The higher prices have definitely affected how I much pick up too 😅 I thought it interesting that at a few cons last year that Yen and Kodansha “teamed up” in nothing, which was shocking. And then JNovel and Yen Press now have some kind of collab going, so it would be wild if we see more of that this year among them and other publishers! I agree that I feel the manga industry will be going up and up because the licensing in the past six months has been some of the best we’ve had in previous years! Great video!
@@westinpeace1234 Browsing the site is not a user friendly experience. One of the great features of Right Stuff Anime was that you could easily see what was coming out each week. I liked to keep a list of which manga was coming out each week that I would take with me to the book store. They seemed to provide the most accurate release dates.
@westinpeace1234 on the subreddit. People are complaining about the long shipping wait, never having orders filled and the sight being generally buggy
I really don't understand if it's a license pricing thing or what? I feel like this would be resolved with reader surveys, but then again Seven Seas continues to butcher their releases so
My biggest concern with the price increase is causing an even higher barrier of entry for new consumers to join the hobby of manga collecting. It will be interesting to see how things pan out. I am wondering if some series pricing is being determined based on how many they think they will sell of that series instead of going the standard pricing structure route. For example, I was surprised when I received Neighborhood story from Viz that it was not in hard cover with an MSRP of $24.99. If anything it feels more similar to a Viz signature edition. Then we have some series such as Ice Guy and Cool girl with an MSRP of $14.99 and the volumes as a little over 100 pages. I really do hope publishers do not go the route of increasing prices while making the volumes thinner. It will also be interesting to see which series will be reprinted this year. I am grateful for publishers bringing back series such as Initial D and Red River. Cannot wait to see more of those type of announcements. Great video Professor!
Yeah I agree, with manga sales diminishing from COVID and the price increase, it's just gonna be harder to get into the hobby. Glad I have a collection full of manga now. I couldn't imagine trying to pay almost 20% more now
I think there's a clear *something* that's most important and I believe that is an overall appeal Less hits and more misses, decline More Hits less misses, fandom hype sales IMO mangas that stray away from the very VERY degenerative specific Japanese culture like oversexualization of minors particularly young girls, harems, fetishes that are either fully portrayed with no excuse as well as those that hide very well on the very edge of being very taboo or very illegal, those are the ones that seem to have the biggest hits and the most success Highly repetitive stories tend to be pushed out and died just as fast because believe it or not all those horrible manga traits I just mentioned are already oversaturated. Whenever mangas that have A creative direction they do at least well, they might flop but they at least start like the biggest in the last years like JJK, Chainsaw man, Undead Unluck Pandering to a wide and degenerative audience has less hits and more misses like Oshi no ko or Mushoku Tensei and they have the most amount of clones with the most amount of failure rate More pandering likely more fail, More creative more success
Viz and Kodansha are equal to Coke and Pepsi. Viz is the American branch of Shueisha. This would be extremely bad for the overall market, especially for the creators if they became one. I think this is more about Boom! Dark Horse, Image and IDW. Time will tell.
Great video, really interesting. Sadly doesn't look like the K manga app is available in the UK yet, but hopefully we'll get it at some point so I can check it out!
Thanks for the analysis. That was quite helpful. I do think that things are slowing down, due to not just consolidation, but due to a lack of hype new shounen series.
That too...I haven't heard of a new Shonen Jump series blowing people away in a while. Hopefully the Sakamoto Days and Kaiju No. 8 animes help with that this year
@@profotakuI love Sakamoto Days and think Kaiji No. 8 is a great hype manga, but I do notice that both have really non-traditional heroes. Sakamoto Days has a married fat guy dedicated his wife and daughter (Skinnymoto doesn't seem to change people's opinions), while the MC of Kaiji No. 8 has a guy in his mid-thirties -- not typical of shounen manga. I wonder if that's what's keeping these from being as popular as they can be. Both of these MCs are really outside the range of typical shonen heroes.
Agree with your points about the Viz and Kmanga apps, just waiting now for them to be available in the UK lol I still can't believe the amount of shojo licenses we got from Viz so far this year, when they announced the Red River 3-in-1s I literally stood up of my chair and yelled. If this means publishers are finally going to be filling in the gaps this year within other demographics they've been kind of ignoring, particular shojo and josei by finally licensing a lot of series fans have been asking for then I'm super excited.
I really don't understand the region locks on the apps for UK users. Maybe there's more to it, but it seems like a no-brainer to try to get those apps working overseas.
