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What happened to D.Gray-Man?


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Ambimunch



Joined: 30 Aug 2012
Posts: 2012
PostPosted: Mon May 05, 2014 8:06 pm Reply with quote
I finally got to watching D.Gray-Man, and after the final episode I was a little confused. As such, I did some digging around to find out the state of the franchise---sadly, it seems it's a train-wreck the way it is now.

The anime did not go for an original ending, like many anime whose manga is ongoing do, it just kind of ended without a conclusion. I assume it ended due to the show being too close to the source material. However, unlike long running shonen manga that get a chance to progress the story while the anime is on filler arcs, D.Gray-Man couldn't do that. And that's the second problem, the manga was dropped from shonen jump and was picked up by another magazine, however, with the new acquisition it became monthly rather than weekly. As such, I assume the anime ended becasue it would be too long before the manga got ahead enough (only releasing once a month).

I also checked out the state of the manga, which isn't that much better it seems. The author had health issues, and she took long breaks from publishing new chapters of the manga. As of today, it seems the latest chapter released in December 2012...

Aside from the issues the series experienced in Japan (manga on long hiatus and anime dropped prematurely), the series even had complications in the West. Funimation licensed the series for a dub, but dropped it half way. Only 51 episodes got dubbed (out of 103). Furthermore, the show was scheduled to release on DVD and Blu ray, then something happened, and the blu ray release got canned (to date only the first 13 episodes are on blu ray).

-If anyone knows, why did Funimation drop D.Gray-Man? (rumors on forums suggest that it didn't sell well enough to cover the costs of licenses for the latter seasons, but I'm not sure if that is true?)

-Second, does anyone know what's up with the manga? Is the author still unwell or is she simply not feeling the manga anymore?

-Finally, does anyone know the shows ratings? I would assume they weren't too great since they dropped the anime, but nonetheless, I kind of believe that it may resume for a few more seasons if the manga was to finally end.
Thanks
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Spotlesseden



Joined: 09 Sep 2004
Posts: 3514
Location: earth
PostPosted: Mon May 05, 2014 9:14 pm Reply with quote
D.Gray-Man follows the manga. It has no ending because the manga is on hiatus and there is not enough manga to continue.
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hyojodoji



Joined: 08 Jan 2010
Posts: 586
PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 2:10 am Reply with quote
Ambimunch wrote:
-Second, does anyone know what's up with the manga? Is the author still unwell or is she simply not feeling the manga anymore?

In the April 2013 issue of Jump SQ, the magazine has said the D.Gray-man manga will not appear due to the author's illness. The magazine has also said that the resumption date is not yet fixed.
'The author's illness' may or may not be the true reason, but it is difficult for outsiders to know what the true reason is. Even if you ask a Shūeisha staffer about that matter, probably he/she will reiterate the 'official statement'.

Ambimunch wrote:
-Finally, does anyone know the shows ratings? I would assume they weren't too great since they dropped the anime, but nonetheless, I kind of believe that it may resume for a few more seasons if the manga was to finally end.
Thanks

Roughly speaking, D.Gray-man's ratings were 3% or so. It was rather a smaller figure than Sazae-san's approx. 20%, though. w
 
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jl07045



Joined: 30 Aug 2011
Posts: 1527
Location: Riga, Latvia
PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 3:26 am Reply with quote
hyojodoji wrote:
'The author's illness' may or may not be the true reason, but it is difficult for outsiders to know what the true reason is. Even if you ask a Shūeisha staffer about that matter, probably he/she will reiterate the 'official statement'.


What I've heard is that she has arthritis. Whatever the case, an illness is a good guess, because apart from being the character designer for Valvrave, she hasn't really done anything else lately.
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hyojodoji



Joined: 08 Jan 2010
Posts: 586
PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 7:54 am Reply with quote
In 2ch's D.Gray-man manga thread, a 2channeller said, 'Whilst there are various rumours about what disease Hoshino Katsura suffers from, the exact name of the disease has been not yet officially announced. Sadly, I have started to suspect that the disease which she suffers from is Togashi's disease.' w
 
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Touma



Joined: 29 Aug 2007
Posts: 2651
Location: Colorado, USA
PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 9:44 am Reply with quote
hyojodoji wrote:
Togashi's disease.'

I had no idea what that might be.
Some time on Google tells me it means that nobody really knows what is wrong with him but his so-called "fans" do not hesitate to accuse him of just being lazy.

I do wish that Funimation would release more.
I love Lenalee.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 9902
Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC
PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 10:58 am Reply with quote
Touma wrote:
hyojodoji wrote:
Togashi's disease.'

