Manga and the Problem of Discovery

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Manga as an industry has had a  lot of rough beats in the past few years. The market crash of 2007, fueled by mediocrity and the $9 trade paperback. The fall of Borders allegedly put TOKYOPOP out of business. Small publishers are relying on preorders now more than ever.  And piracy is as rampant as it has been in the past 5 years. Mangafox Manga aggregators like Manga Fox and Manga Reader are high on the list of the world’s websites (Manga Reader recently clocked in at site #720), with around 18-20% of all traffic coming from the USA.  Searching the term “manga” at Google or Bing brings up the Wikipedia article, two legitimate companies (Manga UK and Manga University) and 7  manga aggregators. Using some simple web tools, something else becomes apparent – that while search engines like Google are still the major source of hits for aggregators, the number of people accessing them from Facebook is increasing (7-9% of all incoming traffic in the past 12 months, and growing). MangaFox’s facebook page has 494,000+ likes, and cheerily states “Be sure to suggest this page to your friends!” There is more egregious behavior out there; the mere fact that MangaStream calls itself an “Arts/Humanities page” seems boldly offensive. And the sad fact is that none of these readers are paying creators while reading – but are consuming comics at a breathtaking rate. Mangahere

So manga itself – people out there get that. It’s become fairly common as the world gets smaller. Free is a great price. But manga as an industry, manga where you actually pay someone for a book? That is not so common. Onto the questions then: How to manga companies promote their existence?  How do we make paying for manga more appealing than piracy? How can we get new readers to discover manga in a way that is beneficial for the creators? I posed this question on Twitter and got an answer from Ben Applegate:

I think step one for publishers is to make an example out of a major manga aggregator and settle with the others. — Ben Applegate (@benapplegate) March 7, 2013

I agree in principle about aggregators – they’ve been making a profit by advertising for a long time, and their business model, if you can call it that, does not pay creators or license holders. Manga aggregators are the source of most of the market’s woes. But would people reading manga on aggregators today actually buy comics if their online hotspots for all things free and fun disappeared? Ben seems to think so, but I’m less convinced.

Many if not all of manga’s newest readers find it in a few ways:

  1. Randomly at a bookstore
  2. A friend convinces them to read a volume that he or she already owns
  3. Local library groups or library selection
  4. The internet

Assume you get into manga in one of the top three ways – manga is a physical product, a book that you borrow or buy. It’s an actual physical thing. But if you find manga through the internet, it’s a digital thing – and it’s free no matter what. If you were used to free (and had never considered manga a consumable, purchasable thing) paying for volumes might not come so quick. According to a recent twitter message from Vertical, they have 3,000 steady readers who purchase content. I am happily within that 3,000. But who knows how many people are reading the content Vertical has licensed on aggregators? It may be upwards of 100,000 (or more) readers a month.

So what else can we put on the table? Ben has a thought:

Other things I think pubs can do: Actually work to engage the direct market, which is woefully uninformed about manga.

— Ben Applegate (@benapplegate) March 7, 2013

While I don’t know all of what that would entail, it’s a broad suggestion that carries a lot of weight. I have a few thoughts of my own:

1. Free reading services for various chapters of books online from the publisher - a JManga7, if you would, for big titles like Naruto, Bleach, One Piece. I’m not talking “free preview” either. I’m talking 1 chapter a week, maybe older content, with easy access to current Shonen Jump. Pay X to view as many comics as you want for Y amount of time or buy the latest chapter of the series for $0.69 USD. This might help some readers who are into manga week by week, and digitally – but it gives you a platform to fight against the free. Pay artists to write digital only stories that can only be retrieved through the digital platform. Offer promotional materials and other extras that are hard to find in aggregators. Maybe have previews of a few panels that haven’t been published anywhere. In short, make it the digital platform of choice, because of availability, and because it is worth paying for. And, since I’m in a land of dreams, make it universal – all publishers on a single platform.

