What kind of manga sells in the U.S.?

[Jukka Laine of Finland]

People at the Finnish message board Kvaak.fi (http://www.kvaak.fi) are discussing, do you Americans buy your mangas mostly as comic books, digests or deluxe graphic albums there?

And where do you buy them? At comic book stores, newstands, Wal-Mart or via subscription?

Here manga sells mostly at newstands and bookstores. Comic book and game stores sell imports. And almost only as digest-size books. Other European countries have manga comic books, but none here in Finland.

Jukka

[Buzz Dixon]

Manga's big breakout occured when Tokyopop began selling digest-sized graphic novels of 150-200 pages at $9.99. This was a price point and format readers felt comfortable with and they overwhelmingly buy manga in this format/price point range or something very close to it.

Other formats and price points sell, but this is clearly where the most popular titles are.

The big break out also occured when girls -- for whom there were virtually no comic books in America other than ARCHIE -- discovered the SAILOR MOON manga thanx to the anime series on TV and started looking for similar books. They looked for them mostly in the larger chain bookstores (Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million) as opposed to local comic book shops or smaller independently owned book stores. They would also buy manga in record stores (but the last of the big record store chains are going out of business), some video game stores, some clothing stores, and in bookstores located in Japanese/Far East Asian immigrant communities. There are now a handful of stores in the U.S. that carry only manga and anime; they seem to be surviving.

60% of manga's American audience is female, and for some companies their readership is 80% female.

[Jukka Laine of Finland]

Interesting. I don't think record stores or clothing stores have ever thought about selling comics here. But it's the same thing here, teenage girls are keen on manga. I don't know which titles are the best-sellers, but every title has avoided cancellation so far.

Traditionally, Disney comics outsell the other comics here. They tend to sell thirty times more as best-selling superhero, Spider-Man. And Spidey's sales are quite good, 10k in 5-million speakers' language. Donald Duck weekly sells 300k, 98 % via subscription.

Does anybody know how much manga really sells in the U.S.? What's the best-selling title and how many copies it has sold? How much the average titles sell? When did the big breakout occur?

[Alex L]

The most recent breakout I attribute to Cartoon Network.

It aired Gundam Wing and IIRC Cowboy Bebop around the same time, and was many people's first exposure to anime knowing that it was in fact Japanese in origin.

Before that, Sailor Moon aired, but I don't think it was really emphasized as being from Japan.

I don't remember if Dragonball Z was on a national channel. I remember that it aired on one of the local networks back in the day.

[Inkthinker]

I'd say [adult swim] and Tokyopop probably made the real "breakout" moves... I'm not sure that they did anything particularly special, but they were both in the right place doing the right thing at the right time to explode. [as] got a lot of good anime (and some pretty bad anime, too) onto television and TP got a lot of good manga onto the shelves of mass-market bookstores... in both cases, they were distributing to a fairly large audience rather than the more direct-market distribution that had made up a large part of the market prior.

[Buzz Dixon]

Well, it was kind of hard to hide the fact that SAILOR MOON took place in Japan. If nothing else the signage gave it away.

SAILOR MOON was the crucial tipping point because it awakened girls -- long abandoned by mainstream American comics* -- to the manga style and format. It only took a decade to go from a 90% male readership of comics to a 60% female readrship of manga.



















*ARCHIE excepted, of course...

[Sanagi]

Well, it was kind of hard to hide the fact that SAILOR MOON took place in Japan.
Which didn't keep Dic from trying...

(sorry, not the manga version, I'm just kneejerking here.)

[mathew101281]

science fiction/fantasy stuff

[Buzz Dixon]

A lot of genres, actually.

The Magic Pretty Girl
The Harem Comedy
Pretty Boys In Love (i.e., yaoi)
Samurai/Ninja/martial arts
Etc., etc., and of course, etc.

And there's all sorts of comginations, cross-blending, etc. Also, what is considered one genre in Japan -- LOVE HINA being a classic example, a shonen harem comedy -- might connect with an entirely different audience in the U.S. (where LOVE HINA is viewed as a "girls on top" comedy).

[Ghost]

And there's all sorts of comginations, cross-blending, etc. Also, what is considered one genre in Japan -- LOVE HINA being a classic example, a shonen harem comedy -- might connect with an entirely different audience in the U.S. (where LOVE HINA is viewed as a "girls on top" comedy).

Very Otaku Nitpic: I'm fairly sure Love Hina is considered to be a seinen harem comedy, technically. (Mostly due to the sexual content and young adult themes, such as university education.)

[The Xenos]

Manga's big breakout occured when Tokyopop began selling digest-sized graphic novels of 150-200 pages at $9.99. This was a price point and format readers felt comfortable with and they overwhelmingly buy manga in this format/price point range or something very close to it.

Other formats and price points sell, but this is clearly where the most popular titles are.

Dear crap. Thank you for being someone else who has relized this. Someone who remembers the comic/manga market past five years or so! Huzzah!

60% of manga's American audience is female, and for some companies their readership is 80% female.

I will concur that the importing of shojo is a huge factor in the manga boom as well. Though Dark Horse never took off with Ah My Goddess, so I think that price and size point is still a major factor. Also, selling to chain store retailers due to the new size and price allowed fans to just go to major chains and get them.

[Althalus]

Though Dark Horse never took off with Ah My Goddess, so I think that price and size point is still a major factor.
IIRC OMG was one of their top titles when it was still monthly in floppies. After they switched to direct-to-TPB I don't know what happend exactly. I'd like to buy them, because they now have the only unflipped version (and color pages) on any western market I know of. But they just don't publish. The next planned volume is already 5 months late with five more volumes waiting in solicitation-limbo. So I say it's at least in part a problem of their own making if it "didn't take off" again.


~Althalus

[Alex L]

Very Otaku Nitpic: I'm fairly sure Love Hina is considered to be a seinen harem comedy, technically. (Mostly due to the sexual content and young adult themes, such as university education.)

Chobits starred a college-age male, yet was still considered shounen.

Plus, Wiki says (for whatever that's worth) it was serialized in Weeky Shounen Magazine.