Alright, I totally need a little help here.
I’m pretty up on the manga, I do my best to research the market, talk to fans, all that stuff. I’m spectacular at doing this within my field (comics retailers) but still at least pretty decent when compared to the legions of die-hard manga fans that populate the interwebs. But I totally need a hand with this, because the upcoming Anime North convention in Toronto at the end of the month? It manages at least one big surprise every time.
We do a massive set-up for this show, 18 tables in an island, something like 180 feet of frontage the way we set it all up. We try and bring every manga you can think of, because a lot of fans save up for months to come to AN and pick up the manga they love, that they’ve only read about on the internet (or in scaaaaaaaaaaaans) and they want to own it and love it and squee all over it. And we want to have it for them.
Every year we get blindsided by one major title, and it always pisses me RIGHT OFF.
2005: “Do you have Chrono Crusade?” Sure, we had like maybe 3-5 copies of each volume. That lasted about half way through the first day, and then the next 22 hours of convention were “I heard you guys have Chrono Crusade!? PLEASE! I NEEEEEED IT!” and I’m all “oh noes.”
2006: “I NEED OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB! O! M! G!” and I’m like are you kidding? We sell like 2 copies of that at the store. But yeah, getting asked 20 or 25 times a day for that book for 3 days? I can guarantee you we totally stock deep on that one now. It did us no good at the show, however.
2007: “Vampire Knight Vampire Knight Vampire Knight Vampire Knight” and I didn’t even know what that was. Seriously. Either like 1, or maaaaaaaaaybe 2 volumes had come out, and I figured it was some ultra-rare Infinity Studios title or something. No, Shoujo Beat again, we were barely selling it at the store, and it was the book we got the most requests for (of course, we ended up selling like a case of each volume of Death Note and Naruto at that show, we didn’t do too badly…)
So the 2008 Anime North show is coming up May 23-25, and I think I’ve done my homework this time and I’m trying to stock up on fan-fav series, but I’m sure that we’re forgetting something.
Soooo, if you’re going to Anime North, or if you just want to promote your favourite manga series (and it looks like I’m a little weaker at predicting the Shoujo/Crossover-appeal series than the Shonen) then I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I’m totally aware that this is asking you to do my work as a retailer for me, and I apologize for that, but I’m asking because I want to satisfy as many customers at the show as possible. Hopefully that counts for something!
Thanks in advance,
– Christopher
Even though I work at a comic book store this is still such a hard question…
Girls seem to like Kitchen Princess (Del Rey), Love*Com (Viz/Shojo Beat), ….maybe Gakuen Alice?
My dear sir…might I recommend you flip through a current copy of ShojoBeat for ideas…in particular the squees/letters to the editor section.
If you are not above BL then you might try stocking some new releases from June
http://www.junemanga.com/index.php?
I make 99% of my manga purchases online due to where I live and the fact that Chapters has a miserable selection of manga for women (young and old) and you need to order their yaoi/BL online.
You might also win points if you can get some of the Josei/ladies manga from LuvLuv or Aurora press
http://www.luvluv-press.com/
http://www.aurora-publishing.com/
Many younger things who are not armed with credit cards and are therefore are not able to order online, so you might make some gals really happy if they could pick up some of those titles at your table.
For a general manga though ~ not girlie type, I’d like to recommend Masashi Tanaka’s GON. My 8 year son is mad for this wordless series about a tiny T-rex.
It’s always wise to check to see what has a current anime adaptation in Japan. With that in mind, you might add a few more Special A’s (though don’t go overboard, it’s not getting the blogger love Ouran did).
Sand Chronicles got a lot of blogger praise, as did Honey & Clover, but I’ve no idea if that translates into actual sales.
I’ve only just starting getting into Manga, I was heavily into Anime before that. I found RE:Play is a great title also Princess Ai, both of these are romance/fantasy stories…but yeah. I currently draw and digitally create Manga.
Well, it’s hardly a secret and well-hyped, but The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service is stunning and very popular – and great Scooby Doo with blood-style fun.
ES, Eternal Sabbath is buzzing.
Doubt is brilliant(let me add this is the manga featuring the game ‘Rabbit Doubt’not the thing Viz are pushing with the pimple-faced girl), that is pretty much guaranteed to garner bad publicity about corrupting the youth, if history is anything to go by. Serial killing, violent game play and blood.
Someone always finds Blame for the first time and word of mouth makes it move. You get one person to open a copy in a crowded room and that’ll shift.
I like Asano Inio’s Solanin a lot. It looks modern, if you know what I mean.
C’mon– pretty art + pretty vampires in a completely unabashed shoujo soap opera? How could Vampire Knight *lose*? 😉 And having read through the recent Japanese releases of Host Club, I’d also just like to express the opinion that it is a really amazing manga. @_@
As for what’s hot these days– the Special A anime is doing pretty well, I think, so I’d expect at least a small surge in the manga’s sales. At least, *I* went out and bought all three volumes available to date. And if you still have any of the Slayers novels, I’m betting that the new anime season is getting people interested in picking those up again.