2. Increased access to physical copies at libraries - manga has a unique and compelling case to make in many different libraries, from school libraries to the monolithic library partnerships like CLEVNET. Manga is a popular borrowing item, but it doesn’t get a lot of time in the sun at these libraries. Publishers could work more with library representatives to create informational sessions about manga and comics for kids and parents. Increasing physical copy readership via the library increased manga purchasing in my local area (when I worked in the library business), and I suspect the same would happen on a larger scale.

3. Partner physical copies to digital ones - again, this is about building value for the paperback or hardcover book, but why not allow a person who has bought a physical copy to have a digital copy as part of their physical purchase? How many people with paperback One Piece collections are actually buying the same volumes on Viz Media’s app? I think that the benefits of a digital + print release has a lot of potential. This has a lot of different possibilities, from allowing book purchasers to be able to follow their favorite stories in multiple formats to giving multiple chapters of other similar manga to the physical copy purchaser.

Ultimately, the industry needs to add physical value to an otherwise digital world. If publishers make buying content easy and cross-platform, and make sure their customers know that they are delivering a quality product they can’t get anywhere else, the industry will do itself a great service. Aggregators aren’t helping the issue of the market,  but if 90% of manga readers are getting content online, manga publishers need to consider how to incorporate digital content, add value, and be responsive to the changes in reading habits. Until then? MangaFox will still have its thousands of fans, while manga publishers struggle to make ends meet.

Edit: After a discussion with Ed Chavez of Vertical today, I’ve edited some statements for clarification. My points still stand.

Manga Widget Investigates: Nijigahara Holograph

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New licenses always get me excited for the future. There are things I’m waiting for from Vertical Inc, Kodansha USA, Viz Manga, and Yen Press including Mobile Suit Gundam: Origin, Wolfsmund, and Vinland Saga. I wasn’t really expecting to get any new license announcements from other places, but recently, two other publishers have made some pretty fantastic announcements. Picturebox, the micropublisher that is releasing The Passion of Gengoroh Tagame in late April has announced two books to be a part of a line of manga called “10-Cent Manga.” The fist release, a surrealist Japanese remake of “The Last of the Mohicans” is slated for April 30th, and an Osamu Tezuka title The Mysterious Underground Men, is due out in October. Fantagraphics, publisher of The Heart of Thomas and Wandering Son has announced the publication of Inio Asano’s Nijigahara Holograph.

Nijigahara-Holograph-Cover-203x300Inio Asano is no stranger to manga readers in the United States. His work inclues Solanin and What a Wonderful World! both published under Viz Media‘s Sig IKKI line.Both books follow young men and women in their 20s trying to find their way in the world. While Asano is not afraid of tragedy in his previously published works, Nijigahara Holograph looks to be much darker.

The story is told in two parts running concurrently – one as many of the main characters are children in school, and the other 10 years later. A tragic act obscured by flashbacks and memory is somehow linked to an apocalyptic future filled with butterflies, frank violence, and the suspense of a good Stephen King novel. This kind of manga doesn’t usually make it to the USA. Horror and suspense have been making a comeback as far as popular shonen titles like Attack on Titan and Bloody Monday, but the indie stylings of Asano make him a hard sell to your shojo and shonen buying crowd. It makes sense that Fantagraphics, whose main audience loves these types of comics, is the one who eventually picked up this title.

Nijigahara Holograph was published by Ohta Shuppan, the publisher behind Manga Erotics F. My best information tells me that Nijigahara Holograph was published in QUICK Japan, but I can’t verify that to be certain. It’s 200 pages, 1 volume, and will be published by Fantagraphics as a hardcover. No release date has been announced, but you can bet your buttons I’ll be preordering this bad boy. In the meantime, I have Wolfsmund, Gundam: Origin, and other goodies to tide me over. It’s a great time to be a manga reader.

 

Do We Need More Manga Micropublishers?

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A Zoo in WinterI’ve been reminiscing over A Zoo in Winter and rereading my small collection of Jiro Taniguchi manga lately. Taniguchi is a fantastic draftsman, and has some truly remarkable comics under his belt. Sadly, there are not a lot of these comics published in English.