I had no idea what that might be.

person#1608
manga#1899
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Touma



Joined: 29 Aug 2007
Posts: 2651
Location: Colorado, USA
PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 11:03 am Reply with quote
Thank you for the links.
But I do not see anything about "Togashi's disease" on either of those pages.
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dormcat
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PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 3:22 pm Reply with quote
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Tony K.
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Joined: 18 Nov 2003
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Location: Frisco, TX
PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 4:31 pm Reply with quote
Touma, Tagashi is the name of the guy who does the Hunter X Hunter manga, and he is notorious for taking multiple/long hiatuses. The running joke is that Hoshino, the woman who does D.Gray-Man, has what he has, which is kinda' ironic since they both write popular shounen titles.
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Touma



Joined: 29 Aug 2007
Posts: 2651
Location: Colorado, USA
PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 4:44 pm Reply with quote
Tony K. wrote:
Touma, Tagashi is the name of the guy who does the Hunter X Hunter manga, and he is notorious for taking multiple/long hiatuses.

So, does this mean that "Togashi's disease" really is just a way of saying that he is lazy?
And people are now using it to call Hoshino lazy?
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Tony K.
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Joined: 18 Nov 2003
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PostPosted: Tue May 06, 2014 5:03 pm Reply with quote
Could be. Since nobody really knows why she's always on hiatus, all people can do is speculate.
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GrayArchon



Joined: 28 Feb 2011
Posts: 393
PostPosted: Wed May 07, 2014 12:42 am Reply with quote
Touma wrote:
Tony K. wrote:
Touma, Tagashi is the name of the guy who does the Hunter X Hunter manga, and he is notorious for taking multiple/long hiatuses.

So, does this mean that "Togashi's disease" really is just a way of saying that he is lazy?
And people are now using it to call Hoshino lazy?


Yes, "Togashi's disease" is just a way of saying that he's lazy. They've never claimed health problems for his hiatuses, nor any other reason, leading people to naturally conclude he's simply being lazy. This line of thinking is bolstered by things such as the art for weekly chapters of Hunter x Hunter often being of extremely poor quality, even when he's theoretically had a long time to work on the chapters. A problem often, but not always fixed for the volume releases. Likewise his latest, and longest hiatus coincides with the period of time the Hunter x Hunter anime was being quite successful, and his return coincides with the anime likely reaching close to wrapping things up. Which suggests that as long as revenue from the anime was coming in, he didn't feel the need to work.

Yes, people are using it to call Hoshino lazy. That they actually cite unspecified health reasons for her hiatus raises the likelihood of her actually having a chronic illness. It's entirely within her right to privacy to not specify what illness that is. However without knowing what she actually suffers from, people aren't as inclined to be understanding or sympathetic. By comparison, Kannagi's author had to stop the series for a while suddenly, and while gossip mongers liked to claim it was due to fan backlash against development in the series, it eventually returned, and in the first volume after it's return the author explained what health problem she suffered from. It likely does not help Hoshino avoid comparisons to Togashi that D.Gray-man's art dropped in quality before she moved to a monthly magazine, and even then the art tended to be messy, and the chapters short for a monthly magazine.

So the bottom line is that what happened to D.Gray-man is that the manga is on indefinite hiatus citing unknown health problems on the author's part. As such the anime flat out stopped when it ran out of material.

Why Funimation stopped the dub is not entirely known. Reportedly the official reason was licensing issues, but the series being insufficiently profitable is quite plausible as well. Nor are the two mutually exclusive. "Licensing issues" could easily be PR speak for "The series wasn't selling well enough for us to license the rest of it at the same price, but they aren't willing to come down on the price."

I don't know what the series rating was while airing in Japan, but if hyojodoji is correct and it was averaging around 3.0%, that's actually fairly good. Though how good depends on other context like timeslot it aired in, and the performance of surrounding series. What's awesome for Saturday morning could be average for Monday night, and piss poor for Sunday morning for example.
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Touma



Joined: 29 Aug 2007
Posts: 2651
Location: Colorado, USA
PostPosted: Wed May 07, 2014 8:12 am Reply with quote
@GrayArchon

Thank you very much for taking the time to write that.
It was a very informative post.

Since Funimation will probably never release more of the anime I should probably try reading the manga.
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Raftina



Joined: 15 Mar 2011
Posts: 3282
PostPosted: Wed May 07, 2014 10:21 am Reply with quote
The manga is on hiatus and didn't pause at a convenience place. The anime, at least, ends at the end of an arc and has an obvious sequel hook at the end. I would say that reading the manga would make the stopping experience even less satisfying.
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