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October 2008
With my past columns I have discussed pretty in depth the changes and issues that have changed and shaped the current manga market today. With this column I plan to conclude that look by bringing us to the present. When I left off Tokyopop had revolutionaries the industry. Before this, collections of manga were treated like American comic book collections, various page counts, various sizes, (ranging from tokuban (Japanese size) to comic book sized) and various costs! Ranging from $12.99 to $24.99, the collections made no logical sense how they were collected with many manga collections not reflecting the way they were originally collected in Japan. This all changed after Tokyopop set a standard size, similar to the tokuban size, set $9.99 prize, and content reflecting the size and same order as the Japanese collections.
It wasn't instantaneous, and Tokyopop had to move a lot of manga before this took hold, but once Viz, Dark Horse, and others noticed that people were more willing to try lots of Tokyopop books based on this look the effect began. Viz was among the first to switch, but it was slow and not uniform. Slowly, but surely they began to phase out their monthly books adopting a every other month, or every three month release schedule like Tokyopop did. This made many fans very happy as now, instead of a monthly issue a 1/8 of the size they were getting a thick collection every couple months of some of Viz's most popular titles (such as Inu-Yasha, Ranma ½, etc.). In turn most publishers over the course of two years followed suit. Monthly issues either stopped at logical stopping points (like the end of a story or series) or . . . just stopped. (One major problem was that many series did not inform their readers of the switch and several fans became furious). Besides the size and price switch Tokyopop's "authentic magna style" also took hold and many fans became snobbish refusing to buy anything that wasn't "authentic", able to be read the original Japanese right to left way, and therefore not flipped to read the left to right American way.
Nevertheless, hold outs existed. Dark Horse continued to publish individual issues for quite a while leaving Oh My Goddess! and Blade Of The Immortal eventually as the final series to be published as monthly issues. Dark Horse also balked the price drop usually settling into a $9.99 to $12.99 price range. However, they also didn't submit quickly to the other trend that Tokyopop's switch had done . . . reducing quality.
In rushing out many of their "100% authentic" manga titles Tokyopop made several printing errors and also published the books on a lower quality paper. Also the copying from the original artwork was more "grainy" or "smudged" and at times the English word bubbles looked very out of place. In perfecting the process, Tokyopop made several mistakes understandably, but the cut in cost to the consumer did mean a cut in level of quality.
In addition this switch prompted, added, or started (depending on who you ask) the influx and explosion of more and more American otaku buying magna and in general increasing the fandom for Japanese anime and manga. The ability to get more and more manga, and the price point, helped start a manga explosion. More to buy meant more was bought and the manga market quickly began to eclipse its American step-family: graphic novels. The increasing manga sales brought manga to the book stores and if you've never seen the huge manga selection at Barnes & Nobles or Borders . . . well you must be blind, or avoiding it. This explosion affected everyone in manga and added more and more names to the manga business, Del Rey and ADV (till recently) being the big names to join in, but other smaller studios joined in with more material then many old schools fans could imagine being published (in some opinions leading to a dilution of quality material being published. . . ).
Indeed within the past few years the manga market has boomed and just kept increasing in the American market. Once considered a bastard step-child of American comic books, within 20 to 25 years it has become the predominant form of graphic material published in collected format in American. The numbers sadly don't lie, and even as the manga market begins to experience a bit of a "cooling off" or "downturn period", depending on who you are, its changes . . . are many. But what effect have they had?
Well obviously the format changed and became more popular. Books are now often $9.99, though Viz has pushed the format cheaper with certain books being $7.99, with some books being $10.99 to $12.99 at other companies (such as Dark Horse). The format has become standardized and become a brand label with any new manga being published is done this way: smaller book sized format, printed right to left (as in Japan), kept under $15, with original Japanese sound effects kept in. The only variations now are special books they may be different collections (the new VizBigs come to mind), some are hardbacks (Barnes & Nobles original Hellsing and Trigun collections come to mind as well as the new Death Note and Bleach "special edition" 1st books) or were published at a different size originally in Japan. The standard has become such a "brand" that it is "manga" to most fans, to the point that Marvel publishes in this digest format in order to get some of the "manga" spill over or be grouped with them. The times they have changed (. . . and I've been there for all of it ... good or bad).