Western comics and manga can live together peacefully, if not joyously, but there are certain business models that work better in a land without translators and licensing fees. One of these is the micropublisher. Now, to be fair, all comics publishing is essentially niche publishing, and art comics like Fantagraphics are an even smaller niche. But the micropublisher is phenomenon that goes beyond publishing as a business. It looks at publishing as an art form, and the publisher, often one or two people, decide to publish a book. They may only have two or three books under their banner.

The Voyeurs, By Gabrielle Belle

A good example that comes to mind is Uncivilized Books, with 16 titles to its name, most of which are the work of Jon Lewis or Gabrielle Belle.  Another is Koyama Press. The powerful thing here is the relationship between the micropublisher and their writers. These publishers, because they are so small, can have an intimate connection with their creators in a way that a Penguin Group could never have.

This is very difficult with Japanese media. With translations, licensing fees, and the like getting in the way of that intimate relationship, we see much fewer micropublishers that work with Japanese comics. Even if there is a person who would like to create micropublishing work with Japanese comics, going through the licensing and translating would likely scare off or present a high barrier to entry to all but a few dedicated publishers.

The essence of the micropublisher (to me) seems to be the almost archival nature of the business. The idea that something is worth the money to be printed and distributed for sale and consumption is powerful. And we see this mentality in some of our smallest publishers, like Ponent Mon/Fanfare, Vertical,TopShelf and Fantagraphics. These publishers have a history of choosing titles that are both archival worthy and representative of the art they believe should be available to American audiences.

A question is: does this selection of publishers really present the content that you want to read?

My own answer is no. These publishers have released amazing content. Without them, I wouldn’t own copies of Wandering Son, Ayako, A Distant Neighborhood,  or AX. But there is a lot of josei manga (which typically does poorly in the wider bookseller market) that I would like to read, and while Vertical has done a good job picking very “Vertical” josei titles, I want more.

Your own answer could vary. I want more geikiga, more historical manga, you might say. I want to read garo or experimental/avante garde manga. I want to read more sports manga. Mecha manga, cooking manga, etc. What do you want published that isn’t published right now?

Micropublishing is a labor of love. And sometimes it is hard business. But, another question: If you aren’t satisfied with the manga output in the US – why not do it yourself?

Review: Limit, Vols. 1-2

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Limit, Vol. 1Limit, Vols. 1-2
Written and Illustrated by Keiko Suenobu
Genre: Shojo/Survival/Horror
Publisher: Vertical Inc.
176 pages | $10.95 US, $11.95 CND
ISBN-13: 978-1935654568 (vol. 1)
ISBN-13: 978-1935654575 (vol. 2)

Seeing Vertical get into shojo was a bit of a surprise. Princess Knight, a Tezuka classic, was a highly demanded piece of work from the Tezuka fan-base that Vertical has cultured, so it wasn’t a surprise to see that published, but Limit is arguably their first attempt to break into a vampires, glitter, and flowers market (I say this endearingly, since the majority of manga I read is shojo).

Please note that this review may contain spoilers. Find out how to win the first two volumes of the series here!

Despite the genre it has been lumped into, Limit certainly follows Vertical‘s edgy, indie ethos. The story follows Mizuki Konno, a self-described “popular girl” who hangs with the right people in school and does the right things to stay popular. On the outside, she is bubbly, careless, but cute, hiding a calculating and stone-cold personality. Her clique picks on a few people, but none more than Morishige, a tarot otaku, making her the brunt of jokes and putting her in situations that embarrass her. The beginning of the book is very Mean Girls, but things suddenly change when the school trip to a week-long camp-out crashes deep into the Japanese forest. Suddenly, the matriarch of Konno’s clan is dead, and the girl at the bottom of the heap, Morishge, now controls the group of survivors with social manipulation and by wielding a scythe (a “tool” brought a long to the camp to cut long grass).

The power twist and destruction of social order in Limit is very reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. Controlling the one weapon gives Morishige all the power, and her rage at being tormented by her peers corrupts her decision-making. There are survival things going on here too, like catching fish and collecting other food, but the real action is Morishige’s maniacal leadership. Seeing how Konno and the other girls in the group react to Morishige is the strength of Limit, and its real draw for me in future volumes (plus a major plot twist I won’t reveal here at the end of volume 2).

