Forum - View topicDo people buy anime and manga anymore?
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Shawn Shaolin
 Posts: 111 Location: New Jersey |
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Yes, yes I know the piracy issue. But it has a stranglehold on this industry. Anime and manga are my hobbies, and I like to have a library of both within my living quarters. This is becoming increasingly difficult to do, being that the only way to buy anime is in boxed sets, and right know I'm buying boxed sets for anime that came out six years ago. As with manga, my local comic shop gets nothing new ever and Barnes and Noble usually gets raided by the Friday afternoon crowd, and when I arrive that Saturday, I'm left with copies of Scott Pilgrim.
I don't want scanlations. I don't like pirated anime DVDs, and I don't want to kill my hard drive with episodes of Dan-Gai-Oh, or Armored Trooper Votoms. I fear I might have to. The newest anime I've watched was Baccano!! Am I alone in my plight? |
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Teriyaki Terrier
 Posts: 5689 |
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If people didn't buy anime and manga anymore, both industries would cease to exist.
Now in America, people are still buying, but not as much as in the past. There are several reasons, but through in through people (such as myself and others most likely) but being that I am a grown adult, I am not really sure about the generation below mine. But in the last four years, several manga/anime business have shut down either completely or solely in America. In 2007, Geneon (the North American division) shut down, but luckily, some of the Geneon titles that were on going were on going were saved by Funimation. In September 2009, ADV shut down entirely. However, ADV wasn't as lucky as Geneon. Although some series were saved, not a whole were. They also had a manga division as well, however that also was shut down as well. In April 27, 2009 Central Park also shut down. Out of every anime company I've seen go out of business, Central Park got hit the hardest. I've only heard of one series that was rescued from Central Park and it was The World Of Narue, a anime that is several years old. For about a year, Central Park did not license any new titles or really do anything, so it seemed like they had planned this a long while ago. As for manga, the only two companies I've seen go out of business are Broccoli Books and Tokyo Pop. Broccoli Books closed sometime in 2009 and Tokyo Pop shut down April 15 2011. The anime and manga industry is drastically different now and days from the 80's and 90's. Last edited by Teriyaki Terrier on Wed May 18, 2011 11:16 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TitanXL
 Posts: 4036 |
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Not sure what the problem with boxsets are.. they're a good thing.
Don't bother with American comic shops for manga, they're usually just there for a guy's girlfriend to browse while he checks out comics from my experience and most people instead go to bookstores for manga. And if people buy all the manga on Friday.. go before then. Simple solution. |
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Sea Lion
 Posts: 307 |
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I would suggest, since you're already sitting at a computer to type your message, maybe you should shop online. There are plenty of places, some of them advertising at the bottom of this very page, that sell completely legal, official anime and manga at very reasonable prices. Bonus: You never have to deal with the manga cows.
Big-box bookstores seem to be headed the same way video stores went, so online may be your only option, unless you have an independent bookseller nearby willing to special order your stuff. |
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Hypeathon
Posts: 1176 |
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I don't think you're alone as far as having the collecting mentality (that is what you mean right?). I want to buy as many anime DVDs myself as a personal means to feel like I can contribute in the anime market American or Japanese. However, I don't have the income or a job, or a credit/debit card so my ability to contribute is limited. Whenever I can get around to having the money, I would gladly buy a DVD set from Best Buy. But for now, I need to save up and be on stand-by.
That being said, I think for the anime market to be in a healthier state, at least in America, more people need to ultimately buy DVDs. That much is obvious. However I think more people outside of the anime community need to be aware of the shows that exist and are being released and be interested enough to buy them. Because at this point, it's been made clear that anime fans who care to buy DVDs and manga, whether they literally can or not, will attempt to buy them while others who don't care because they think the anime market is too flawed/crippled to bother supporting it or whatever, won't buy the DVDs. The problem with this lies with a few things. The first being lack of widespread exposure such as television, which television networks for the most part (there are a few exceptions though) reject anime for their own exclusive content which I guess is more profittable for them. And that's especially hard for dubs to serve a good-enough purpose because if anime shows with english audio can't be on television for a mass amount of people to see, then they don't objectively serve much of purpose other than saitsifying people who already like english dubs in anime. Then there's just lack of advertising and chain-stores outside of the internet and a couple of magazines for anime to catch any casual consumer's eye. Also I may alone on this, but I think because anime is for the most part very escapist entertainment (not to mention "foreign"), it makes anime hard to recommend to get people interested who aren't either kids, teens, or just nerds in general. I mentioned this in the "what do your family/loved ones think of anime" thread (and I'm wondering if I should make a separate thread about it), that I tried to introduce Big Windup, One Piece, SGT Frog among a couple of other shows to my 11 year-old sister and as much as she finds the shows and the characters in them funny, she finds any live-action teen sitcom on the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon or stuff like American Idol and Dancing with the Stars far more entertaining. She's more engaged in seeing actual people on camera act, be funny, sing, dance or be expressive than seeing a fictional character that doesn't remind her of anything she already knows. And I thinks this applies to a LOT of people who aren't anime fans or nerds in general. They seem to need entertainment to remind them of something to do with reality or current events in some form. Anyway, I do think people still care to buy anime DVDs and manga, but I think only to a small extent. How small? I don't really know, but I don't think it's in a steady increase for each passing year. At least not according to JETRO's updated American anime market charts. More people certainly need to buy DVD/blu-ray releases and manga, but the hard part is getting more anime fans and even non-anime fans to buy the content since there are obstacles preventing that from happening both for the companies and even us fans. In the mean time, we just need to try to buy whatever we like to buy if we can and care to buy it and keep trying recommending other people to buy. *Actually I just realized, don't you watch legally streamed shows Shawn Shaolin? Because I don't personally like to download anime and that's usually what I do if I can't buy a show on home video yet. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6897 Location: Kazune City |
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luffypirate
 Posts: 3187 |
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Check out the Retail section of the forum. People be droppin' mad cash on anime and all the related stuff. There's always gonna be pirates, but those ferocious spenders make up for it.
