flyingsnow
07-18-2003, 06:17 PM
(cut n paste)
Manga mania comes to the West
Japanese comics and graphic novels are no longer just a niche market in North America. Manga is flooding into bookstores thanks to girls' buying power
By J.D. CONSIDINE
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
To the traditional comics fan, it seems almost like a tale from Bizarro world.Not only has The Incredible Hulk failed to lure people back into comic shops, but, the only area of steady growth in the comic business seems to be in manga, graphic novel-based black-and-white comics from Japan. Even stranger, it turns out that most of this growth can be attributed to a single new market: Teenage girls.
That's right -- girls! Of course, they're not reading normal, macho superhero fare -- Wolverine or Batman or Spawn. Hell, no. In fact, there's scarcely a rippling muscle to be seen in the titles they like.
What they're reading is Inu Yasha, which is about Kagome, a Japanese high-school girl who has the power to pass through a time portal into medieval Japan, where she has teamed with Inu Yasha (who's half human and half dog-demon) to find the missing pieces of a sacred crystal. Or Chobits, a fantasy about a future in which personal computers have evolved into "persocoms," robots so lifelike people actually fall in love with them (and, sometimes, they even love back). Or maybe Slayers, a sword-and-sorcery sendup whose heroine -- the treasure-hungry sorceress Lina -- spends half her time fighting villains, and the other half insisting she's not that flat-chested.
Probably, they read all three, and then some. Typically, manga titles -- particularly those that appeal to girls -- dominate the graphic-novel market. "For last year, we had 38 of the top 50 graphic novels sold," says Steve Kleckner, vice-president for sales and distribution at TokyoPop, a Los Angeles-based manga publisher whose titles include Chobits, Sailor Moon, Digimon and others. "Generally, we have six to eight of the top 10 in BookScan," he adds, referring to the Nielsen-owned service that tracks bookstore sales.
Ah, yes -- bookstores. That's another part of the story traditional comic fans have trouble grasping. How can girls suddenly be buying all these graphic novels when there are hardly ever girls in the comic shops?
While Toronto is lucky enough to have such female-friendly outlets as the Beguiling and the Silver Snail, most comic vendors make the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons seem like reality TV.
"In general, girls don't go to comic shops," agrees Kleckner.
"Predominantly, our business -- with men and women -- is done in bookstores. But especially with the girls' product. They'll go into Barnes & Noble, and they'll go into Borders, and they'll go into Chapters and Indigo, and they buy these books."
In that sense, the business is following the lead of manga in Japan, albeit on a much smaller scale. According to Japanese Newsweek, manga sales in the States were worth $40-million (U.S.) last year, comprising roughly 20 per cent of the entire market. In Japan, however, the manga business brings in $4.4-billion (U.S.) annually. Successful manga artists, such as Inu Yasha creator Rumiko Takahashi, often see career sales measured in the hundreds of millions.
Of course, there are no comic books per se in Japan. Most manga is published in weekly or biweekly anthologies, which are targeted toward a specific readership. For instance, the phone book-sized Shonen Jump (literally, Boys' Jump), with weekly sales in excess of three million, is aimed at early teen boys; Ribon (Ribbon), another massive weekly, is a shoujo manga, or girls' comic, aimed at teens. Shuukan Moningu (Weekly Morning), whose stories focus on business and office politics, has a readership that is mainly businessmen. The artsy Comic Cue emphasizes alt-comics, like a Japanese version of Drawn and Quarterly.
There are manga about fashion, fishing, future worlds, sex, romance, salesmen, samurai and virtually all manner of sport. One long-running manga, Oishinbo (roughly, Progress in Deliciousness), depicts drama and intrigue within the world of Japanese gourmet cooking (complete with detailed drawings of the food). Virtually all Japanese read manga. Indeed, it's is so pervasive that government informational pamphlets are sometimes published in manga form.
Once a title proves popular, it gets collected into paperback volumes called tankouban, which are sold in bookstores like graphic novels. And like novels, they really do have a beginning, a middle and an end -- and that end is absolute. Unlike heroes of North American comics, such as Batman and Spider-Man, popular Japanese characters aren't endlessly resurrected or recycled. Once their story is done, it's done.
In that sense, the larger-scale manga stories unfold in a fashion not unlike the great serial novels of the late 19th century, with strong characters and complicated, slowly unfolding plots that keep readers flipping pages and anxiously awaiting the next instalment. Except, of course, that manga tells stories in a different fashion than novels -- different, even, than North American comics.
"The pictures seem to carry the day," says Rick Bauer, vice-president of sales and marketing at Viz Communications, which publishes Inu Yasha, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Ceres and others. "U.S. comics tend to be more text-laden -- the text tells you what you're looking at. Whereas with manga, there tends to be a lot left unsaid, and what that leads to is more of an emotional investment on the part of the reader."