While I don't like the idea of publishers merging to form a monopoly I do think it would be interesting if each publisher focused on a single genre. For example imagine if one publisher only printed shojo, nothing else just shojo. Then the publisher could separate the department into three sections. One to focus on new/ongoing/treading titles. One to focus on old/vintage/titles that previously may have missed out on an english release. Lastly, one to focus entirely on reprints, talking with the community about which shojo series they think deserves a reprint or which volumes of certain series are low in quantity/availability. This would reduce profit drops during wait time; maintain more stable stock levels and allow the publishers to evenly cover all bases between new, old and relatively unknown titles. Consumers love choice. I know it's not as straightforward as all that (there are a lot of factors at play) and I doubt it would ever happen but I do wonder if product quality and reprints would improve if the publishers focused on one particular genre as opposed to grabbing every title they can get their hands on.
@@profotaku Oh I get that, sadly. I understand this is unrealistic, this is more of a what if scenario. It's just interesting to think about what would happen if publishers focused their sights in one direction whilst still having the means to succeed. I do still think that the publishers who segment their genre workload into departments would have better output, instead of swamping a small team, but I'm also aware that their costs and employee count would go up (amongst other things). There's pros and cons like all things. Again don't mind me and my ramblings. I just like to throw what if's out there and see what I get back.
Higher prices only affect ppl buying every single manga for content purposes. The normal consumer is unaffected. Ya’ll can wait for deals like the end of year and many b1g1 50% off or b2g1 free deals, Black Friday. But you buy all the books for a content vid, don’t even read them, then jump on comments to complain about prices? SMH
bro i just want to read well scanned manga i do not understand how The fuck in 2024 it is impossible to read all of the manga of slam dunk, berserk, vagabond and many more with good quality THIS SHOULD BE IN THE INTERNET WTFFFF
Piracy drives me nuts, Jump costs the price of a coffee for an entire month, stop stealing you bums. These mangaka work their &$$ off and people are out there stealing their stuff. The only time I’m ok with reading for free is when there’s absolutely no other way to read it in English, it’s not published in print or isn’t on Jump or the other manga apps. There’s only 2 manga I’m reading for free, Tsugumomo & Sora No Otoshimono (Heavens Lost Property), but I bought all volumes of both series in Japanese just to have them. It’s not expensive to read manga digitally, even kids can pay it with their pocket money.
@TheR3alRyan So you want to make sure the mangaka gets nothing rather than 20%?? And of course the mangaka gets a lower % of the English sales, all the costs are being eaten up. Seven Seas, Yen Press etc. have to pay licensing fees, then translate it, that’s why they’re $2 extra. That vast majority of Viz has been $9,99 for ages, Undead Unluck, One Punch Man, Spy Family, Chainsaw Man etc. all $9,99. Just because you’re not walking into a store and taking it from a shelf it’s still stealing, you can afford a subscription to Jump, just stop.
@TheR3alRyan “mansplaining”?? only a certain type of person uses that term, the same type of person that thinks they should be given everything for free & shouldn’t have to work. Arguing with these people is pointless, k I’m out, see ya.
@TheR3alRyan Oh wow, thanks for your diagnosis there of my complex Dr Ryan, you really are unbelievable, people like you will go to any lengths to get things for free. What I’m saying is you can at least pay for a subscription rather than steal. I buy all my manga in print, I have over 1,600 volumes of manga. Manga is dirt cheap, $10 for 200 pages is cheap, I bought comic books for years, $6 for 24 pages, manga is much cheaper than American comics. Saying that someone is “full of it” because they’re telling you not to steal is the most hilarious thing I’ve ever heard, it’s hard to believe you’re even saying these things, how someone is so ridiculous and has absolutely no idea it’s just the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. But please continue whining about corrupt industries and THATS why you don’t pay, when in reality it’s just an excuse for you to steal, people like you will do whatever you can to justify your actions.
The higher prices have definitely affected how I much pick up too 😅 I thought it interesting that at a few cons last year that Yen and Kodansha “teamed up” in nothing, which was shocking. And then JNovel and Yen Press now have some kind of collab going, so it would be wild if we see more of that this year among them and other publishers! I agree that I feel the manga industry will be going up and up because the licensing in the past six months has been some of the best we’ve had in previous years! Great video!
The licensing has been amazing. We're gonna eat well this year
It still bums me out that Crunchy Roll took over Right Stuff Anime. It has to be one of the worst online shopping experiences ever.
Why is that?
@@westinpeace1234 Browsing the site is not a user friendly experience. One of the great features of Right Stuff Anime was that you could easily see what was coming out each week. I liked to keep a list of which manga was coming out each week that I would take with me to the book store. They seemed to provide the most accurate release dates.
