Just a quick reminder: the 2010 Great Manga Gift Guide is going to end today at 11:59 pm PST.
If you’ve got any Great Manga Gift Guides in the works or if you already have one that hasn’t been linked in the archive, please get it into me by 11:59 pm PST (11 pm PST if you want to be included in my wrap up post.)
Thanks to everyone who has participated so far! We had an excellent turn out again this year!
It was made public a few days ago that Kodansha USA would be having a launch event today at the NYC Kinokuniya store. Manga fans across the internet were abuzz with excitement and demands that the publisher print what they want or else. I personally set my licensing announcement bar pretty low. All I hoped for was a new volume of manga that had never before been published in English and I’m happy to say that Kodansha USA delivered that and more!
Lissa Pattillo of Kuriousity has a great comprehensive post up, but I’ll give you the basics. (Also, Scott VonSchilling did a great job of livetweeting the event.)
Kodansha USA will be publishing these former Del Rey titles beginning in May 2011:
Arisa, Fairy Tail, Negima!, Ninja Girls, Shugo Chara!, Air Gear, Negima?! Neo, Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, The Wallflower, I am Here!
Many of these titles already have another volume listed for release later in the summer, so if you’re particularly worried that Kodansha USA is going to publish one volume more and then ignore the series to focus on others, that won’t be the case. It seems like Kodansha USA has carefully prepared which series it was going to focus on first and will be devoted to giving them a bi-monthly release schedule.
On top of that, Kodansha USA listed a small wealth of new titles to be published (also following a bi-monthly release schedule) including: Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Monster Hunter Orage, Deltora Quest, The Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Mardock Scramble, Animal Land, Bloody Monday and Cage of Eden.
Kodansha USA also rescued two titles- GON from CMX and Until the Full Moon from Broccoli Books. Both are series I’ve heard good things about, so I am excited to hear that I’ll get to try them out. Another interesting announcement was that CLAMP favorites Tsubasa and XXXholic would be continued to be published under the Del Rey brand. Perhaps a concession to Del Rey for handing over their entire manga publishing line?
Michelle Smith of Soliloquy in Blue said on Twitter that this is probably the best manga industry news we’ve seen all year. I’m inclined to agree. Hearing that Del Rey’s manga line up was lost to a sort of deadbeat publisher was awful news, but Kodansha USA has now delivered and is on it’s way to becoming a more serious manga publisher. With the loss of multiple other companies this year, the Del Rey/Kodansha USA switch has now turned into a win. In six months, there will now be a bevy of new manga on the shelves and that’s more than enough to make me happy. I’m not terribly interested in any of the titles announced yet, but there is hope for the future and I will be sure to take a look at what’s coming out once I start seeing Kodansha USA at my favorite booksellers.
You may remember that I commented about what Kodansha USA should do next to turn mistrustful fans back into loving fans a few months ago. I asked simply that Kodansha USA hold some kind of informational event ASAP, that they at least publish one new volume of never-before-been-published manga, that they license something big and that they blow our minds. They’ve now delivered on three out of four of those requests. (Kodansha USA rep Dallas Middaugh, formerly of Del Rey Manga, said that they had nothing to say about Sailor Moon yet.) Once again, I’m awfully pleased with them, but I still have some potential next steps:
1. Shape up the website:
This isn’t a potential so much as a necessity. Right now Kodansha USA’s website is one page. To say it is sparse is a vast understatement. Now it’s been updated with the news, but it looks very unprofessional. Once cover designs start coming in, build a proper website with listings of the summer releases and a company news blog. Once that’s done, start on social media, get a Facebook page and a Twitter account. Even if there’s nothing to post now, at least it’s there to play with in the future. Kodansha USA also might want to start looking into digital publishing…
2. License something big:
So far, a few of the titles taken from Del Rey have hit the New York Time’s best sellers list, but it would really help establish the company further if an extremely popular title was published. Again, Sailor Moon is a prime candidate, but something already popular amongst U.S. fans would also work. Something with a large enough and loving enough fanbase that there will be sales despite pre-existing scanlations. There are too many well-known titles in Kodansha’s catalog to really pick a few myself and it’s difficult to determine what will spur good sales, but I’m sure Kodansha USA can fish around for something good.
3. Keep announcing licenses:
I imagine the next reasonable time for license announcements would be summer, right when big cons like Otakon, Anime Expo and San Diego Comic Con roll around. Having Kodansha USA at any of these events would be ideal, not only to promote the company and the new releases, but to assure fans that the company isn’t just sticking to what it’s already picked up. Plus, it will be good for Kodansha USA to keep its name in the news. If they could do something like bring over a popular mangaka, that would be even better. (Although I wouldn’t count on it.)
