Forum - View topicNEWS: Toren Smith predicts manga industry to go bust
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Aaron White
Old Regular
Posts: 1365 Location: Birmingham, Alabama |
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Head honcho of Studio Proteus sells the business, predicts a manga bust to follow manga boom.
http://www.tcj.com/259/n_proteus.html |
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king_micah
 Posts: 994 Location: OSU |
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It may bust, but the bust won't be total. It will just force the crap off the market. And some of that crap is gold in certain Demographics. I might not be a fan of Bishy plots, but they sure as heck get the fangirls out there.
I think he mostly is tired and sees a good time to sell. The market will keep growing for a while, but the boom won't be exponetial, and he wanted out before anyway. |
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lianncoop
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 1705 Location: Indiana |
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Question: Compared to Japan/Korea...what percentage of titles are actually brought over to America?
It may seem like a lot of titles are flooding the market right now, but compared to Japan it's probably nothing. Of course, the Japanese are a completely different audience than the Americans. I think the manga industry has the same question as the anime industry floating around its head, "When is the backlash gonna come?" You can only saturate the market so much until it backfires. Granted the industry won't disappear, but it's almost like this whole "anything and everything Japanese is cool" thing is a fad. Last edited by lianncoop on Wed Apr 14, 2004 3:28 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Toboe
 Posts: 138 Location: Rakuen |
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It really depends on how long they continue to flood the market with EVERYTHING that comes down the pike. Do we need a two-disc special edition volume one with box, plushy, tee-shirt, panties, kleenex and limited edition action figure for Nurse Witch Komugi-chan? No, no we don't. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of these companies are following a Japanese business model, wherein the product needs to sell far, far fewer copies in order to make it worth the producer's worthwhile. If they start focusing on releasing quality titles - and perhaps leaving the falderal in Japan a while longer instead of pushing it to the top of the heap (Gungrave, anyone?), we might not see such an immediate backlash.
I for one think that there are enough anime fans right now to support almost every major show on the market. Stuff like Gun Frontier won't sell, but you'll push enough copies of mildly popular titles like Gravion to keep it afloat. It seems like there's either interest or there isn't; like, we either know and care about a show or we don't. Not a lot of middle ground. I don't predict a huge bust for anime, but perhaps a dropoff in popularity and maybe a shakeup for some of the smaller publishers; we might see CPM and Media Blasters go away, for example. Nobody really knows for sure. Just my thoughts. |
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lianncoop
Past ANN Contributor
Posts: 1705 Location: Indiana |
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Do you feel the same way about manga? ^_~ |
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Toboe
Posts: 138 Location: Rakuen |
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The two are inexorably tied to one another. My comments extend to both. So there! |
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lianncoop
Past ANN Contributor
Posts: 1705 Location: Indiana |
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Sorry, misread your post.
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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I personally don't see a giant bust coming for manga. Sure, eventally the boom will slow down, but I don't see the number of titles being released to be cut down drastically. Sure, some people may get into manga as a "fad" thing, but as most people who are anime and manga fans know, once you've become a fan of the medium, it's hard to stop liking it. Unless everyone who get into the "fad" are buying just crappy manga titles *cough* yugioh *cough* they're seeing that there is really some good quality entertainment out there to be discovered. Yes, manga will most likely slow down here, but if you want to take a look at what to expect for manga in America, I suggest you take a look at other western countries that have taken it on. Germany, France, and other countries have been into manga for many more years then us, and it's still a booming business.
I cannot tell you how many girls at school I've converted to manga on plain shoujo manga alone, and I see shoujo manga in America as possibly eventually becoming a big market. Lots of American teenagers, sadly, don't want to pick up and read books. Manga is the answer for these people, and well, teenage girls are discovering titles such as Peach Girl, Hot Gimmick, and Hana Kimi. The era of comics being just for guys is coming to an end, so with manga saturating the graphic novel market here, it's actually helping the comic market by brinnging in female readers. I'll tell you now though, most of the girls I have gotten into the shoujo manga aren't really that intrested in anime. But still, I tell them where they can buy the next issue of a manga, and a week later I see they really went out and bought it. I really don't see manga as being a "fad" with girls, because, well, have comics ever been a "cool" thing for girls? Manga is just starting to get accepted into American culture, and it's popping up in the mainstream, and magazines such as Time are writing about it. Every day people are being introduced to it, and they're reading it because they generally like it, not because it's a fad. I think calling it a fad is, well, just not correct. Manga is a medium of entertainment, like TV, and books. It's sort of a new way to communicate. Plus, not all manga is the same, stories are constantly changing, and more stories are popping up. Fads are just a craze of something that doesn't really... change. Then it gets "out of style" and then it gets dropped. |
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lianncoop
Past ANN Contributor
Posts: 1705 Location: Indiana |
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So, shounen titles like Yu-Gi-Oh are considered a fad thing...?