…But most of the series that keep coming to mind are ones that have just been licensed and aren’t out yet: Bamboo Blade, Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei, etc, which isn’t much help. ^^;
I’m going to suggest Fairy Tail. It’s a newer shonen title, but it’s already quite popular. Del Rey released volumes 1 & 2 on the same day too.
I can also see Sand Chronicles selling well. It’s a Shojo Beat title, and it has the added push of being serialized in the magazine.
Of course BL sells well too. The Junjo Romantica anime started airing in Japan recently, so the manga version (published by BLU) is definitely becoming more popular.
I agree that Special A is most likely to be one of the next popular titles. Not as popular as Vampire Knight, because nothing combines cliche, pretty, and PG-sex quite like Matsuri Hino’s improbably awesome epic, but still up there, because S.A’s already getting an anime, and the manga’s essentially Kare Kano meets Ouran with an incredibly likable cast of characters.
Lovely Complex should also be rising in the popularity charts, I’d guess, but again, not with quite the same levels of popularity. It’s going to probably be another six months or a year before we get another break out hit, just because that seems to be how these things go.
If you were looking for just one title, I think that might be High School Debut (vol 3 just came out), though on the Chapters web site it looks like Wild Ones–also from SB–may be ranking a bit higher.
Looking past Shojo Beat – Shugo Chara has a 4th book coming out before the end of the month, and a current (in Japan, anyway) anime tie-in (20+ episodes) that the kids may or may not be downloading. Also from Del Rey, I’ll add to the Kitchen Princess votes (but you likely already knew about that one).
It’s not manga, but the Warriors adaptations are going to be popular (again, you already knew that). The sleeper from Tokyopop may be Love Attack.
Let me repeat that: Love Attack
You might also look at the Aranzi Aronzo books from Vertical and the Manga Cookbook from Japanime — the kids may not know a damn thing about these but the covers almost sell themselves.
Well, stock up on shojo. It’s going to be known. Your store seems like for mature readers, but the con seems to have a lot of people asking for popular scans and girl stuff. Let’s see…
Skip Beat!, Love*Com, Special A, Kitchen Princess are musts. Gakuen Alice as well. Honey and Clover and Sand Chronicles are getting raved by bloggers, so get those too. And there’s a little known manhwa called Bride of the Water God that’s quite liked as well. Volume 1 and 2 are out.
Josei will be a good pick. Get some LuvLuv or Aurora titles for that. Also, Eternal Sabbath and Nana will pull in many women….
That’s all I can think of at the top of my head…
oh, and MeruPuri, from Hino-sensei (of recently minted Vampire Knight fame) — looks like the popularity of Vampire Knight is also moving the backlist.
Honestly? I think it might still be Vampire Knight. Especially since the anime just started in Japan (which means fansub watchers on this side of the ocean wanting to read the manga).
Otherwise… Hell, Camera Camera Camera maybe?
I think Lovely Complex seems to have a bit of buzz…. also, Del Rey has noted that Kitchen Princess is cathing on for them. Stil, neither seem to be buzzing about too heavily….
With Vampire Knight having an anime out in Japan, I expect Squee-Levels will only increase.
It is rather hard to judge these things due to how fandom tends to split- those who watch anime on tv/on dvd/focus on licensed manga, and those who are downloading god knows what. The later category doesn’t seem to be aware of where you can actually buy anime/manga, so they tend to freak out at Cons
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/12484.html
Curiously, Fairy Tale seems to be doing really well.
I thought of another one….I’m sorry.
High School Debut. If that one isn’t going to be liked, I’m going to be disappointed, especially since it’s so good.
And yeah, take all copies of GodChild, Cain Saga, and Vampire Knight too. All of these are gothic, and also going to be popular….
You’ve got a lot of bases covered, so my suggestion is don’t underestimate Claymore!
I have to go with Fairy Tail. I havent bought the manga yet but *ehm* read some scans online and its a pretty good shounen. Not going to rival naruto or bleach right now but it should hold well.
High school debut is good and after some time should be popular. I heard Beauty pop(?) the one about hair cutting is doing quite well. Lovely Complex has been raves in japan (even has a anime) but i dont think it will be a hit here in the US like ouran host club. I think the jokes wouldnt translate well with some readers. Honey&Clover, is a awsome series but i dont think it will hit with the younger shoujo fans. Its more on a joesi level and i swear that each page is overcrowded with text. (not a bad thing but i dont think some people will fully take the time to enjoy the deep emotional story attatched to it)
For manga I think that should be published. I think Clamp no kieski(sp?) should definitly be on the shelves here. People are begging for this title and for some reason TP wont do it. *shrug* i have no idea why.
Matt, thanks for your comment! We’re glad to hear The Manga Cookbook made your pick.
Christopher, if you’d like a review copy of The Manga Cookbook (or any other Japanime/Manga University publication), please contact me by e-mail!
Vampire Knight would still hold the title on my opinion.
Even if some new stuff came out that are very much worth interest.