Manga scholars such as Frederik Schodt, author of Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, have suggested that the reliance on pictures over words in manga stems from its use as commuter reading -- a means to distract millions of train-borne Japanese on their way to work. But the emphasis on image makes it easier for manga artists to be "cartoony" when Western comic artists would feel obliged to stick closer to realism.
For instance, it's not uncommon even in "realistic" manga for an artist to exaggerate a character's features to underscore the emotion being felt, whether anger, embarrassment, confusion or chagrin. Then there's the manga convention of having a character say ". . ." instead of merely being silent -- a device that indicates a reaction, but lets the reader fill in the blanks.
In short, it's a very visual style, and one that appeals readily to young readers, used to the quick-cut approach of music video and video games. "The 'sweet spot' for our core fans is in the 12-to-17 age group, and in particular with women," says Bauer, reciting from the extensive market research Viz has done.
"Our best customer today is a 16-year old girl," he adds.
Even so, it's not necessarily safe to make assumptions about what girls want to read -- especially if those assumptions are bound up in traditional Western notions about gender and taste. Although it's reasonably safe to assume that anything involving battling robots is meant for boys, it's worth noting that some of the most inventive science-fiction and fantasy manga have been written for girls, including such classics as Moto Hagio's A, A' and Sutaa Redo (Red Star).
Or take, for example, Alien 9, which has recently been launched as an English-language series by Central Park Media. As Frank Pannone, the company's project manager, describes it, the story is about a world under continuing threat of alien attack. "It's about these sixth-grade girls who are assigned to defend their school," he says. "But they're not supposed to kill the aliens; they're supposed to capture them, because you must respect life. And there's a weird undertone of conspiracy. When the girls are assigned, they're given these symbiotic helmets to wear, which help them to catch the aliens. But as the series progresses, you see that the girls are being changed -- they're becoming different people."
In other words, Alien 9 is a girls' comic that has enough edge to interest boys -- just as Ranma 1/2 and Neon Genesis Evangelion are boys' comics with enough intrigue and character development to hook girls.
That manga titles could attract both girls and boys has been a revelation to comic publishers on this side of the Pacific. Already, Random House has announced plans to launch its own line of manga titles, and retailers are happily clearing space in the stacks. "We are expanding our graphic-novels section," says Tracy Nesdoly, spokesperson for Indigo Books and Music, Inc. "Anything that has the manga-style look and feel is doing well."
And if current market research is any indication, that trend is only going to get stronger, as North American readers flock to the same titles that sell millions in Japan. "We're starting to see some real correlation to what's hot in Japan and what tends to do well here," says Bauer. "It's a smaller world than any of us thought."
Manga mania comes to the West
Japanese comics and graphic novels are no longer just a niche market in North America. Manga is flooding into bookstores thanks to girls' buying power
By J.D. CONSIDINE
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
To the traditional comics fan, it seems almost like a tale from Bizarro world.Not only has The Incredible Hulk failed to lure people back into comic shops, but, the only area of steady growth in the comic business seems to be in manga, graphic novel-based black-and-white comics from Japan. Even stranger, it turns out that most of this growth can be attributed to a single new market: Teenage girls.
That's right -- girls! Of course, they're not reading normal, macho superhero fare -- Wolverine or Batman or Spawn. Hell, no. In fact, there's scarcely a rippling muscle to be seen in the titles they like.
What they're reading is Inu Yasha, which is about Kagome, a Japanese high-school girl who has the power to pass through a time portal into medieval Japan, where she has teamed with Inu Yasha (who's half human and half dog-demon) to find the missing pieces of a sacred crystal. Or Chobits, a fantasy about a future in which personal computers have evolved into "persocoms," robots so lifelike people actually fall in love with them (and, sometimes, they even love back). Or maybe Slayers, a sword-and-sorcery sendup whose heroine -- the treasure-hungry sorceress Lina -- spends half her time fighting villains, and the other half insisting she's not that flat-chested.
Probably, they read all three, and then some. Typically, manga titles -- particularly those that appeal to girls -- dominate the graphic-novel market. "For last year, we had 38 of the top 50 graphic novels sold," says Steve Kleckner, vice-president for sales and distribution at TokyoPop, a Los Angeles-based manga publisher whose titles include Chobits, Sailor Moon, Digimon and others. "Generally, we have six to eight of the top 10 in BookScan," he adds, referring to the Nielsen-owned service that tracks bookstore sales.
Ah, yes -- bookstores. That's another part of the story traditional comic fans have trouble grasping. How can girls suddenly be buying all these graphic novels when there are hardly ever girls in the comic shops?
While Toronto is lucky enough to have such female-friendly outlets as the Beguiling and the Silver Snail, most comic vendors make the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons seem like reality TV.
"In general, girls don't go to comic shops," agrees Kleckner.
"Predominantly, our business -- with men and women -- is done in bookstores. But especially with the girls' product. They'll go into Barnes & Noble, and they'll go into Borders, and they'll go into Chapters and Indigo, and they buy these books."
