Businesses (I am the manga buyer for a small independent bookstore) need the labels to figure out what they are going to buy, because, especially for small stores, funds are limited and you have to buy (primarily) what you know is going to sell. The manga section was dead in the water until I started carrying more Dark Horse, less TokyoPop, and lots and lots of dirty, dirty yaoi. Now it is thriving.

It roughly breaks down along the “kids” and “older teen” demographics, with works intended for girls and works intended for boys. I can appreciate that you’re weirded out by the gender-oriented comics stuff, but that’s sort of the way they do things over there. I’ve also tried to point out that it’s irrelevant to this discussion, because the discussion is about mature manga (in all of it’s many forms) versus manga that’s for kids (despite the fact that many, many adults on the internet are wrapped up in it). The kids’ stuff is doing great, despite the contention by some that it’s a gender issue, and the mature stuff isn’t (and Junko’s stuff would fall into ‘artcomix’ and commercial illustration, influenced by the manga industry but standing away from it in a lot of ways).

Oh, and to answer your question, Berserk does alright. It sold really strongly at the beginning, but 13 or 14 volumes in it’s leveled off to be a strong midlist title. Thanks for writing, Brian.

Esara-

Perhaps, sitting at home, petting her cats or delivering hot meals to the elderly, “Kethylia” is a kind, warm, generous gem of a person. But I don’t know that, all I have to go on is her writing and the personality she puts forth, so it follows that I can only comment on her writing and how she presents herself and her arguments, doesn’t it?

However “At her Livejournal, the thoroughly unpleasant “Kethylia” makes the same point,”
reads to me that you were attacking the person herself. Thank you for clearing that up.

P.S. In Firefox 1.5 I get the error posting again, IE 6 is just fine.

I also don’t know what “josei” is at all.

I don’t read very much manga, is what I’m saying.

And I think that maybe on some level I get weirded out by this type of “assigning genders to comics” thing- It probably leaves stuff like Junko Mizuno’s work unaccounted for, right?

But yeah, clicking around this debate, it seems like you’re the only person to make the point you made about how comics for adults don’t traditionally sell well in America, which seems really valid, and a lot more interesting to me than the gender-role-assignation stuff.

But yeah, Manga, I think, is walking a very fine line. Shonen/Shojo/Anime related stuff is where the money is. But part of the thing that drew me to manga orignally is, besides boobies and stabbing, the diversity of it all. And to ignore those areas does do a disservice to the large body of work being produced.

This is Simon Jones that publishes the pr0n. There are two of us, and I didn’t make those particular comments (which I happen to agree with, so I didn’t feel compelled to give my own two cents.)

From now on, I will post under this moniker, lest some of my more unsavory, radical rantings be attributed to poor Mr. Jones. ;)

Matt- Yeah, I’ve heard that’s coming from New Line for a while now… do you have any further info (like a date or anything?)

Mark- Diff’rent strokes I guess.

Estara- I find her writing and point of view thoroughly unpleasant. Unless she is immune from criticism, or I am supposed to keep my opinions to myself for some reason, I calls’m likes I sees’m. I’m sure I’ll get an earful of the same, shortly.

I read you regularly, as I do kethylia. Sometimes I agree with you, sometimes I agree with her. Sometimes the two of you have similar opinions.I believe that is the only way to come to see if a person’s views are interesting and valid to the reader or not.

I can follow your view on the “stupid admonishment”, that’s completely seperate from calling a person “thoroughly unpleasant”.

For the record I think both of you are highly intelligent observers and commenters who occasionally don’t use the most diplomatic way of phrasing things ^^.

My two cents.

P.S. Not being part of the target group for male manga makes me not really care about this particular discussion myself.

P.P.S. Third attempt to comment, I get a message this page can’t be used on its own… hmm

- Chris

One thing I will suggest though, is that it is a mostly female market, outside the direct market at least. But as I’ve said in other places, it’s a younger market. It’s an anime driven market as well, with the two factors being heavily linked. And Senin and Josei just don’t have the series there, with more mature anime series tending to come from original concepts rather than pre-existing source material.