a better deal, but I thought the Japanese comics magazines were priced low relative to the books. Maybe it’s not about price.
So where is the hottest market for overseas manga? Surprise! It’s Thailand. China is next, with its own Kodansha subsidiary. But there are problems:
“At present, we’ve received permission from the Chinese government to publish several comics, but the market remains restricted,” says Masatoshi Sumita, general manager for international rights at Kodansha.
As one way of circumventing the roadblocks, Kodansha joined forces with a Shanghai-based digital company named Tongli to begin distribution of two comics via the Web. At present, releases are issued at the rate of one per week, sold at the rate of 2 RMB each (roughly US $0.25).
But can you find them on Google?
In Asia as in Japan, tankoubon rule and boys are OK with reading girls’ comics. And Europe looks wide open:
At the recently held Bologna Book Fair, Japanese publishers received encouraging inquiries from distributors in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Croatia.
“They seem to have done their homework, too,” smiles Masaaki Shindo, producer of the multimedia licensing bureau at Shogakukan Ltd., a major publishing house.
Of course. I’m sure there is a lively Croatian scanlation community setting the table for them.
UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Sai for pointing out that Mainichi mistranslated the sales figures for manga in Japan by a factor of ten. The correct figures are 242.1 billion yen for magazines and 260.2 billion yen for tankoubon. (Sai gives the exchange rate as 110 yen to $1.)
Concerning “E-books”, digital manga… IMO, this stuff in the US will not gain a foothold unless a device comes out everybody accepts. Such as the iPod did for mp3:
1. A cellphone manufacturer makes a good one. Like a Treo for instance, but this thing has never been super popular and PDAs are passe now.
2. Ipods find a way to view books better. Either bigger screen or innovative software.
3. Video game player… PSP or DS. I think the DS has just come up with a nifty way to view web pages with it’s 2 screens, maybe this is “THE DEVICE”
What about the opposite scenario—something that works across multiple platforms? A lot of people would probably prefer to read manga on a computer screen, as it’s bigger, but ideally it could also be available in a portable format that you could download to an iPod or access from a cell phone. Just as right now I listen to music and podcasts on my computer as well as my iPod.
I like the multiple platforms idea. I think eventually, after they’ve built up demand for the product in a digital form, some enterprising electronics wizard could come up with a comic-specific interface, but I don’t know that it would fly off the shelves until the delivery system gains traction.
Tongli is not a Shanghai based company; it’s the biggest manga publisher in Taiwan. They publish the Taiwan version of Shonen Jump. They have been in the mainland market for a while now. They have also been distributing manga online in Taiwan since 2003. This is just their first attempt at doing the same thing in Mainland China.
Here’s their mainland China site:
http://gb.comicplay.com.tw/
and here’s their Taiwan home site:
http://www.tongli.com.tw/
As for why manga mag sales are down, it’s because of their size. A manga mag is like a phone book, and your average Japanese or Asian homes is small in term of square footage. It takes a lot of effort to carry all those phonebooks home, read them, and find a way to recycle them since there’s no way you’ll get to keep them. What little bookshelf space you have is reserved for beloved tanks. Japanese don’t love manga mags less though, they just simply read them in restaurants and cafes, or borrow a read from a friend in school or work. Manga mags exists everywhere in Japan; every restaurant and cafe has a few copies. It’s perfectly normal to read manga while you wait your meals. People buy tanks for their home; phonebooks are to be recycled as soon as its read.
Boys are NOT okay with reading girls manga IN THE OPEN. They may admit to it anonymously online, but it will take some real emotional maturity to admit you read girls manga to your guy friends. Now there are special exceptions like Nana which, since it has a live-action movie and all, a guy can be seen reading it, but as a rule, anything with a Red Border is basically off-limits in public unless you want your sexual identity to be called into question. However, it’s okay for men to read Josei manga, for some reason. I guess it’s about the mature and sexually-oriented story line. A Japanese man could read basically wantever he wants and no one would really care, I guess.
And here’s some good read about state of fansubs around the world.
http://nekketsu.wordpress.com/2006/04/25/international-fans/
According to the 3rd comment of the thread, Hungary has their own busy little fansub community. Where fansubs go scanlation will follow, as the world outside Asia is still anime-centric. They are all learning, and soon everyone will realize manga is king. :)
Mainichi Daily News mistranslated some basic numbers.
In Original(Tsuskuru magazine), number of manga magazine sales is 2421 oku yen(242.1 billion yen),
number of manga tankoubon sales is 2602 oku yen (260.2 billion yen).*oku=0.1billion 1$=110yen
Let me further clarify my theory:
PDF is the file format that is proper and already in use. If they are going to sell books of any kind, it should be PDF with some sort of DRM if necessary. There are already text only Casts available as of right now on the iTMS (in PDF such as wikinews).
I think the sucess of E-books are linked with portable players. When you’re at your PC, there exists something better to pass time — the web. When reading a long novel or manga, I can read it on my PC but I prefer to read it elsewhere in more comfort (or someplace less comfy to pass time).
So E-books exist right now, but to no fanfare. Bring a killer hardware item into place and then it’s a different story… in my opinion.
Yeah, but what about screen size? That’s what’s keeping me from reading manga on my cell phone (well, that and the fact that I’m cheap and technologically inept). The early e-books were about the size of a paperback, which made them readable, but I suspect the proprietary software scared people off. I love my iPod but it’s too small to read from the screen. I guess if someone came up with a simple reader that was cheap, and I could download a PDF onto it, I might buy that. And I’d still have the capability to read manga on my Mac when I go somewhere that doesn’t have wireless internet.
I agree with you 100%.
That’s why a killer hardware item needs to come into fruition. Or a current hardware item needs to adapt those desirable capabilties you mentioned!
Pingback: MangaBlog » Blog Archive » Morning news
Interesting to see circulation numbers for Shonen Jump/Shojo Beat… I’m curious to find out what SJ’s numbers were like at the end of its first year, to see how SB compares to SJ’s trend.
I’m somewhat surprised to see that Shojo Beat’s numbers are so low, considering how long the waiting list is to read it at the library. I’ll be interested to look again at the numbers again at the end of their second year of publication. It’s a bit too soon to tell, now.
Maybe it’s the state of my eyes, but I’m actually beginning to prefer reading manga on my computer screen. Everything is so much easier to see. The thought of having to read comics on something as small as an iPod, or even the old eBooks, make my eyes water in sympathetic reflex. Even the Genzo webcomic is small compared to what PicWalker puts up on the screen. Like Bridgid, I’m looking forward to newer, lighter, bigger. You know, something easy to hold while I’m reading in bed…
Those numbers for Shojo Beat sound pretty decent to me considering what I’ve observed of its distribution (I only encounter it at larger magazine stands) and compared to the sales of periodical comics in the direct market. The important thing is that the title grow.