Anime Dubs & Manga are Dying
AnimeOnDVD's Chris Beveridge recently wrote up an editorial piece about how English dubs in anime are dying out. Indeed, with companies like Bandai, Media Blasters, & ADV/Section23/Sentai Filmworks releasing more & more of their titles without dubs in order to save money, & the fact that fewer & fewer series are airing on American TV anymore, there have been a noticeable decline in dubs.
The main reason this was brought up was because voice actor Greg Ayres, who's always been a fan-favorite for being so eccentric at conventions & talented in the booth, held an FAQ panel at Nekocon this past weekend called "From Ouran to the Hospital." It was there he revealed that he was semi-retiring from the anime voice acting industry. Greg has been a VA over at ADV & FUNimation for years, but due to ADV/Section23 practically not dubbing anything anymore & even Funi cutting back a bit on the number of series they're working on at once, solely relying on dubbing anime to pay the bills just doesn't cut it anymore. So he'll be looking for a new career to join while only voicing anime as a side job.
That's the state of affairs on the American side of the industry, but things are kind of looking meek on the other side of the Pacific as well, this time in terms of manga. Manga-ka Tamiki Wakaki, best known her his "Kami no Mizo Shiru Sekai" manga in Shonen Sunday, says that manga is on the decline in Japan, & that the only genres that are still popular enough to be successful are ero, parody, bishonen, & bishoujo. Anything else, such as his romantic comedy "Kaminomi," are destined to soon die out. Here's what he had to say:
“Manga magazines are boring, so they attract no fresh blood. Competition subsequently slackens. New artists are tried vigorously, but none are able to be serialised for long.
As a result experienced authors are called in out of necessity, but though their books may sell the magazines themselves become dull - this attracts even less new blood, and so the cycle continues.
In the past new artists were a dime a dozen, but now no matter how hard you search they are scarcer and must be nurtured carefully. Especially now in the era of lower birth rates, nobody can fail to notice this, the new artists are gradually decreasing in number. Both the mangaka who can sell a million copies and their fanbases are aging…
It’s going to be especially difficult to make a living for the kind of authors who can’t pen ero/parody/bishonen/bishoujo manga (in fact it is right now).”
However, infamous ecchi/ero manga-ka Ditama Bow (Mahoromatic, Juden-Chan, Kiss x Sis) disagrees with this. Pretty high talk from someone who draws manga in one of Wakaki's four aforementioned genres, but his reasoning is sound:
“Certainly, if you can’t draw cute girls it is going to be hard. But no mangaka are dying of starvation. Even if you can’t draw girls, you can still earn a living on subculture magazines and ‘deep’ manga magazines, and you can also work as an assistant to a pro.
It seems online assistants or whatever are quite in demand too [these are assistants who work remotely and submit manuscripts to their master electronically, rather than being physically present in the traditional manner].”
Sources: http://www.mania.com/editorial-death-anime-dubs_article_118749.html
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/11/08/top-mangaka-manga-is-in-decline