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Forum - View topicNEWS: Shueisha Reveals New Circulation Numbers, Demographics for its Manga Magazines
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3586 Location: Finland |
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This is the sunset of print magazines... |
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tomdean
Posts: 128 |
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What is interesting is that although the largest consumer group is clearly adults(25 yo or older), but the publishers still insist on treating the readers like kids.
In games and anime, the difference is even more pronounced: by far the largest group is 30yo and older(presumably because they have more money to spend), yet, especially in the West, the gamers and anime watchers are always perceived to be kids. In any other industry, the customers who are being ignored would have upped and left ages ago, they are lucky games/anime/manga fans are so loyal. But then it does feel like we're the cashcows being milked everyday... |
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John Thacker
Posts: 1009 |
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The largest group with one sort of binning, but still about a quarter. It's only the largest group because the other groups span three to five years of age each, whereas the 25+ group group can span forty or fifty years or more. Fifteen and younger is a larger group than 25+. So it's a trick of the statistics chosen. Surely you don't actually think that this demonstrates anything other that fandom skewing young and most of the fans being kids? It's important to try to cultivate the next generation of fans. The alternative strategy, done by too many sports leagues and other entertainment options, is to concentrate on (monetizing) the existing older fans and ignore things, like free broadcast, earlier start times, and so on, that ensure that fans will exist in the coming decades. |
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tomdean
Posts: 128 |
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Your point about the statistics is indeed a very valid one, but completely misses the point of my post, which is that publishers and creators continue to ignore the adults(also the payers) in their works. If you want to nurture the next generation, sure, but there won't be a next generation if there is not enough money to sustain the industry. There is not enough money to sustain the industry, because the consumers are continuously being ignored. Before you even start to say 'but everything is fine right now'....It isn't. I don't call authors, animators, illustrators working 80 hour weeks on below minimum wage as "sustainable". |
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Ushio
Posts: 636 |
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And if the manga, anime and games industry are smart they will continue focusing on kids first you only have to look at what happened to the US comic's industry to see what happens when you focus on adults while ignoring children. The children grow up to ignore your product and your adult audience dies off. |
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tomdean
Posts: 128 |
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[quote="Ushio"]
That's not what happened. At all. Thor, Ironman and Black Panther etc are all record breakers bringing in billions of revenue, they're hardly 'kids orientated'. When they focused more diverse (and dare i say, more adult) characters like Tony Starks, the works became more interesting, and hence more money. Actually, didn't that just proved that focusing on adults is probably the better way to go? I would also say that the US comics industry failed because they stagnated, and became formuliac and uninteresting, so the kids were turned off. But that's a different point. |
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R. Kasahara
 Posts: 711 |
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That only really applies to movie adaptations. US superhero comics have skewed more towards adult readers for some time now, which is one reason why translated manga continues to eat its lunch in terms of sales. There are more Western comics these days for younger readers, but from what I can tell, the core superhero titles remain what they are. Shueisha and other manga publishers already have magazines specifically for older readers, so I don't see why they should change what they're doing with Weekly Shonen Jump. If you want to read more "mature" manga, even if only under the "Jump" umbrella, there are options. If older readers like all-ages stories, so what? A better analogue to WSJ titles would be Star Wars movies, most of which are kid-friendly and have a huge audience spanning all age groups. |
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tomdean
Posts: 128 |
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[quote="R. Kasahara"][quote="tomdean"]
That I very much agree, but can you say the same thing about games and anime? only very recently the anime industry starting to offer more mature style, although still quite limited, (thank god for Goblin Slayer, Asuka, Youjo Senki), but games definitely still lack that diversity. However, back to my point, the vast majority of the payers are adults, (and also women, but let's not digress), therefore. they should have a more balanced offering. |
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Replica_Rabbit
 Posts: 354 Location: Portland |
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Well, the magazine is called Shonen and they do have a magazine that is aiming at the older group. The older fans buy Shonen Jump because they like to read it, it not a problem (I'm 30 and I read Shonen Jump). There is mature Manga in the magazine like HxH, The Promised Neverland, and Chainsaw Man (I wouldn't add it, but you said Asuka is mature so I add it). They are balancing it, they don't want to lose their younger readers |
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HoboSoup
Posts: 361 |
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[quote="tomdean"][quote="R. Kasahara"]
Tom the main thing I keep hearing you say in this discussion is that they should make things that appeal to what you personally define as adult. Which I likely very much disagree with your perspective, and I absolutely loathe the concept of liking something simply for being "adult". However we have all have our own presences. For example though, I enjoy Youjo Senki and Goblin Slayer, but there is absolutely no way I'd say any of the 3 series you listed are "adult". They're all over the top edgy and packed full of violence, I think people commonly mistake those things for being "adult". They're very much young-adult/high-school audience centric series. I don't think it matters though. I've watched anime for a very long time and I watch a bit of almost everything. The only kind of series I'd really say is specifically for kids is something like GeGeGe No Kitaro. It's a series I know adults also enjoy though and I think that's fine. In closing I'll leave one of my favorite quotes by C.S. Lewis here. “Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” |
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nargun
Posts: 931 |
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If the audience didn't wanted to be treated like kids they'd be reading Morning or Gekkan Mahjong-and-Fishing or what-have-you. |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1463 |
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Wrong thread, please delete.
Last edited by Zhou-BR on Mon Apr 22, 2019 6:12 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Blanchimont
Posts: 3586 Location: Finland |
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Wrong thread? |
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Zhou-BR
Posts: 1463 |
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Sorry, I'll post that comment in the right thread now. |
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kaizy88
Posts: 1 |
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It looks like the Shonen Jump demographics aren't current. They just reused the same ones they got from 2012: https://twitter.com/aitaikimochi/status/1031510743131160577
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