Best of luck to Kodansha USA. I can’t wait to pick up some titles and check out their editorial style!
What are you hoping to see from Kodansha USA next?
I’ve been thinking a lot these days about what goes into publishing manga, mostly because I would love to begin publishing books on my own, but mostly because I feel like the market has begun to totally change. E-readers are becoming more prevalent for serious fans and even a number of the less serious fans have iPhones, Droids or other smart phones that make viewing manga on the go a lot easier. Of course, the manga industry, and the comics industry in general, has been a bit slow to fully embrace digital. Whether their reasons be because companies still favor print (and so do their readers) or because rights holders are still hesitant to give digital rights, I honestly don’t think the industry can turn away from digital comics any more. Sooner or later, almost everyone is going to own an e-reader just like suddenly almost everyone owned an mp3 player.
Of course, the future is unknowable to us mortals and we can’t predict what will change the industry next, but here’s a few things I think manga publishers need to adopt now to be prepared for the onslaught of fans who no longer want print copies.
1. Offer dirt cheap manga for just about every platform imaginable:
This one should be pretty obvious. The music industry survived it’s piracy wars by letting songs go for 99 cents a pop, the same thing should be possible for the comics industry in theory. Of course, 99 cents is a little low, but prices should be as low as feasibly possible. Why? Because the pirates don’t value manga now, just like pirates didn’t value music then. There will still be piracy, of course, but by taking a big gulp and doing whatever is possible to make prices low for readers, it might be possible to begin attracting some of the casual pirates back.
This, unfortunately, is made difficult by the e-reader wars going on. The best strategy is to just offer the manga on any platform that’s humanly (and financially) possible. Sites like ComiXology are obviously a great go-to site for multiple digital platforms and manga publishers like Viz, TOKYOPOP, DMP and Dark Horse are already there. Plus, you can read on the web in case you don’t have an e-reader, which solves the problem for that side of the market who hasn’t been able to buy the expensive gadgets yet.
2. Regular Online Serialization:
Oh man, do I think this is a great idea. A bunch of SigIkki series and Rin-ne became instant favorites when I discovered I could get chapters online for free. It was a ton of fun to get Neko Ramen strips in my mail box each day. But other than the Viz titles, I can’t think of any publisher who is doing regular online serialization with a large number of series. It’d be great to have more pubs jump on to give those people who want to “preview” their manga before they buy what they want. Solving the problem of people just being able to read a series for free all the time, Viz just pulls the chapters once a book goes out, leaving nothing but the first chapters of every volume for those “preview” pirate types.
There are a number of publishers who serialize online, but I find the problem with them is that they do so too infrequently to hold the attention of readers who are devouring manga at the pace of scanlation readers normally do.
3. An open mind and a better website:
It’s no big secret that most manga publisher websites suck. If they aren’t too busy and overwhelming, they’re hard to navigate and it’s difficult to find the information you want. Minimal web design is popular now for a reason- the faster users can find what they want, the faster they get gratification. I’m not saying that manga publishers can’t add flourishes here and there, but unnecessary content, tabs and whatnot should be taken down. We don’t need manga companies to be our social network stand-ins anymore, but every company should run a blog that publishes a bit more than just PR copy. I particularly like some of Viz’s blogs for Rin-ne and SigIkki and TOKYOPOP has some fun cultural content every week in its newsletter. (I used to write articles for it as an intern. It was great fun.) But there should be a blog and it should be the publisher’s hub for getting information out to the masses. And, most importantly, it should not be written like a press release.
Technically having a open mind should be a fourth thing on this list, but it’s something that really applies to it’s predecessors on this short list. Without an open mind, publishers are going to want to give up and just stick to print. But that’s not going to fly anymore. Publishers need to realize that experimentation is going to be necessary. If a digital publishing venture isn’t making money, it might be best to drop it and turn to a new idea. Internet culture changes so very quickly and there’s always some new device, technology or service out there and surviving will definitely go hand in hand with the ability to be nimble and able to adopt new things.
Is there anything else you feel that publishers should think of when working on digital publishing? I admit, it’s late at night and I might have missed something. Share what you think manga publishers should be doing to accommodate online readers.
Hey everyone, it’s that time of year for me when I get to escape the country for two weeks, ignore all the Christmas bullshit (for the most part) and visit some exotic locale with my mother.
Last year, when I’d first begun this blog, it was rather sad to see no one reading from all the way in Colombia. I attempted to write about my trip, but that was a little unpopular. Plus, since my readership has rather exploded since this time last year, I don’t want to let all you lovely readers down.
That’s why I’m getting on my hands and knees and begging you to volunteer a guest blog for me while I’m in Thailand and Laos this year.