But what have we lost? Now there is a good question. The switch has had some negative side effects which are almost never dwelled upon and are not negatives to everyone, but even a negative to a few should be in a negative list.
- The lack of translation of side effects causes confusion for new readers. Most fans to be honest don't read them because they don't understand them, and often ignore the "sound effect translation" pages in the back of their manga. Although many companies just don't bother. This lack of translation benefits no one except those who read Japanese, which includes myself, but works full understanding, even if "diehards" (read "fanatics") believe it adds to the authenticity. While not a negative that is truly damaging it is a minor issue and one that will not be changed because it isn't cost effective. To change the side-effects requires art touch up time that just isn't worth it.
- Lower paper quality is again a cost cutting measure. While most of us wont' really notice it while leafing through our books it is something that has changed. Is it worth paying for? In the minds of most I would say no . . . but when you look at tokuban in Japan they are printed on very poor paper because . . . most Japanese don't keep all their books, they just read them quickly and then sell them back or get rid of them. This loss truly shows when a book is published at a higher quality such as special edition of a book, and although not a huge loss is something that has changed and not for the better.
- Popularity of the manga market has left many old school fans feeling . . . less unique and left out. While that really isn't a negative, they should be able to grow up, or just adopt a tougher skin, the issue becomes that as the market swells and grows and becomes bigger the market often becomes less about quality and more about quantity and trends and fads and . . . not the manga itself. In addition, this growth in fandom has led to growth in demand, which makes sense . . . and sadly a reduction in quality as to what is being offered. When demand was low, companies choose only the cream of the crop (mostly) to bring over and offer up as examples. Many classic and excellent manga was published early and has been reprinted a lot since then in various formats (Akira and Ghost In The Shell come to mind. . . ), but now with such a "boom" in the manga market a lot of . . . well just sub-standard crap is being published because the 1st and 2nd tier great stories have already been brought over and published. The current manga market is now full of much to recommend, as well as a lot to avoid.
- While most fans want the "100% authentic manga" experience, or at least believe they do, new fans and those we may want to enjoy manga can't wrap their heads around reading a book right to left. They just can't do it and this now static approach to it, again like the static must publish manga in the western left to right reading format, is costing acceptance. But does the fan base care? After all the popularity of manga has made the fan base one that was a niche market, that is still selling and aiming at . . . a niche market, just a bigger niche market.
- We also lose the uniqueness of presentation. By adopting one standard color for instance has disappeared from manga almost entirely. Where many companies played with color, and in some instances did horribly, or in others, like Akira, did a very interesting and well done job, either way this approach is gone. In trying not to be "just like American comics" any new or unique approaches are no longer tried or at least not very often. The only current unique publishing trend I've seen is the move to do "collector's edition" 1st books for titles like Bleach, Naruto, and Death Note. While nice and unique, their price point of $19.99 is a little outrageous and seems to more guarantee lack of new approaches then expansion.
- Finally, the main negative is imitation and the fact that as the market for manga has gone from a small niche to big niche imitators, both in terms of content and format, have popped up. As noted Marvel has looked at manga, wanting the number of sales badly, and predominately unsuccessfully tried to reproduce the feel and look, but not the approach in an attempt to hopefully catch the . . . easily confused? I'm not sure, but the idea of imitation extends to American attempts at "American manga", a sub-genre that has mostly left a bad taste in many fan's mouths. Again with a niche market the haters come out to tear something apart quickly, and not all "Ameri-manga" is bad, some of it really rocks, but the market has become flooded, in particularly by Tokyopop, with attempts at manga that are just recycled Japanese story ideas done by American creators in the hopes of owning a successful property. Those that started the revolution have signed their part of it away by taking an interesting idea and promoting it and following it too far.
In the end these ideas, both good and bad, have shaped the manga market and it isn't done being shaped. It is still growing and changing, and shrinking, to become a stable entity that isn't going anywhere anytime soon. We can look forward to sampling richly of the Elements of Manga for some time to come with rich tastes waiting us all . . . just go in with knowledge that the pieces everyone is trying to sell you have not always been packaged and treated the way they are now . . . for better or worse.
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