Forum - View topicNEWS: Viz Takes Ownership of top 10 Manga
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Hi no Neko
 Posts: 204 Location: Austin, TX |
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Woo! Go Naruto.
My dad's gonna love this. |
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Advent_Nebula
Posts: 932 Location: Colorado |
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All I got was Bleach 10 and FMA 4.
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dmanjdb
Posts: 114 |
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I remember some years ago VIZ were selling manga in a typical comic book format for $4 and Graphic Novels for $20. Then Tokyopop came and brought the actual manga format and made millions and made Viz looked tired.
And now Viz not only followed Tokyopop trail but they improve the format with Shonen Jump titles, SJA, Shojo Beat and tons of quality manga. And now is Tokyopop that looks tired. And a prediction. I see Viz going strong in 2006 with Monster, Golgo 13, ROD and more SJ & SB. Tokyopop needs to wake up now. |
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GoodLuckSaturday
 Posts: 567 Location: Indiana |
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I got those, Hot Gimmick, Naruto 8, and Kenshin 21, but as I was buying almost all of my manga for this month, I noticed for the first time that the shift of titles I'm reading have almost entirely become Viz titles exclusively, so I'm not too surprised at this, given the extreme popularity of their franchises, although I didn't know Hot Gimmick and Hana-kimi were as popular as they were. |
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huh?
 Posts: 130 Location: playing trumpet w/ jesus |
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hopefully this will lead to a giant step up in all aspects of other manga comanies. properties, pricing, timing of releases, etc, etc. darkhorse i dont have many problems w/. its more tokyopop
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darkhunter
 Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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Well when you own insanely popular titles like Naruto and Bleach, of course you're going to be on top. Tokyopop was on top a few years ago with Fruit Basket and Love Hina dominating the character. The problem now is a lot of the popular are already license and anything shonen jump will go to Viz. But still TP still license good manga like Beck, that nobody's checking and definitely better than most of the Viz's shonen jump. And remember, there are also other manga publisher beside TP and Viz. Del Rey and Dark Horse are doing pretty well even with the slightly higher price tag. |
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barbapapa
 Posts: 224 Location: Belgium |
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yeah... Viz pretty much owns the US manga market
almost every major franchise goes in one of their line-ups the fact that Tokyopop or Dark Horse dont even have line-ups speaks for itself... much different than whats going on in France, so many publishers there they HAVE to cooperate to be profitable |
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darkhunter
Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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However, Dark Horse has been licenseing a lot of good seinen manga that might not be popular but damn good. Eden is a good example. I rather see good titles than popular ones. |
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barbapapa
Posts: 224 Location: Belgium |
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I wont argue with that, nor will I argue Dark Horse's quality (they should license Hideo Yamamoto's manga dangit). I was just making an obvious statement, its not good when 1 publisher hogs away all the attention. Tho I cant say Viz has really let me down (except for some of their SJ titles), I admit Im very fond of the shounen genre. So its not a matter of good or popular or not, Viz just delivers a lot of titles that I love. But Viz (and the entire market for that matter) needs more competitors that strive to bring us quality manga, like Del Rey imo. I really want more Kodansha stuff, Afternoon's series are bliss. |
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Reliak
Posts: 50 |
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The problem with Tokyopop is that they're spending so much $$$ on Amerimanga, and picking up a lot of the less well known Japanese titles. They still have Fruits Basket, but they're slowing the release of that down (volume 12 in December, volume 13 in April). |
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barbapapa
Posts: 224 Location: Belgium |
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Tokyopop has become a bit of a trashy publisher imo, when I look at the stuff they license... Quantity over quality; Im really quite hesitant to keep buying stuff from them tho there are about 1 out of 10 titles that are really worth purchasing. To see some genuinely good titles suffering from this; at the pace that Beck is being released, 1 every 4 months... come on... |
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dmanjdb
Posts: 114 |
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The last 2 posts shows TP's biggest problem. I rather buy a manga that will come 2 months tops that one that take 5 months. Some of my freinds are looking for scans of Beck because they can't wait (which is wrong). But they will wait for Blech and Eyesheild 21.
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barbapapa
Posts: 224 Location: Belgium |
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wether its wrong or not is debatable if they do purchase the volumes eventually but that is like 3 volumes in a year, seeing as Beck is already at its 24th volume in Japan; unless Tokyopop picks up the pace for it, thats gonna be 8 years worth of collecting (and thats assuming the series ends now... which it wont) *sighs* |
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darkhunter
Posts: 2992 Location: Los Angelas |
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I would assume that American Manga are actually less expensive because they only come out once every six month, don't require license fee and translator. By licensing a manga, you're paying top dollar and on top of that, having to hire a translator and putting out a manga every 3 month. TP itself is taking a lot of risk with uncertain titles and usually a title will be pretty good. Viz like to play on the safe size, they are handfed all their titles from their parent companies. 2nd, I don't know how releasing manga slower effect the title from being on top. Looking at Viz's Naruto, Naruto is taking just about 4 month per volume, yet it's selling well. Beck is taking just as long it's because people aren't buying the BECK manga. So maybe if more people started buying Beck it would be release faster, but nOOO, like the guy above, he rather read scanlation and complain. And blame the slower release date to bookstore that have been oversaturated with manga. By next year, look to see everything that doesn't sell well to be scale back. And lastly, I think the misconception again that popular = good. A lot of popular titles are pretty overrated (look at Ichigo 100%), and usually overshadow the lesser more well written titles. Bleach is higly overrated shonen fanfare, Kenshin might be good but fail when compare to amazing titles like Vagabond. But because all the kiddys and adult love Bleach, it's going to sell well. There are definitely good titles that arn't popular, but it's sad that nobody even bother to take a look at them. Dead End, Smuggler, BECK, Blame and so on. Viz definitely has some good titles like Blue Spring, Sexy Voice and Robo, but it's not like they're topping the charts. So instead of just buying all the popular shonen and shojo book of the same thing, try something new and help out lesser known but good titles. Viz is on top (selling) simply because they have the popular shonen and shojo title. And continue to have easier access to all the popular title from their parent company Shueisha. As long as Viz continue to pump out Editor's Choice or Signature Edition, than I'm happy. Last edited by darkhunter on Thu Dec 08, 2005 10:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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barbapapa
Posts: 224 Location: Belgium |
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I can twist that theory right back at you and say that unpopular does not equal good per sé... what makes a title good is a person's opinion, and they all differ Imo Dead End is the biggest piece of trash I ever tried reading, and Im all for more alternative manga as much as I enjoy my shounens, I love Blame!, YKK, Mushishi... But I wanted to gauges my eyes out with a burning toothpick with Dead End. But that doesnt matter, there will always be smaller titles that NEED to be encouraged to people; I bet not a lot of people are buying Cromartie High School when I think its one of the most hilarious things out there Complaining that they dont sell wont help, its not the fault of popular series that they dont sell; if everyone would be buying smaller and unknown series those would become popular wouldnt they? And then people would blame them for other series not selling well. Its a vicious circle. Just encourage people to read and buy what you think is underappreciated. And hope that they like it, if not; well then just keep in mind that not all of the manga-readers out there are as openminded or commited. |
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