Why Manga Publishing Is Dying (And How It Could Get Better)

[lexissexist]

If in 2007, manga was like a foreign movie star who had arrived on American shores to make it big, the last four years have been like watching that star run out of roles, run out of money, sell their house, go into rehab, and end up barely limping along in infomercials.
Dropping Sales
Manga sales in America have dropped 43% since 2007, an even bigger

Comments

[a_grumble_cake]

Digital Manga Guild seems to only have the rights to some obscure yaoi manga from smaller publishers.

How rude they have Viewfinder and Ai no Kusabi.

[izabera]

Very long but interesting, I like the "legitimazing the bootleggers" approach.
I lost most of my manga collection through water damage and I would love to replace it with the digital equivalent, but most of it isn't for sale :(

The author missed out something that concerns all non-Japanese readers: the very poor quality of "official" translations. Scanlation teams often provided better translations than the licensed version and better knowledge of the cultural context.

[sunleth]

This. And I don't like how they put SFX and the "cultural context" information at the very back in one section. I'm used to reading small print like in the Taiwanese editions and scanlations where they're right at the bottom of the page.

[cherrycoloured]

I'm the opposite. I hate when the translation notes are on the page itself, since it covers up part of the artwork and is too small for my eyes. I guess it's a cultural thing, since I'm used to reading English editions!

[maclou]

I've bought a couple of Digital Manga Guild books for my ipad kindle app and they look terrible, scanlations look better then them.

I like the look of Viz's digital manga store and they offer test chapters but I haven't bought anything from them cos I buy everything I want from Viz in print and I'm not ready to switch over to digital yet even for a slightly cheaper price.

I'd say the thing they'd need to do to stop scanlations is to release the manga simultaneously with English translations, I mean English speaking countries aren't the #1 pirates of manga (China is) but with anime the official streaming with English translations has dealt a very big blow to fansubbers.

[untrueo]

I think companies should hire scanlaters to translate manga. Scanlators do a better job sometimes then the companies at translation. Korean broadcast companies have hired Korean Drama fansubbers when they FINALLY released international fans watch Korean movies and televison shows. The turnaround time is better and faster.

[december_clouds]

Korean broadcast companies have hired Korean Drama fansubbers when they FINALLY released international fans watch Korean movies and televison shows.

This I did not know.

I think companies should hire scanlaters to translate manga. Scanlators do a better job sometimes then the companies at translation.

Agreed. Scanlators (well, fansubbers) also tend to be more accurate and better and putting in cultural notes.

[apharel]

I stopped buying English-translated manga and started purchasing Japanese tankobon from Kinokuniya, mainly because I didn't have the patience to wait for the localised translations. After like 5yrs of studying Japanese I can pretty much understand 90% of the content, not so much the allusions and stuff but they are harder to pick up in the States. :

[asaphira_sachi]

Not to mention Japanese tankobon print quality is a lot better, tbh. And lots of nuances are lost in translation.

[yilei]

I do the same thing.

And also most tankobon I've seen are generally cheaper by at least a couple of dollars. When you're collecting a long series, that makes a pretty big difference.

[kireny]

same here (well 3 years and counting of Japanese). The official translations are terrible and I don't understand they waste the money paying terrible translators.

[sunleth]

Before I actually read this article, my first thought of dropping sales was because of how Naruto and BLEACH dominate American sales or something. Since both series have lost popularity somewhat (BLEACH especially) and diminished in quality (again, BLEACH), it wouldn't be surprising if sales for those series dropped.

And it seems like a lot of series that had huge fandoms have either ended or are on hiatus.