I’m going to be incredibly busy this year due to publishing deadlines right before (and after!) my departure and I’ll even be working on the trip. If only two people step up and write me a guest post, I’d be able to fill in some gaps myself. If more than two people volunteered, then there will be more for you guys to read!
If you should be so kind, here is what I would like:
-An informed or opinionated post discussing an issue or aspect of manga (or another kind of comics, or a related hobby.) Ex: prostitution in manga or inadequate marketing strategies. If you want to talk about the myriad of ways Japanese manga censors penises…Well, I’ll have to consider that one, but it sounds interesting, right?
-A review or critical analysis of a manga is fine too. I’m just not that good at those as some of my fellow bloggers. :3
-If you just want to discuss some aspect of fandom with readers, which usually end up being lots of fun, I’ll take it!
-As long or as short as you’d like, but somewhere around 700-1000 words.
-Try to keep it classy & legal. In other words, no posts about mpreg doujinshi and/or scanlations, please.
If you have any ideas, shoot me an e-mail at dorihuelagruber at gmail dot com before December 15th. Obviously, I can’t pay, but I’ll help you brainstorm if you need any help!
Thank you so much in advance, guys!
-Daniella
Hey everyone! Luckily this week was a bit more exciting than the because the Great Manga Gift Guides came rolling in steadily all week!
If you’re still looking to do a Great Manga Gift Guide or if you just want to read them all, you can check out the announcement post, the complete archive and the week 1 reminder. We still have until December 15th, so keep coming back for more Gift Guides and remember that you still have plenty of time to work on your own!
This morning started out with David Welsh of Manga Curmudgeon posting his One Piece MMF/Great Manga Gift guide crossover, the MMF: The Great Shounen Manga Gift Guide for 2010. For his gift guide, David kept in mind One Piece lovers, but recommended different shounen manga that would satisfy similar tastes. (And then added a few recommendations that didn’t have much to do with One Piece at all.) For more MMF goodness happening this month, check out his blog.
Anna over at Manga Report has one of the most well-rounded gift guides I’ve seen this year, covering everything from classic shoujo to seinen, alternative manga, box sets and a few things in between.
Keeping in the spirit of my favorite genre, I wrote another Great Shoujo Manga Gift Guide this year. It was a challenge as I kept venturing into manga that were shoujo or josei-like, but not actually of either genre. It’s very much a reflection of how my tastes have changed this past year to include more seinen and other mature titles, but hopefully it will please recipients who are beginning to mature in their tastes as well.
Angela Eastman wrote a great gift guide over at Bookworm’s Corner which includes something for just about everyone, including herself! Most of her picks were of the shoujo variety, but she also spiced it up with some seinen, biographical manga and shounen picks.
Reminding us that gift guides shouldn’t always be lists of manga that would please us bloggers, Katherine Dacey of The Manga Critic has a wonderful gift guide for the little ones, including elementary school readers as well as tweens and young teens. Just in case you wanted to expose a few of your younger relatives to manga or just spoil them with something they already love.
That’s all for the gift guides posted this week, but don’t worry because I expect there will be plenty more to help you fill up those Christmas stockings (or just in case you need to cover a few more nights of Hanukkah.) Happy Manga Shopping!
If I’ve forgotten your Great Manga Gift Guide somewhere, please let me know!
Last month, something happened that I really did not expect to ever happen. I made a mistake. A really big mistake. Don’t ask me why I was so incredulous, I was just feeling like I really had the hang of things at TOKYOPOP.
The mistake was this: somehow the translator’s final script got lettered into a comic instead of MY final script.
In case you don’t know, the scripting process on a manga (for TOKYOPOP, at least) goes translator -> re-writer -> editor. I’m supposed to be the last person who goes over the script and approves it before the layout people conjoin text and art. Somehow the wrong file was sent to the layout people and I got back something that looked like your average scanlation. (No joke. I’ve read enough scanlations and printed manga to know the difference and the difference is large.) It’s not that the translator was doing a bad job, but the point of having a re-writer is to polish the rough patches over and make it sound normal instead of clunky. My job is to refine what the re-writer turns into me further and make sure all the stylistic things I want are in there. (That means, fonts, bolding, italics, etc.)
So basically, I had to re-write the whole entire manga. Except, I couldn’t really do that myself. I had to leave notes for the touch-up people on the entire book and they had to re-letter it. It took me a long time. It took the poor touch-up artist a longer time to fix and there were problems right up until the file date after multiple copy edits.