In that sense, the business is following the lead of manga in Japan, albeit on a much smaller scale. According to Japanese Newsweek, manga sales in the States were worth $40-million (U.S.) last year, comprising roughly 20 per cent of the entire market. In Japan, however, the manga business brings in $4.4-billion (U.S.) annually. Successful manga artists, such as Inu Yasha creator Rumiko Takahashi, often see career sales measured in the hundreds of millions.
Of course, there are no comic books per se in Japan. Most manga is published in weekly or biweekly anthologies, which are targeted toward a specific readership. For instance, the phone book-sized Shonen Jump (literally, Boys' Jump), with weekly sales in excess of three million, is aimed at early teen boys; Ribon (Ribbon), another massive weekly, is a shoujo manga, or girls' comic, aimed at teens. Shuukan Moningu (Weekly Morning), whose stories focus on business and office politics, has a readership that is mainly businessmen. The artsy Comic Cue emphasizes alt-comics, like a Japanese version of Drawn and Quarterly.
There are manga about fashion, fishing, future worlds, sex, romance, salesmen, samurai and virtually all manner of sport. One long-running manga, Oishinbo (roughly, Progress in Deliciousness), depicts drama and intrigue within the world of Japanese gourmet cooking (complete with detailed drawings of the food). Virtually all Japanese read manga. Indeed, it's is so pervasive that government informational pamphlets are sometimes published in manga form.
Once a title proves popular, it gets collected into paperback volumes called tankouban, which are sold in bookstores like graphic novels. And like novels, they really do have a beginning, a middle and an end -- and that end is absolute. Unlike heroes of North American comics, such as Batman and Spider-Man, popular Japanese characters aren't endlessly resurrected or recycled. Once their story is done, it's done.
In that sense, the larger-scale manga stories unfold in a fashion not unlike the great serial novels of the late 19th century, with strong characters and complicated, slowly unfolding plots that keep readers flipping pages and anxiously awaiting the next instalment. Except, of course, that manga tells stories in a different fashion than novels -- different, even, than North American comics.
"The pictures seem to carry the day," says Rick Bauer, vice-president of sales and marketing at Viz Communications, which publishes Inu Yasha, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Ceres and others. "U.S. comics tend to be more text-laden -- the text tells you what you're looking at. Whereas with manga, there tends to be a lot left unsaid, and what that leads to is more of an emotional investment on the part of the reader."
Manga scholars such as Frederik Schodt, author of Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics, have suggested that the reliance on pictures over words in manga stems from its use as commuter reading -- a means to distract millions of train-borne Japanese on their way to work. But the emphasis on image makes it easier for manga artists to be "cartoony" when Western comic artists would feel obliged to stick closer to realism.
For instance, it's not uncommon even in "realistic" manga for an artist to exaggerate a character's features to underscore the emotion being felt, whether anger, embarrassment, confusion or chagrin. Then there's the manga convention of having a character say ". . ." instead of merely being silent -- a device that indicates a reaction, but lets the reader fill in the blanks.
In short, it's a very visual style, and one that appeals readily to young readers, used to the quick-cut approach of music video and video games. "The 'sweet spot' for our core fans is in the 12-to-17 age group, and in particular with women," says Bauer, reciting from the extensive market research Viz has done.
"Our best customer today is a 16-year old girl," he adds.
Even so, it's not necessarily safe to make assumptions about what girls want to read -- especially if those assumptions are bound up in traditional Western notions about gender and taste. Although it's reasonably safe to assume that anything involving battling robots is meant for boys, it's worth noting that some of the most inventive science-fiction and fantasy manga have been written for girls, including such classics as Moto Hagio's A, A' and Sutaa Redo (Red Star).
Or take, for example, Alien 9, which has recently been launched as an English-language series by Central Park Media. As Frank Pannone, the company's project manager, describes it, the story is about a world under continuing threat of alien attack. "It's about these sixth-grade girls who are assigned to defend their school," he says. "But they're not supposed to kill the aliens; they're supposed to capture them, because you must respect life. And there's a weird undertone of conspiracy. When the girls are assigned, they're given these symbiotic helmets to wear, which help them to catch the aliens. But as the series progresses, you see that the girls are being changed -- they're becoming different people."
In other words, Alien 9 is a girls' comic that has enough edge to interest boys -- just as Ranma 1/2 and Neon Genesis Evangelion are boys' comics with enough intrigue and character development to hook girls.
That manga titles could attract both girls and boys has been a revelation to comic publishers on this side of the Pacific. Already, Random House has announced plans to launch its own line of manga titles, and retailers are happily clearing space in the stacks. "We are expanding our graphic-novels section," says Tracy Nesdoly, spokesperson for Indigo Books and Music, Inc. "Anything that has the manga-style look and feel is doing well."
And if current market research is any indication, that trend is only going to get stronger, as North American readers flock to the same titles that sell millions in Japan. "We're starting to see some real correlation to what's hot in Japan and what tends to do well here," says Bauer. "It's a smaller world than any of us thought."