The Manga Gap

In a recent diary entry, manga-ka Ken Akamatsu (of "Love Hina" fame, among others) waxes philosophical about the state of the comic book industry in Japan today. It's one of an increasing number of reports from the trenches confirming a phenomenon that became obvious last year: the famous titles sell, everything else doesn't.

As discussed previously, if you are the average manga-ka, you make your real money not off the weekly serialization of your work but rather the tankobon, standard-sized collections of your work that are released for sale at fixed intervals. The problem is, as Akamatsu notes, that 2008 tankobon sales were off 4.9 percent as compared to the previous year, and the trend is expected to continue.

"As source material for TV dramas, films, and anime, and as a standalone product, the tankobon is here to stay," remarks Akamatsu. "The tankobon that do sell, sell in incredible volumes. But this means that the ones that don't, slide into obscurity."

Akamatsu ties the problem directly to the sagging fortunes of Japan's ubiquitous comic magazines. "In the past, the major comic magazines had a 'multiplier effect' in which the standout titles would also in turn increase the visibility of lesser-known ones... But this effect is on the wane. In short, the chances to get to know lesser-known manga are disappearing."

But the big issue (and one left unexplored by Akamatsu) is: do fans WANT to get to know lesser-known manga in the first place? The interesting thing is how this dovetails with comments by Toshio Okada and other old-schoolers, who  -- despite increasingly sounding like your granddad telling you he had to walk uphill both ways to school -- complain of younger fans' tendency to "ghettoize" themselves into tiny bubble-like individual worlds rather than seeking out new experiences. 

Which leads to the real questions: if tastes have truly changed this significantly, how much does complaining about it really help? And what are Japanese creators and media outlets going to change to address the situation?

Comments

[Steve Harrison]

I suggest they won't change. I suggest they'll keep doing business the way they've been doing it for the past, what, 10 years? because it WAS working so it MUST work again like it always has.

But here's where my being 'out of the loop' insofar as buying stuff in a store hurts my thinking. Matt, have the big weeklies done what I think they've done, that is they get one big hit in a title, so they start to fill that magazine with OTHER comics that are similar if not outright copycat? It seems to me most of the weeklies (and the TV manga mags) were more diverse than that in the past. I seek to be schooled.

And probably echoed by Akamatsu-san, when you get that big hit title, ALL the promotional resources go to pushing that, and money makes money as they say. Now it's Chicken-or-egg. Is the title popular because people are told it is?

As much as people are excited by it, I just don't see manga on your cell phone taking off as huge as the paper publishing biz. Sure, you might be able to buy the latest Shonen Jump on your phone for only 150 Yen, but then there's the connect time, the battery drain, straining your eyes to read on a 2 inch screen (which will lead to the demand for 'simpler' art from the editors, which will translate better to a smaller size), and the simple fact that you can't 'hide' behind your cell the way you can a manga weekly, which is a factor for the harried train commuter, his little 'bubble'.

maybe the publishers should take some of the huge bank they're making from the big hit titles and push the secondary list more, huh? Naaaaaaa, grow the market by cross promotion? what an INSANE idea!

[MattAlt]

"As much as people are excited by it, I just don't see manga on your cell phone taking off as huge as the paper publishing biz."

I completely agree -- given current technology. But with bigger screens and "e-paper" in the future... who knows? I suspect a significant number of people would pay for a "magic tankobon" e-reader that can download and display any manga ever written.

[Steve Harrison]

but then you run into the problem of portability. Not just of the device itself, but the content.

and not just Japan, but world-wide.

The perfect device would be about the size of a pack of cigarettes and unfold to at least 9x12. It would be rigid and sturdy, have a long battery life, and be self-lit or not as lighting conditions warrant. It should store tons of bytes of data and be able to upload and download content to other devices via different ways (wireless and corded). It should be immune to hacking so riding in the train your manga isn't hijacked by bluetooth 'snapshot' spam (but ohhhh, how the marketers want that function sooooo much). It would probably be a good idea taht it has cellphone functions including realtime 30FPS videophone ability.

In other words it's iPhone 4.0 mated with a Polaroid SX70 and a tablet PC.

I dunno, that sounds like a hella lot of stuff when pieces of paper bound together deliver the same content to the consumer.

Of course if that actually existed I'd probably want one.

[MattAlt]

Forget tankobon, I want a "magic Terebi-kun" that displays any issue on command... projected 10x normal size on a wall. As it should be displayed. Their two-page, hand-painted color spreads were epic.

[ArthurFrDent]

I read an awful lot of manga from my phone neow, and this webpage as well, it isn't that big of a deal [LG enV3] but then I have an unlimited access plan... but of course Akematsu's stuf, not... even in manga form it's almost impossible to read without a magnifying glass.

But the deal really is something like: will everything hold together long enough for early adopters to pull the technology up, to make it possible to monetize the content? The things that Steve H wants are nice to haves, and will haves someday. Even right now some things are possible. The important idea is that the content needs to be provided, so that early people can use it. They pull others along. Downside is, will the industry in Japan figure this out soon enough. And, can they figure a model that will encourage, not discourage use? IMHO anyway.

[Steve Harrison]

But you see, if you provide content that's optimized for what's available NOW, all you promote are '4 panel' style simplistic manga, and then you spiral into two different failure modes:

American newspaper comic strips

The current MOE flood destroying anime

American newspapers have been shrinking the size of the comic strip for, I think about 15 or so years now (as an overall thing it's been a subject of complaint for closer to 30 years), the thinking being that 'nobody' bought newspapers for the comics so use that space for more ads, the days of the giant Sunday Comics pages where Prince Valiant or Flash Gordon or Tarzan (or Calvin and Hobbs) would take up half a page are long gone, and the daily comics, what used to be 2 or 3 pages were shrunk down to one, and with the shrinking strip size came a demand for more simple comics, strips that made Peanuts look like Shakespeare (and, of course, Prince Valiant was 'Avatar' to bring in movies). And now newspapers are dying (for many reasons including news overload but I content that the comics page was one of the things that doesn't translate the same experience on the web as it does on paper, and thus it was value added content that was thrown away by the papers)

The MOE crisis, is, of course, another subject done to death, but in this case the pattern does follow. If simple 4-koma style manga is the 'killer app' for buying and reading manga on the cell phone, then that is ALL that will be promoted, encouraged and catered to, because that's just how the companies roll in Japan nowadays.

Chicken or egg. Desire for content drives hardware sales, Owning hardware creates a need for content. The Gordian Knot must be cut.

[RWGibson]

Maybe it's just my age showing, but everytime I read something like this debate in the comments section, my first thought is that the next generation of Americans are going to have massive eye problems when they get old.
.
RWG (seriously)

[thomas]

I wonder how copyright and ownership will be dealt with.

The scanlation problem might be increased if manga is only made available electronically. Now there's always the obstacle of scanning the manga, but with electronical files? Take a screenshot or break the encription and you'll be ready to go.

Right now, there have been a few instances where *purchased* eBooks became unreadable after the company behind them went bankrupt, because the eReader couldn't check the ownership status with the company anymore, and blocked the eBooks. The customers couldn't get their money back either. Do we really want this to become the standard? Now these slipped under the radar of most people, but if eBooks become more readily available, this might become a huge problem that will be very detrimental to the entire idea of eBooks.

And some people (like me) simply like having shelves upon shelves filled with books and comics...