The selection of available manga in the US may be narrow, but the selection in the UK is even narrower. In my column, I was specifically reviewing Simon & Schuster’s new UK range, which will probably be the first manga titles to have reliable nationwide distribution in the UK. As far as I remember, it comprises a dozen titles at most, all of them aimed at teenagers. That’s a shame, but it’s probably good business sense on the part of Viz and Simon & Schuster.

I’m grateful that my attention has been drawn to this Fanfare/Ponent-Mon stuff, and I’ll try to review some in a future column, but, realistically, very few of my readers are going to make the effort to track it down. That’s why it would be awesome if they could just go into a chain book shop and get something aimed at adults – the fact that they can’t is what I was originally complaining about. (And you’re right, I have no interest in linking to illegal scanlations.)

I know the situation’s not dire. We’re just starting (hopefully) to see manga aimed at an older audience come out. I just don’t want to see it get pegged into a specific genre. Manga has succeeded so far because it has such a wide variety. It would be nice to see more of it for older audiences.

I don’t think “We’re looking for good stories” is necessarily an untruth either. They do choose series which may not have a market because they’re worthwhile books. Anything in the “Editor’s Choice/Viz Signature” line, for example, could be held up as being at the top of its genre; English-reading manga fans would certainly be poorer for its absence. There are a lot of manga on the stands today that feel like someone just said “this would be really good.” Hell, 5 years ago no one thought yaoi or bl would sell…

And as for marketability, no company wants to put out books that fail. It’s depressing (and probably tough to explain to the licensor/original artist as well). Marketing opportunities also take many forms. Saikano had a concurrent anime release, for example. PING PONG was just released on DVD but we’re not getting the Ping Pong manga (yet) (sadly). It’s just the way it goes. Paradise Kiss was considered a commercial failure, but NANA still got licensed (and as a flagship property). I really don’t see the situation as being particularly dire, not when there are so many intelligent, informed fans out there who can make strong cases for series. I know that manga editors and licensor types read the fan message boards looking to see what people want, what might sell… Not all the time (sometimes it’s more of a top-down thing) but our commentary does help, particularly when it’s made in a smart way…

- Christopher

the undefinable books

And there’s the rub phrase…

I got a rejection recently because my book was ‘undefinable’. In terms of OEL, and writing in the genre I do, if a publisher can’t market it as ‘yaoi’ or ‘BL’ then it’s not something they will publish. “This is great sci-fi, but there not enough male romance *ahem* [male sex] happening here, and so I can’t see us publishing it.” I was amazed.

It’s frustrating to say this, but if there were more ‘Tokyo Pops’ out there, companies publishing only ‘manga’ and nothing else, then we might see less ‘fast-cash genres’ saturating the market, and more chances taken on the ‘not so easily’ defined. I mean, when DQ said they were going to publish ‘action’, I got little excited—until I saw the first license. 0_o Clearly it’s action…for shojo fans?

What disturbs me most is, I’ve been the to scanslation sites and read some great material; no they’ll never get picked up here because most companies licensing these days are picking that one genre they like—and going with it, disqualifying anything that doesn’t quite fit into their hole. “Well, we can’t define it as horror, because it’s really a crime manga with some minor horror elements–nah, too hard to try and classify, what else is there that isn’t so hard to classify?” I’ve seen some companies blame the bookstores for this – ‘well the bookstore needs to know what audience to target it at’ which I find to be pure BS, since bookstores don’t divide the ‘manga’ by genre at all. 0_0. It sits on the shelf, in alphabetical order. Am I missing something there? Do bookstores order so many horrors, comedy, teen-titles, or action books, per quarter, and so that’s why this preference for the ‘obvious’ subject-matter is made in licensing? I think it’s down to so many publishers devoting ‘a portion’ of their catalogue to ‘just manga’, and so there no room variety. It’s never going to mainstream until more publishers exist that produce ONLY MANGA. [or OEL GN’s, that look and feel like them. ^_-]