At first, however, I was freaked out and I couldn’t find a clear way for me to fix it. I asked layout if it could be redone, but their answer was no. So, I sat there, with a copy of the intended script, making notation after notation on the page. I went home for a doctor’s appointment shortly afterward and cried to my mother that they were going to sack me for making such an awful mistake. I bought a gift basket to apologize to the touch-up artist handling my book. I didn’t know what else to do (and I had a recent discussion with another touch-up artist and close friend about editors being jerks to her, so I felt extra bad.) I was so scared that I wondered whether it would be weird to prostrate myself into a dogeza position to show how sincerely sorry I was for this big awful mess.
But nothing happened. No one pulled me aside to give me a verbal beating or tell me that I was being let go. So I did the only thing I could do: keep working on the book and make it the best damn thing I could manage.
The second worst thing about what happened was that the book was one of my favorite manga of all time. It was a series I started reading in my very early days of fandom and I was ecstatic to learn I’d be editing it (and reading it before anyone else.) So no matter what, I had to make things right. All I could think of is if I ever met the mangaka and explain that I’d fucked up this volume. I’d probably be sobbing on the train ride back to my hotel and everyone on the train would be thinking: what the fuck is this gringo’s problem?
Unfortunately, it was also a very talkative series and a little bit longer than most other manga. I didn’t get to make EVERY final correction I would have liked to make, but no one who reads it is probably going to notice. Despite my overflowing love of that manga, I’m pretty sure only about 100 people will buy it when it comes out. I’m OK with that, as long as I don’t let any of them down as they read. If the talk I had today with the person who copy-edited it is any indication, I might have done a good job yet. She hadn’t read the series before and she was immediately drawn in. It wasn’t even, to me, the most exemplary volume of the series, but since she also said that it seemed I’d done a thorough job, I can die a bit happier inside.
I guess this post has two lessons:
1) You’re going to fuck up. This is life.
2) If you’ve fucked up and you can still fix it somehow, this is the time to be that stereotypical die-hard, perfectionist editor and no clunky phrasing shall survive your red pen.
If you go through number one and apply number two to it as needed, you’ll come out feeling not as bad about it.
A few related links:
Being thankful for working in the manga industry, especially in this day and age.
That’s right. I didn’t. Yes, I know that sort of defeats the whole purpose of writing an MMF post, but I wanted to participate somehow. I haven’t been able to participate in a few of the past months because I was too busy or because I couldn’t find my copies of the manga. (Where the heck ARE you After School Nightmare?!)
There are a few reasons why I’ve shirked reading One Piece:
1. There were no copies of the first omnibus on the shelves of any bookstore that I went to in the months since the One Piece Manga Moveable Feast was scheduled. If there had been, I probably would have guilted myself into buying it. I was too lazy to buy it online. (More specifically, I don’t really trust the postal system or delivery services after my college job.) I didn’t want to buy the first three volumes separately because what if I didn’t really like it? Then I have volumes I don’t want to read wasting precious apartment space. With an omnibus, it just felt easier to slide in.
2. Shounen manga isn’t my thing. At all. I am a shoujo manga person by heart. I get upset when I realize I’ve been ignoring my favorite shoujo series for other awesome stuff like Black Jack or Real or some gekiga manga. (No really, I have gotten upset that I haven’t read the latest volumes of Kimi ni Todoke because I’ve been focusing on reading other genres.) I haven’t read too many shounen manga that I’d even want to buy. Someone gave me a copy of Soul Eater not too long ago and I don’t want to continue the series on my own. The only shounen manga I’ve bought for myself recently is Cross Game (because I know there’s a romantic aspect) and a couple of copies of Shounen Jump (for research.)
3. Frankly, the idea of picking up a series that is already 60 volumes long, with no clear end in sight, is terrifying. I haven’t collected any series longer than about 35 volumes. Bookshelf space is precious to me because I live in a tiny apartment right now. One Piece just seems like the kind of thing I’d be more interested in if I had space to spare. I do not. Trying to smartly use the space that I have for non-manga stuff is hard enough already… I don’t even have enough room for my entire collection to boot! A sizable chunk is still at my mom’s place. Maybe when I have a bigger place and tons of shelves to call my own.
I know what the reaction to this post is going to be. Some people will probably berate me for being so stupid about not trying One Piece out. Others might offer to send me a copy (which is nice of you, but if we aren’t close, I won’t accept it. Thank you for the nice gesture, though.) Some people will be disappointed in me, either silently or openly and that is fine. I’ve expected all that. Some might suggest I face the series from a different vantage point (there’s been lots of talk about how later arcs of One Piece are more engaging than the beginning), but I’m a bit of a purist. I’d much rather get started from the beginning and be interested enough to continue collecting.
So I’m not reading One Piece right now.
I’ll still keep an eye out for that first omnibus though.
If you want to read more about the One Piece Manga Moveable Feast, however, I suggest looking elsewhere.
