Dec 7 2007
Manga’s 2007 Sales Are Up. So Is It or Is It Not Dead?
In the fall of 2007, USA Today had an article declaring that Manga was dying. Despite that Tor has signed a joint venture with Seven seas Entertainment to produce and distribute original manga titles and compete for the licenses of top Japanese Manga.
Total sales for Manga is up by 10% to “more than $220 million, and about 1,468 titles are estimated to have been released last year.”
The USA Today article pointed to the rise of cellphone reading that has captured the attention of Japanese’s reading public and that Manga simply wasn’t well suited to that format. Perhaps with the rise of e-ink readers, particularly color e-ink displays, Manga will have a resurgence in Japan and continue to rise in the US.
Send to Kindle
Dec 07, 2007 @ 14:01:42
Manga is dying/dead? Apparently my teen library patrons didn’t get the memo….
Dec 07, 2007 @ 14:31:30
No kidding. The used bookstore near my house has gone from one or two manga titles to an entire wall of them. Doesn’t look like they’re disappearing anytime soon.
Dec 07, 2007 @ 15:58:09
I am pretty sure manga is no where near dead. Sales are up and more titles are being put out. The major issue that is coming up is companies are no longer buying cheap licenses and assuming that it will sell. As far as I can tell in the last two years American companies are becoming more careful about what is profitable, especially with the Japanese publishers charging much higher licensing fees.
It might be more that in Japan the medium is changing while companies are not adapting quickly enough to new consumer expectations.
Dec 07, 2007 @ 17:24:10
news to me.