Keep that industry alive!! |
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hissatsu01
 Posts: 963 Location: NYC |
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None of this makes any sense to me unless you are somehow barred from shopping online. In terms or price or selection, there is no advantage to shopping B&M. |
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The King of Harts
 Posts: 6712 Location: Mount Crawford, Virginia |
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But you lose that sense of awkwardness when you hand the cashier your copy of the Strike Witches DVD and Dance in the Vampire Bund manga. |
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PetrifiedJello
Posts: 3782 |
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I disagree as I see it as another attempt at fear mongering.
No, just common sense, in my opinion. |
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DuelLadyS
 Posts: 1705 Location: WA state |
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Do people buy anime anymore? Of course. Do people buy anime in a B&M store anymore? Not so much. Most of us have given up on dredging outdated stock in favor of conveinient and cheaper online shopping. I reccomend you try it.
As far as boxsets go, that's just the industry finally figuring out we'd rather pay $30 dollars for half a season than $20 for a handful of episodes. It's not a sign of a slowing market. I mean, that has happened, but that's not part of the issue. Also... have you read those Scott Pilgrim books? They're pretty good, y'know. 
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Mr. sickVisionz
 Posts: 2175 |
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I think most of your issues would be solved by shopping online. Not only is there better selection, but the prices are cheaper as well.
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doctordoom85
 Posts: 2093 |
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Maybe not in terms of keeping all their original series in-print, but otherwise they were much luckier. ADV pretty much just transformed into Sentai/Section 23, whereas Geneon USA is gone for good. Anyway, it's not all doom and gloom. ADV didn't permanently die, they simply pulled a Jesus and returned anew as Sentai/Section 23. Geneon is gone, but they're semi-alive via Geneon Universal and are working with FUNimation on several new series. Central Park did die for good, I'll give you that, but we do have NIS America as a new emergence in the industry team. FUNimation and Sentai show no signs of slowing down, Bandai seems to be hanging in there, I'm giving Media Blasters another year before making any judgement calls (supposedly the switch from singles to first-release-boxsets is why several licenses are taking a while, but it seems to be a little TOO long at this point), Viz is.....Viz, and Nozomi licenses the occasional series as well as providing an excellent support to the industry with one of the best anime/manga stores out there. Manga-wise, it does look a little more on the unknown side with Borders gradually disappearing. Sure, there's B&N, but maybe it's just mine but my B&N barely has anything. It's got decent shelf space, but most of the stuff is random volumes of older series (though not always bad, I got vol. 1 of Dr. Slump there, never thought I'd find that at a normal price). Most of my Borders had a decent-excellent selection depending on the store, and what sucks is the one store closing of the several in my location had to be the one with the best selection.  I'm hoping most manga buyers will be able to make the transition to buying online, but we'll have to wait and see.
OP: until we start seeing the major players in the industry dropping like flies, there's no reason to be worrying too much. To pull out random numbers, Eva 2.22 sold 44,000+ units within a week or two of its release. That's pretty big for anime, and if you listen to the most recent ANNcast, there's been quite a few others that have sold very well. So there will most likely be enough financial supporters for anime (and hopefully manga) for some time to come. |
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EireformContinent
 Posts: 977 Location: Łódź/Poland (The Promised Land) |
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I've just got my Black Jack manga and wait for more, yea!
I just wonder what must be taken away to make a place on a bookshelf. My mangas:dvds ratio is incredibly high- same with books vs movies&tv series. I tend to come back to books and comics, but I hardly re-watch movies. It was a time when I was buying every anime I could afford, but later I sold most of them. I can take book or comic, read some pages to remember favourite fragment. My DVDs usually gather dust, so I don't buy them. I would be glad if CR or other legal stream would spread to Europe (or Animax will appear after... just kidding). |
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egoist
 Posts: 7762 |
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With the increase of body pillows' popularity the anime industry is safe for at least another 10 years until they start building anime cyborgs capable of sexual intercourse.
Though that most likely doesn't include your local industry as they're too stupid to print body pillow covers that would cost $10 at best to manufacture at the selling price of at least $45 RRP. |
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