The sad part is that what was once a giant industry is shrinking fast, and the elements of manga that are perhaps most important for fans to read about are sadly the ones tied to sales and not to creativity. The Manga Industry is not dead, far from it, but it is definitely having to transform and its rebirth is extremely painful right now. In America and Japan, established manga magazines and manga companies are downsizing or disappearing and this effect lends a long shadow over the future of manga.
The recent announcement that DC Comics CMX brand, their attempt to publish manga in the United States would be ending in June, even with dozens of books solicited and obviously worked on that will never see the light of day or make DC a dime. Now there are two possible reasons for this to have happened. First, and pretty likely, is that DC is licensing this material for publication. This license is likely up for renewal and instead of renewing it they decided it wasn't making enough money and ended their manga titles at the same time. All the licenses could have been up for renewal at the same time, or close too, and rather then put more money toward a deemed "unprofitable" market they just cut it off. It became a sudden decision. DC had several books already solicited, which obviously had work done on them because it takes months to get a manga book ready for publication, but the money it would take to put toward keeping the license for another year, maybe several years, versus calling the future money being put out a loss and not committing a larger sum toward a losing money market seems really likely. There is a second possibility though . . . CMX could have been hemorrhaging money. Losing so much money that DC is just getting out now. Doesn't matter if they have the licenses for a bit longer, doesn't matter if they started putting money toward future books, they have just lost too much and DC is cutting it's losses quickly and definitively. They are done. Both these theories are actually very likely, but neither is a good answer or a hopeful answer when it comes to manga.
I've talked before about the discontinuation of Shojo Beat, or the disappearance of most of Tokyopop, but now Yen Press is canceling their Yen Plus magazine with it's July 2010 issue, morphing it into an online content magazine, leaving Shonen Jump at the physical manga magazine left printed in America. In Japan several manga magazines are disappearing as well, with their popular titles being shifted to other magazines or left unfinished. Many of the manga magazines recently canceled are aimed at children or young teens, 
being the one I'm most familiar with. (Yes, I was only reading it for the Transformers Henkei manga, just like I'm only reading KeroKero Ace now for the Transformers Animated manga, but I like what I like . . . )
One interesting element of this is I know what I like and I like having manga in my hand to read. This is an element of manga that I think is kind of overlooked by most otaku in favor of the other element that it affects: cost. Getting things online and on the computer is always cheaper, whether it is through an official site or bootleg. Garrett Albright in this article (http://yenplus.info/) mentions this factor that is slightly ironic, since anyone reading it, or this, is obviously reading stuff on a computer screen, and popular standards for reading manga are really against this. More fans would just be able to read their manga anyway they can for cheaper then pay money for it to hold it in their hand and put it on their bookcase. It is the reader mentality vs. the old school collector mentality, and it is something I've had to accept for a while now. And I'm not going to raise up arms against it. Fans change and that's fine, however the rate of this change is much higher in manga then say in typical American comic books for several reasons.
First, let's take a trip back in our way back machine, and look at the elements of how manga spread in America. It was spread through fans sharing original manga tokuban that most of them couldn't read because they were from Japan, and fans seeing the anime that were based on many manga that fans could get a hold of before the wide use of computers and fan sub so more fans could enjoy it. Fansubbing spread anime's appeal and in the early days of otaku online presence fans would haunt message boards and get tapes from the original fansubbers or anyone who had them, sometimes resorting to buying them from vendors online or from eBay. In those days almost everything fan subbed had not been licensed for American release and most fansubbers agreed that fan subbed copies should be destroyed of a series once it had been licensed, even if the fan subbed version was better then the corporate version. This was done to encourage more anime to be sold and it worked, or so it seems.
Fansubbers are still a very prevalent feature online and their variety of quality is very wide, but they allow many fans to get anime early and before domestic release. This has led to most corporate releasers of anime to realize that they loose sales because most fans who see the anime fan subbed won't buy it. It's just the way fans are now. Before many of them would, they had to own it as well as see it, now most are fine with just seeing it. So companies like Viz and Funimation have started to make new episodes of series they own available within a week professional "fan subbed" and ready to go to keep the need for fansubbing reduced. Manga has not created such a network. Some manga, like Rumiko Takahashi's new Rin-ne are being shown online before physical publication, but most aren't and most fans just don't want to buy tokuban anymore, in America or Japan, so they are going online and avoiding any kind of wait or cost. In comparison to downloads or American comics, they are probably close to 100% or a 1000% more sites where fans can download or view manga for free.
The availability is out there, manga is easy to find and get. I can search for any manga title I want now and read it or download it in probably five minutes, twenty at the most, even for many obscure titles. However, this ease of access is just reducing the number of manga being published in both America and Japan. And mostly only the hardcore older fans with internet access are reading it this way. Many of those still buying Naruto on the newsstand or have Shonen Jump subscriptions are older fans who still prefer a physical book or those too young to be online for hours reading, and want the Yu-Gi-Oh or Naruto trading game card more then the magazine. I don't know, but these trends are what is leading to a lot of manga just not being published. Which is where the market is headed, though where it will end up is anyone's guess . . .
Jya mata otakus!
As always you can reach me at vdf1@hotmail.com
being the one I'm most familiar with. (Yes, I was only reading it for the Transformers Henkei manga, just like I'm only reading KeroKero Ace now for the Transformers Animated manga, but I like what I like . . . )
Jya mata otakus!
As always you can reach me at vdf1@hotmail.com