A short article on the most-taxed mangaka (a list topped in 2005 by Rumiko Takahashi). There are probably more recent lists that would be likewise interesting to see and almost certainly include Oda Eiichiro, though I couldn’t find them with a casual google.
Also available here.
This post took long enough to put together as it is, so I’m dispensing with the intro.
Read this for why I redid the existing 2011 and 2012 plots. New plots are after the jump, but first, a quick summary of the major changes:
-Whether or not Zetman and Thermae Romae got significant boosts is more dubious.
-On the other hand, Maken-ki, Deadman Wonderland, Hyougemono, Brave 10, Joshiraku, Sankarea, Acchi Kocchi, Squid Girl, and Yuruyuri all look like more probable boost recipients than before.
A short promotional piece for then-new Shojo Beat. Includes a bit of testimony from Yumi Hoashi (Viz’s magazine VP) that US Shonen Jump had a 40% female readership.
One of the biggest differences between manga and western comics is the format in which it runs. While both are eventually released as collected volumes, most western comics will be first distributed in single-chapter releases, whereas manga will be first distributed in various magazines together a number of different series. The magazine model works out nicely for publishers – people pick up a magazine to read a series they’re massively into, and all of a sudden tens to hundreds of thousands of people have a chance to get a look at whatever new artist you’ve just debuted. Occasionally, that young artist ends up becoming a smash hit themselves, and you’ve got more people reading your magazine and more chances to develop more hits (while at the same time hopefully being nice to the rest of your authors).
In order for this model to work, though, you need to have people buy your magazine, and in order to buy your magazine, you need a hit series. This was a problem for manga industry mainstay and Weekly Shonen Sunday publisher Shogakukan. In 2010, they were shut out of Oricon’s top 10 manga series, and had only one series (Detective Conan, 3 times) even make the top 50 volumes that same year.
Flash forward to 2013, and they had 2 of the top 6, Magi and Silver Spoon. It’s a really impressive turnaround, even given that simple top-whatever lists fail to capture the beautiful breadth of the manga industry. How it happened is worth taking a look at, not in the least because parts of how it happened are fairly intriguing in and of themselves.
Tokyo Tribes author Santa Inoue talks about his mission to portray authentic Tokyo street culture in his manga.
A quick article on the impressive dominance of manga in the US in 2004, where manga titles reportedly made up 47 of the top 50 selling titles.
(Which reminds me: I should probably go back and add 2003-2006 US manga data at some point.)
Various studio Bones staffers. the voices of Ed and Al, and author Hiromu Arakawa discuss various aspects of symbolism in the FMA series.
This article details a very weird tie-in between Tokyopop and the NBA that totally happened, as well as corporate sponsorship for viz’s shonen jump.
I mean, I like the NBA, and I love manga, but I don’t know what the market is here. They made 12 volumes, though, so maybe that actually did well?
Number 10 on our list is Akame Ga KILL, an already popular manga adapted to the screen for your viewing pleasure! Find out why were are hyped to DEATH! (heh)
I’m adding the 2010 manga-adaptation anime into the sample of adaptation effects on their source material. Many, though not all, series show some degree of significant bump. Nitty-gritty data is collected here, and displayed below. An impressive 20 of the 26 series I looked at made the Oricon charts at some point, though one of them (Rainbow) ended before the anime began. One that didn’t, Seikon no Qwaser, is still running at 8 years, 18 volumes (it’s hardly the only series to run that long without charting, I’m just pointing out that manga can run for a long time without seeing the light of day chart-wise).
Note: For High School of the Dead, both volumes 4 and 5 came out well before the anime, and volume 6 came out during its broadcast. The gap in time was so big that they came out before mal tracked numbers for series, only posting top 10 lists. I used the available 2008 manga data to approximate the average value, in volumes, of the #10 slot to get a rough estimate of the threshold. Even holding v4 and v5 to the maximum threshold from those weeks, the 130,000 v6 and 200,000 v7 it puts up post-anime is evidence of a significant bump.
Animetics 