Limit, Vol. 2Keiko Suenobu has had another piece of work published in the USA (Life, which was published in 2006 by TOKYOPOP) and her art seems to have improved substantially since that time. Limit is gorgeous. Great shading, dynamic panels, and some of the best power and action lines I’ve seen in shojo manga (or any manga for that matter) to date. Suenobu’s characters are well drawn and well conceived. Morishige as a tarot otaku is a great touch in the middle of volume one; the creepiness of the girl sitting in the middle of a pentagram performing tarot ritual is almost unbearable after seeing some of the proceeding scenes.

One thing that I don’t understand about Limit is its proposed audience. While Vertical claims it is a shojo manga (Limit was published in Bessatsu Friend a manga anthology for teenage girls, and the original publication place of The Wallflower, My Heavenly Hockey Club, Othello, and Mars) it doesn’t seem to fall in line with any of the shojo trends that are currently popular. This doesn’t mean it’s not good manga, just that I find it hard to accept that the target age group is going to really dig Limit. I expect that Limit is more likely to be read by horror fans, josei/seinen fans, and less by those looking for a standard rom-com.

For my money, Limit is one of the better series released in 2012. It has amazing art, really interesting social power interactions, and a riveting storyline. 2013 is going to be a great year of manga because of Limit.


For Fans Of: The Lord of the Flies, Mean Girls, revenge thrillers, any survival story ever
Final Verdict: Highly Recommended

Holiday Giveaway: Vertical Inc

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Heroman, Vol. 1

Earlier this month, I gave away two copies of Osamu Tezuka’s Barbara, a fantastic geikiga manga from Digital Manga Inc.’s Kickstarter initiative. This time I’m stepping it up by giving away copies of books from three separate series, all from indie/small press publisher Vertical Inc.

Vertical has published a lot of interesting manga this year, with plenty to come in the 2013 publishing year. I am looking forward to quite of few of their 2013 titles. But I liked a lot of their 2012 titles, including 5 Centimeters per Second, Limit, and Message to Adolf With that in mind, here’s the giveaway:

I’m giving away three separate prize packages:

A) 5 Centimeters per Second, by Makoto Shinkai and Yukiko Seike
B) Heroman vol. 1, by Taimon Ohta, Stan Lee, and Bones
C) Limit, vols. 1-2, by Keiko Suenobu

Rules/Guidelines:

1. In order to enter the contest, please leave a comment in this post telling me which of the three you want to enter for (you can enter for more than one or all if you choose), and then tell me what Veritcal Inc. manga you are looking forward to most next year. This can be a new release, something you’re already enjoying, or something they’ve already released and you are planning on getting, so think about it!

2. Non-North American readers are welcome to participate. Winners will be asked to verify their address via Twitter or email after the contest has ended. Participants have 3 days to respond to my request, or another participant will be drawn.

3. You can enter for a second chance to win by tweeting about the contest! Just make sure to mention my twitter handle, @mangawidget, when you do, so that I can see your entries.

4. Winners will be announced on December 27th! All entries must be sent in by 12 PM December 27th.

Good luck!

Review: Heroman, Vol. 1

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Heroman, Vol. 1Heroman, Vol. 1
Written and Illustrated by Tamon Ohta | Original Concept Stan Lee + BONES
Genre: Shonen/Science Fiction
Publisher: Vertical Inc.
203 pages | $10.95 US, $11.95 CND
ISBN-13: 978-1935654582

Imagine, for a moment, that you could turn a toy robot into a hulking super hero, just by wanting to be special. In a nutshell, that is the premise of Heroman, an anime from studio BONES, in coordination with Stan Lee. Tamon Ohta’s adaptation of this  television show into the medium of comics has its high and low points. Let’s run it through. Joey Jones is a pretty average kid who ends up finding a toy robot that’s been smashed. He uses his scientific know-how to fix it up, but when a strange calamity strikes, Joey finds out that his toy robot can transform into Heroman, a powerful semi-sentient robot.

