Forum - View topicJason Thompson's House of 1000 Manga - Special Guest Edition: Passion Fruit
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corinthian
Posts: 264 |
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Wow. How bad do sales have to be to close a line after two volumes? And here I'm still bemoaning the death of Seven Seas' Strawberry line...
It's kind of odd that josei never really took off here. Shojo was huge for a while, so you would expect demand for more mature content to pop up as the readers aged. It can't be that girls just aged out of manga entirely. I guess the PR risk was just that big. After all, it only takes a few angry moms shouting "porn comics!" to get something pulled from the shelves. |
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Vertical_Ed
Company Representative
Posts: 278 Location: New York, NY |
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Tough to say if they did leave entirely, but there is no doubt that purchasing has dropped across the board for manga in the US. But Vertical is working on a josei line to go with our new shojo releases. We've got SAKURAN and PARADISE KISS for 2012 to go with two more titles in 2013. Let's see how they'll work out but so far Sakuran has been doing quite nicely in stores. (Over the last month it has been our second best selling manga behind 5 Centimeters Per Second). I hope Paradise Kiss does okay also. |
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here-and-faraway
 Posts: 1529 Location: Sunny California |
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I love seeing this series get recognition. “The Land Where Rain Falls" sucked me in and still lingers years later. I HAD to buy a João Gilberto album after reading it.
Side Note: It's great to hear that Sakuran is doing well! |
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Scalfin
Posts: 249 |
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High praise |
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Hellfish
Posts: 396 Location: Mexico |
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I am just waiting for pay day to buy Sakuran (hope there are still copies left) but paradise kiss!!!! *.* Can't wait!!!! |
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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I already own Paradise Kiss, but that is one series I will double dip on. I just wish Vertical could publish Ai Yazawa's back catalogue since Viz have shown zero interest in doing so...
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Vertical_Ed
Company Representative
Posts: 278 Location: New York, NY |
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I wish it were that easy to accomplish. We'd really like to and there appears to be support for Gokinjo but we currently have no access to her Shueisha titles because Viz holds first refusal rights. Unless Yazawa herself grants us those rights, which in itself would be a small miracle, the only way would be literally going through Viz. I don't think they'll easily be willing to part with an author like her, who they technically still publish. (I know I wouldn't if I were them.) |
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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Speaking of rescues, any chance of getting any of Go!Comi's series, like Cantarella, for example? Sorry to go OT, but it's rare to be able to interact with a publisher.
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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My being now in the targeted bracket love Josei manga, and I've always wondered just how bad are sales? I think there has to be a market. My generation was part of the manga boom, buying up Fushigi Yugi and Sailor Moon like nuts, and now we're all in our mid 20s to early 30s, and we still buy manga. And the best selling manga list constantly has shoujo manga in the top 10, so where's the love for some more mature manga?
I've really wondered how much Ai Yazawa sells. I buy all her stuff, and my friends love it, so they buy it as well, but she's apparently not selling enough if after all these years of Nana and Paradise Kiss not a single publisher has jumped at Gokinjo Monogatari, or any of her other books. Does Happy Mania count as Josei? I hated it when I first got into manga, but after rediscovering it in the back of my manga pile with myself now about to finish college I can't help but love the crap out of it. I even found some of those Harlequin romance novel manga I forgot I even bought, but those were really just simply horribly bad. I don't think it's the sex and the horrible pr that would come with it is what keeps these comics from getting picked up. I think it's just the fact that women's comics are still seriously underground in this country, manga or not. Look at DC's Minx comic line that died out not too long ago for a perfect example, and sadly most of those were written by men. Mostly they're published via indie publishers here, or in big compilations they publish themselves, and it's the basic stigma that slice of life stories with women as the main characters just wont sell. I think this is slowly changing since women are making up the comic market as the years progress, but then stuff happens and we go back 15 years to where comics were all just big boobs and explosions. Guess indie comics are the life for me. EDIT: Just read the message here about Viz having the refusal rights for Ai Yazawa's stuff. Well damn. Monopolies just ruin everything I want. |
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st_owly
Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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I figured something like that was the case. Nana seems to do really well for Viz so I'm surprised they haven't jumped on her back catalogue like they did with Yun Kouga's for example. Unless it's more complicated than any of us mortals realise... |
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Princess_Irene
ANN Associate Editor
 Posts: 2695 Location: The castle beyond the Goblin City |
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I read somewhere that Ai Yazawa didn't like having her older series reprinted, though since that was awhile ago, I don't know how true it is. (Or where I read it. It's just one of those random scraps of information in my head.)
It's funny, I didn't like Sweat and Honey when it came out (although I loved Galaxy Girl and Panda Boy), but I've liked everything else of Mari Okazaki's that I've read - Suppli, Shutter Love, and Shibuya Love Hotel all dealt with similar themes in longer format. Most of her works are available in French, which seems to have a pretty big josei market, at least compared to the US. And I agree with littlegreenwolf - if all of us girls who started reading manga back in the day have grown out of shoujo, why isn't josei selling better? Anyway, TokyoPop also released a lot of Erica Sakurazawa's works around when they did the Passion Fruit line, and I think George Asakura's A Perfect Day for Love Letters (Del Ray) is josei as well. Aurora had the Luv Luv line of reddicomi that were...well, illustrated bodice rippers. Basically I'll take whatever josei I can find! Very good to hear that Vertical has some more titles planned! Yay Ed! (You get the credit because you're the guy whose name I know.) |
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Vertical_Ed
Company Representative
Posts: 278 Location: New York, NY |
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If you are on twitter (@vertical_ed) or facebook (facebook.com/vertical.inc) or if you happen to have an email account (info@vertical-inc.com) you can get in touch with us regularly. We also show up to cons (AWA, NYCC in 2012... MangaNext, AnimeNext, AnimeBoston, TCAF, AX, SDCC, and hopefully ACen and/or AKon in 2013) Regarding most Go!Comi titles... Sadly most of them are out of our reach. A large number of them including Cantarella are from publishers Akita Shoten. Akita Shoten currently is refusing to work with Vertical due to some private matters. I'd love to work on Setona Mizushiro's works but we can't at this time. |
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Vertical_Ed
Company Representative
Posts: 278 Location: New York, NY |
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NANA did really really well. And I thought ParaKiss did well enough to merit a reprint. Heck so did TP, since they did two versions.
Definitely. It was one of the first, if not the first, josei title translated into English. (Not sure if some of those random josei one-shot titles CPM and ComicsOne did came before it...) |
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Vertical_Ed
Company Representative
Posts: 278 Location: New York, NY |
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I wonder. Shueisha's josei publishing division Home-sha re-released Gokinjo about a year to two ago.
I do all the manga licensing, so yeah. SWEET!! (If people know my manga writing/critique, I am a josei fan.) |
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st_owly
Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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And what Setona Mizushiro didn't do with Akita, she did with Shogakukan... Le sigh
 I'm just glad I got all of Afterschool Nightmare as it was being released. What I wouldn't give to read The Carp on the Chopping Block & The Cornered Mouse in printed form, in English...
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