Which is why it would be like a fad now...since it's never been considered cool before now. So, everyone is jumping on the bandwagon.
So now no manga is a "fad." Manga is manga...within manga are different stories. Manga itself doesn't change. I'm saying the whole recent Japanese craze thing is more of a fad. Comics used to be HUGE...where are they now? I would've considered comic books to have been a fad...all the rage at the time, but now it's died off and only a handfull of fans remain. |
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littlegreenwolf
Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Graphic novels aren't just another tamagachi thing that goes out within two months, it's also something recognized as an artform.
Anyway, yes, shonen manga like Yugioh ARE fads. Look at Pokemon, which is the same a Yugioh, it was a fad, now Yugioh has taken the fad's place. I'm not saying the manga ALONE is a fad, I'm saying everything with the name Yugioh is a fad. 5 Years from now people probably won't even remember much of it. Reading comics is still "not cool" for girls. It's an odd thing for them, and it's connected to tom boys. I for one can tell you I am not a "Cool" person, so the people I'm introducing to manga aren't reading it because I read it, they're reading it because they find the story intresting, and because they're liking it. Not because they saw an outcast to society read it. Manga itself is not a fad, it's just another form of communications. I can see many titles in manga becoming fads, but all manga becoming a fad just doesn't seem possible to me. It's like people saying books are a fad now, because everyone is reading Harry Potter. |
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Goshin
 Posts: 288 Location: Illinois |
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I don’t think Comics lost its’ popularity. In fact, in recent years, the comic book business has been flourishing and its’ fandom has been growing. There wouldn’t be countless movies (good or bad) based off of comics if the fan base wasn’t there. So, I think it’s a safe to assume that there’s just little bit more than a handful out there. 
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Godaistudios
Posts: 2075 Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment) |
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Perhaps it has lost its popularity and the comics industry is trying to revitalize by creating those movies instead?
Creating a new fanbase is never a bad thing. Just a thought 
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10460 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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I can't say I disagree entirely about the amount of crap being imported.
Commercial manga enjoys a couple cultural factors that make it inherently better than mainstream North Amercan comics, but only slightly better IMHO. There's still a lot of crap manga and anime regardless. Previosuly the North American market enjoyed a great situation where most imported manga was among the best titles thatthe manga industry had to offer. Today companies are taking whatever they can get... witness ADV's recent acquisition of numerous titles no-one has evenheard of. Who knows, some of them might be really good, but I have my doubts about the majority. |
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Goshin
Posts: 288 Location: Illinois |
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Agreed. I love the fact that the comic book industry is creating a new fan base. That goes without saying. But, I personally don't think the "old one" has "died off" per se. You'd be surprised who still collect comic books in this day and age. I could go on and on...but, judging by the topic, my comments are not necessarily helping a good discussion. Plus, if you link my reasoning with my avatar  ....then yeah, we could be here forever, and that would be going off topic.
BTW..my favorite comic book writers are Niel Gaiman and Brian Azzerallo.
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10460 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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I don't think you've been paying a lot of attention to the comic book industry's financial side. Sales have been in a freefal since 1993, Marvel went bankrupt, etc... It wasn't until 2001 that comic book sales started to go up, in fact they went up quite impressively between 2001 and 2003 (31%), but they still lag far behind where they were 12 years ago... In otherwords, I'd say that Liancoop's statement about comic books losing popularity to be quite true. I don't think I'd go as far as her and call them a fad, but its hard to argue that they haven't lost a lot of their popularity. |
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