@westinpeace1234 on the subreddit. People are complaining about the long shipping wait, never having orders filled and the sight being generally buggy
I just bought a LE anime blu ray set from Crunchyroll and it shipped from TX completely unprotected. I'm never buying from them again
I've only had one issue in the dozen or so times I've ordered from them, but I could have just gotten the good end of the stick.
a lot of weird and straight up trash manga getting licensed and prices increasing definitely has made me slow down buying.
Unfortunately most series getting licensed are your typical op isekai, instead of actual good series
I really don't understand if it's a license pricing thing or what? I feel like this would be resolved with reader surveys, but then again Seven Seas continues to butcher their releases so
@@profotakuits funny they posted a position in licensing, like yesterday? maybe its a sign for improvement to come lmao
My biggest concern with the price increase is causing an even higher barrier of entry for new consumers to join the hobby of manga collecting. It will be interesting to see how things pan out. I am wondering if some series pricing is being determined based on how many they think they will sell of that series instead of going the standard pricing structure route. For example, I was surprised when I received Neighborhood story from Viz that it was not in hard cover with an MSRP of $24.99. If anything it feels more similar to a Viz signature edition. Then we have some series such as Ice Guy and Cool girl with an MSRP of $14.99 and the volumes as a little over 100 pages. I really do hope publishers do not go the route of increasing prices while making the volumes thinner. It will also be interesting to see which series will be reprinted this year. I am grateful for publishers bringing back series such as Initial D and Red River. Cannot wait to see more of those type of announcements. Great video Professor!
Yeah I agree, with manga sales diminishing from COVID and the price increase, it's just gonna be harder to get into the hobby. Glad I have a collection full of manga now. I couldn't imagine trying to pay almost 20% more now
I think there's a clear *something* that's most important and I believe that is an overall appeal
Less hits and more misses, decline
More Hits less misses, fandom hype sales
IMO mangas that stray away from the very VERY degenerative specific Japanese culture like oversexualization of minors particularly young girls, harems, fetishes that are either fully portrayed with no excuse as well as those that hide very well on the very edge of being very taboo or very illegal, those are the ones that seem to have the biggest hits and the most success
Highly repetitive stories tend to be pushed out and died just as fast because believe it or not all those horrible manga traits I just mentioned are already oversaturated.
Whenever mangas that have A creative direction they do at least well, they might flop but they at least start like the biggest in the last years like JJK, Chainsaw man, Undead Unluck
Pandering to a wide and degenerative audience has less hits and more misses like Oshi no ko or Mushoku Tensei and they have the most amount of clones with the most amount of failure rate
More pandering likely more fail, More creative more success
Viz and Kodansha are equal to Coke and Pepsi. Viz is the American branch of Shueisha. This would be extremely bad for the overall market, especially for the creators if they became one. I think this is more about Boom! Dark Horse, Image and IDW. Time will tell.
You hit it on the head. I don't see Viz and Kodansha teaming up, but it was a funny hypothetical
Great video, really interesting. Sadly doesn't look like the K manga app is available in the UK yet, but hopefully we'll get it at some point so I can check it out!
I agree. I wish y'all had the apps
Yup. The line is here. Bought a tablet solely to read manga. Not only that, I also sail the seas to out of print series.
I've been loving my Ipad as of late with reading manga
Thanks for the analysis. That was quite helpful. I do think that things are slowing down, due to not just consolidation, but due to a lack of hype new shounen series.
That too...I haven't heard of a new Shonen Jump series blowing people away in a while. Hopefully the Sakamoto Days and Kaiju No. 8 animes help with that this year
@@profotakuI love Sakamoto Days and think Kaiji No. 8 is a great hype manga, but I do notice that both have really non-traditional heroes. Sakamoto Days has a married fat guy dedicated his wife and daughter (Skinnymoto doesn't seem to change people's opinions), while the MC of Kaiji No. 8 has a guy in his mid-thirties -- not typical of shounen manga.
I wonder if that's what's keeping these from being as popular as they can be. Both of these MCs are really outside the range of typical shonen heroes.
Agree with your points about the Viz and Kmanga apps, just waiting now for them to be available in the UK lol
I still can't believe the amount of shojo licenses we got from Viz so far this year, when they announced the Red River 3-in-1s I literally stood up of my chair and yelled. If this means publishers are finally going to be filling in the gaps this year within other demographics they've been kind of ignoring, particular shojo and josei by finally licensing a lot of series fans have been asking for then I'm super excited.
I really don't understand the region locks on the apps for UK users. Maybe there's more to it, but it seems like a no-brainer to try to get those apps working overseas.
Great videos, I’m addicted. Congrats on 3 years. Keep it going!
Thank you! Will do!
I think we’re going to see less single volume releases and more omnibus editions instead!
I hope not, I’m not a fan of most omni’s unless it’s deluxe editions.