First, without getting too specific about plot, Stan Lee’s influence is immediately visible. From the setting, the stereotypes (the nerd, the blonde cheerleader, the football jock, the supportive minority friend), to even the names of the characters, its clear that Stan Lee’s influence is pervasive. For those of you who don’t read American comics, Stan Lee is the creator of comics like The Amazing Spiderman, X-Men, The Fantastic Four, and more. Lee is even featured in some of the panels of the comic (much like his walk on appearances in most of the Marvel movies). And while Lee can construct some interesting fantasies, he requires that your suspension of belief be at maximum – and that’s not something that generally works for Heroman for an analyzing or critical reader.

Most stories in manga are implausible. Psyren for instance, is about a game where people travel back and forth through time, called forth by a mental psychic program called Nemesis Q. Not exactly believable. But what makes these implausible stories interesting is how characters interact, how the fantasies are called forth, and if the world created by these fantasies is cohesive. While Heroman certainly has its own breed of storytelling, I can’t say that it works for me as a critical reader. I find the characters to be what are essentially one-note stereotypes (our hero, Joey Jones is especially so, being nothing but a characterization of faith and doubt), and their interactions are then doomed to be similar stereotypes (the jock vs. the nerd, the hottie defends the nerd vs. the jock, etc.). The fantasies constructed are interesting enough (bug creatures invade the Earth, Heroman is our only hope, “with you, I can fight!”) but the way that they are constructed is haphazard.

More interesting is Joey Jones’ internal struggle in the later half of the book, although it ends in a very spectacular, over-the-top manner like the beginning of the book. We see him trying to come to grips with Heroman and his abilities, and his responsibilities (a la Peter Parker). Our hero manages to come out of his slump and successfully battles more bugs – with a bit of a twist ending that is certainly going to escalate the action in Volume 2.

Dispite my misgivings about the story construction, Heroman feels great for younger readers. There are a lot of messages about hope and friendship that we often see in shonen manga, but they are amped to 11 in Heroman. Younger readers who are more likely to suspend their disbelief, will find this bug squashing, ghost busting beat-em-up to be a real thrill, and it has a typical shonen ethos. I like this comic a lot in the traditional shonen age group, because it looks good, there is a lot of action, and it doesn’t bother getting technical about the fantasy. It’s all POW and WOW, and very little else. This is an untapped audience for most manga in the USA, Chi’s Sweet Home being a notable exception.

The production value on Heroman seems a bit lower than Vertical‘s regular releases. I assume this is because they are trying to fit into a price slot controlled by Viz Media, Kodansha, and Yen Press, but I am used to cleaner, whiter paper and higher-quality inks. This type of production is also present in releases of The Limit, which I will likely review next week. (of note, josei works like Sakuran and Paradise Kiss both have beautiful production, Vertical‘s standard).

Overall, I recommend Heroman to younger readers, but find that if you want your science fiction to be better explained, you aren’t going to enjoy Heroman. If you are turned off by stereotypes, Heroman again might not be your thing. Slightly lower production quality keeps it in an affordable price range, and this book (plus or minus a Heroman DVD) would be a great present for a 8-12 year old.

For Fans Of: The Amazing Spiderman, One Piece, “Friendship, Hard Work, and Victory”
Final Verdict: Recommended with reservations

Barbara Giveaway Results

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BarbaraThank you to everyone who participated in the Barbara give away – there was a lot of activity on Twitter, and  getting to read your responses was really awesome.

The winner of the contest, Lisa, had this to say about Tezuka’s works:

I am a huge Tezuka fan and have dedicated a bookshelf in my home to his works. My favorite is definitely Buddha! Currently I’m reading Message to Adolf. Have not yet read Barbara so I really hope I win!

Now, I said I was giving away a copy of Barbara, but I lied – it turns out that I’m giving away two copies! Our second winner, Vito, had this to say:

I’d say I prefer Ayako and Book of Human Insects over his lighter stuff, but I did buy Princess Knight as well, new to Tezuka but I am planning to expand my collection.

Well, congratulations Lisa Kraus and Vito Plahuta, you have both won! I will send a DM to your twitter accounts to get your information.

Everyone else – stay tuned! More contests coming next week!

Review: Barbara

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BarbaraBarbara
Written and Illustrated by Osamu Tezuka
Genre: Geikiga/Seinen
Publisher: Digital Manga Publishing
440 pages | $19.99 US
ISBN-13: 978-1569702826

I’m giving away a copy of this book as part of a series of holiday giveaways (check out the details here!)

Barbara has a very unique story as far as manga published in the West. The simple recap is that is it is the first volume of manga to be successfully published using Digital Manga Publishing‘s Kickstarter initiative. This has included 4 seperate Osamu Tezuka titles, with Barbara being the first, and UNICO, Astrocat, and Triton of the Sea being the others. DMP has also used Kickstarter to reprint Tezuka’s Swallowing the Earth.

Barbara is the story of Yosuke Mikura, an up-and-coming writer who, while in the tunnels of the Shinjuku station, finds a drunkard who can recite French poetry. He takes her home, and the rest of the volume are tales of the two together (and apart).

In some ways, Barbara shows the progression of Tezuka’s craft. In this comic, the beginning is rather segmented. The first five chapters might as well be short stories played with the two actors Barbara and Yosuke. Chapter six is where things start to get interesting. An old friend of Yosuke’s, an African writer, reveals to him that Barbara is a Muse who takes a suitable form to inspire artists and writers. Yosuke is originally incredulous, but things become more and more strange – and as the book progresses, the writing improves. Instead of being segmented, the story becomes continuous, and you don’t feel like you can read one or two chapters and set the book down.

While there are definite colors of “The Tales of Hoffmann” here (a muse visits and inspires an artist and has him fall in love with her), I can’t help but feel that Tezuka was also pulled into writing about an ongoing occult craze. The beginning of the book is much more classically oriented, and as it progresses, we see voodoo dolls and sacred witchcraft ceremonies. The two halves are disjointed. This doesn’t make it bad – the last section of the book is a real page-turner. But people looking for a straightforward story are likely to be disappointed.

This manga certainly falls in line with some of Tezuka’s crazier work (Swallowing the Earth being the prime example here) but isn’t quite as unrestrained, and while it is heavy handed with its discussion of art, the spirit of production, etc. it doesn’t seem to push the themes of moral decay and humanity the way that some of his other adult works have (Ayako, MW, Ode to Kirihito). Yosuke is presented as a sexual deviant in the first chapters of the book, and that theme of deviance could have been critiqued or used as theme in a fuller way, but it seems to have been abandoned for voodoo dolls and a black mass.

Overall, Barbara is fascinating and bizarre. While it isn’t as structurally sound or thematically deep as some of his other adult works, it certainly stands up as a piece of fiction. Tezuka lovers will find this an indispensable part of their collection, and casual readers can find a lot to love, provided you are ready for the crazy.

For Fans Of: Swallowing the Earth, Osamu Tezuka, The Venus of Willendorf
Final Verdict: Recommended

Manga Giveaway: Osamu Tezuka’s Barbara

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Hi all! It’s the winter holiday season, and giving gifts and spending time with the people you care about is an integral part of this time of year. With that in mind, and with a whole new season of blogging ahead of us, I am starting my holidays with some manga giveaways.

The first is the Osamu Tezuka manga Barbara - this manga is a psychadelic tale of art, muses, and the power of the mind. This manga was originally translated and published in English by Digital Manga Inc. using their Kickstarter campaign system. It turned out to be a fascinating read.

My full review will be up later this week, but to enter to win a copy, here’s what you do:

1) Leave a comment in the section below stating your favorite Osamu Tezuka manga. Did you find the fragile darkness of Ayako compelling, or are you more interested in his non-adult manga like Princess Knight?

2) You must be 18 and older to enter (Barbara contains mature content). Persons outside North America are welcome to enter! The winner will be asked to verify their age and address before I send out the manga.

3) You can enter for a second chance to win by tweeting about the contest! Just make sure to mention my twitter handle, @mangawidget, when you do, so that I can see your entries.

4) The winner will be drawn Friday, December 7th. Good luck!