I would love this personally
While I don't like the idea of publishers merging to form a monopoly I do think it would be interesting if each publisher focused on a single genre. For example imagine if one publisher only printed shojo, nothing else just shojo. Then the publisher could separate the department into three sections. One to focus on new/ongoing/treading titles. One to focus on old/vintage/titles that previously may have missed out on an english release. Lastly, one to focus entirely on reprints, talking with the community about which shojo series they think deserves a reprint or which volumes of certain series are low in quantity/availability. This would reduce profit drops during wait time; maintain more stable stock levels and allow the publishers to evenly cover all bases between new, old and relatively unknown titles. Consumers love choice.
I know it's not as straightforward as all that (there are a lot of factors at play) and I doubt it would ever happen but I do wonder if product quality and reprints would improve if the publishers focused on one particular genre as opposed to grabbing every title they can get their hands on.
Focusing on one genre would be silly, some genre sell better than others, so limiting yourself to one genre isn’t that smart.
Shojo and Josei are so unpopular sadly that whatever publisher did that woudl tank
@@profotaku Oh I get that, sadly. I understand this is unrealistic, this is more of a what if scenario. It's just interesting to think about what would happen if publishers focused their sights in one direction whilst still having the means to succeed. I do still think that the publishers who segment their genre workload into departments would have better output, instead of swamping a small team, but I'm also aware that their costs and employee count would go up (amongst other things). There's pros and cons like all things. Again don't mind me and my ramblings. I just like to throw what if's out there and see what I get back.
Higher prices only affect ppl buying every single manga for content purposes. The normal consumer is unaffected. Ya’ll can wait for deals like the end of year and many b1g1 50% off or b2g1 free deals, Black Friday. But you buy all the books for a content vid, don’t even read them, then jump on comments to complain about prices? SMH
True
I'm not buying retail...I'm using coupons every time and usually paying 25-35% off cover price.
bro i just want to read well scanned manga
i do not understand how The fuck in 2024 it is impossible to read all of the manga of slam dunk, berserk, vagabond and many more with good quality
THIS SHOULD BE IN THE INTERNET WTFFFF
Those mangaka (and prominent ones such as Urasawa) have all requested that their manga not be accessible digitally. That's why they can't be found
So I wanted to buy goodbye eri whose rate was ₹600 in India and suddenly during end of January it increased to ₹890.
Yep, everything is going up
aw yikes.... in canada manga was between 15 to 25$ already. fuck this. i'm pirating digital content now. -_-
Use the apps!
@@profotaku Hell no. Im pirating. Yo ho ho and a bottle of fuck you! ;p
Piracy drives me nuts, Jump costs the price of a coffee for an entire month, stop stealing you bums. These mangaka work their &$$ off and people are out there stealing their stuff.
The only time I’m ok with reading for free is when there’s absolutely no other way to read it in English, it’s not published in print or isn’t on Jump or the other manga apps.
There’s only 2 manga I’m reading for free, Tsugumomo & Sora No Otoshimono (Heavens Lost Property), but I bought all volumes of both series in Japanese just to have them.
It’s not expensive to read manga digitally, even kids can pay it with their pocket money.
You and I feel the same then!
@TheR3alRyan So you want to make sure the mangaka gets nothing rather than 20%?? And of course the mangaka gets a lower % of the English sales, all the costs are being eaten up. Seven Seas, Yen Press etc. have to pay licensing fees, then translate it, that’s why they’re $2 extra.
That vast majority of Viz has been $9,99 for ages, Undead Unluck, One Punch Man, Spy Family, Chainsaw Man etc. all $9,99.
Just because you’re not walking into a store and taking it from a shelf it’s still stealing, you can afford a subscription to Jump, just stop.
@TheR3alRyan “mansplaining”?? only a certain type of person uses that term, the same type of person that thinks they should be given everything for free & shouldn’t have to work. Arguing with these people is pointless, k I’m out, see ya.
@TheR3alRyan Oh wow, thanks for your diagnosis there of my complex Dr Ryan, you really are unbelievable, people like you will go to any lengths to get things for free. What I’m saying is you can at least pay for a subscription rather than steal. I buy all my manga in print, I have over 1,600 volumes of manga. Manga is dirt cheap, $10 for 200 pages is cheap, I bought comic books for years, $6 for 24 pages, manga is much cheaper than American comics.
Saying that someone is “full of it” because they’re telling you not to steal is the most hilarious thing I’ve ever heard, it’s hard to believe you’re even saying these things, how someone is so ridiculous and has absolutely no idea it’s just the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.
But please continue whining about corrupt industries and THATS why you don’t pay, when in reality it’s just an excuse for you to steal, people like you will do whatever you can to justify your actions.