Anime Expo '08: Ultimate Manga Publishers Showdown

On Thursday afternoon, representatives from CMX Manga, Dark Horse Comics, VIZ Media, Digital Manga Publishing and Go! Comi came together for "Manga in the U.S. – Ultimate Manga Publisher Showdown," an event that was open only to press and industry professionals at Anime Expo 2008 in Los Angeles.

Moderated by Jason Thompson, author of Manga: The Complete Guide and Manga Editor for Otaku USA, the Ultimate Publisher Showdown was short a panelist (TokyoPop was missing in action) and fell short on its "ultimate showdown" billing by being more polite and guarded than combustible or contentious. However, it did touch upon a few of the hot button issues facing manga publishers today, namely the slumping U.S. economy, the challenge to expand manga readership beyond teens and otaku, and whether America is ready for digital delivery of manga.

IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Well, no one exactly said that – but it was clear from the comments at this panel that the manga and anime industry is currently feeling the effects of a slowing U.S. economy.

Jim Chadwick, CMX Manga Editor mentioned that American comics publishers have weathered economic ups and downs in the past, but U.S. manga publishers are dealing with a major recession for the first time. "We don't have control over how much money people are willing to spend on manga when they're dealing with how to put gas in their tanks and food on their tables. Are readers going to buy $10 - $12 books when they don't have as much discretionary income?"

David Wise, Go! Comi CEO was less concerned with the gas vs. manga dilemma, because "our audience is mostly teenagers. So unless their allowance gets cut off, they'll keep buying manga."

"Or they might decide to hit the library to read manga instead of buying it," chimed in Trulee Karahashi, CEO of the Society for the Promotion of Japanese Anime, the presenter of Anime Expo.

Karahashi also observed that AX '08 pre-registration trends provided an indicator of tougher economic times this year. "We noticed that people held on to their money longer – a lot of people waited until the last minute to decide whether they wanted to attend this year's show."

Most of the panelists felt confident that manga sales would continue to grow even with the current economic climate, just not as quickly as it has in previous years. But with more publishers and more manga being introduced all the time, the fight for bookstore and comic shop shelf space is becoming more competitive and less forgiving of new titles that take a while to catch on.

"We've also noticed that manga is getting returned (by booksellers) faster," said Wise. "Manga has a shelf life, but some of our best series will be out for over six months, and then readers discover them by word of mouth. If those titles get pulled from the shelves before that happens, we could be missing out."

"In the next year or so, you'll see a shakeout, and less diversity of titles," Wise predicted. "If you look at TokyoPop, it's already happening. It will be harder and harder to get initial orders from booksellers for riskier titles."

In defense of "riskier" manga outside of the shojo / shonen sweet spot, Kit Fox from VIZ Media pointed out that VIZ has enjoyed some success by re-introducing artistically innovative titles that were originally published prior to the current manga boom. "The ridiculous success of Naruto has been like a wave that is rising all ships – It is helping the sales of some of our edgier titles from the past like Gyo and Tekkon Kinkreet."

Rachel Livingston of Digital Manga Publishing pointed out that publishers need to adapt by being more strategic and investigating other avenues to sell their books. "Everyone talks about Borders, Borders, Borders. But we do well by selling directly to our customers through our website." She added, "The (manga) industry is stable, but everyone has to be smarter. If we make good, educated decisions, we'll be fine."

MANGA'S SALES GRAIL: REACHING NEW, OLDER READERS
In the U.S., the primary audience for manga consists of tweens and teens. But, Dark Horse Manga Editor Carl Horn reminded the panelists that "The vast majority of Americans have never read manga or seen anime, so there are still audiences left to be tapped."

Michael Gombos, Dark Horse Comics' Director of Asian Licensing pointed out that marketing manga as singular genre that has nothing in common with comics is misguided. "It's a mistake to market all manga alike, like 'Here's Crying Freeman; if you like that, you'll also like Oh My Goddess!' I think it should be more like, 'Here's Crying Freeman, and by the way, you might also like Sin City.'"

While both Livingston and Karahashi mentioned the lack of manga in English for female readers in their twenties and thirties, Wise reminded the panel that Japanese josei manga won't necessarily appeal to the Sex and the City / chick lit set. "When you get into "office lady" manga, you're getting into something that's removed from the experience of the average twenty- or thirty-something American female," said Wise.

"But ninjas aren't something that most Americans know about first-hand," Thompson replied.

"Ninja are exotic and exciting. Office life in Japan isn't," said Wise. "(the older, female) audience needs to be pursued, but it needs to be done right. That's why we're doing The Masque of Red Death with Wendy Pini -- it's mature, it's sophisticated, it's fantasy and it's for grownups -- there's not a lot of that (kind of story) available from Japan either."

WHY AREN'T THERE MORE MANGA MAGAZINES IN AMERICA?
Moderator Thompson asked the panelists if their companies had plans to add a manga anthology magazine to their publishing line-up. Livingston, Wise, Gombos and Chadwick all said that their companies had no immediate plans to launch a manga magazine ala Shojo Beat, Shonen Jump or Yen Plus, mostly for licensing and logistical reasons.

"I think they're a good idea, but we don't do them because licensing-wise, it's too hard," said DMP's Livingston.

Chadwick agreed, but also added an interesting concept that hasn't quite been explored much in the U.S.: serializing manga in mainstream magazines. "I wouldn't mind seeing some publisher doing this to break manga to mainstream audiences by mixing it with non-manga content." For example, Ai Yazawa's Paradise Kiss was originally serialized in Zipper, a Japanese fashion magazine.

IS DIGITAL MANGA DELIVERY READY FOR PRIMETIME?
TokyoPop came up often in the discussion, so it was a shame that the L.A.-based publisher was a no-show despite being scheduled to participate in this event. With TokyoPop's recent reorganization to create a division devoted to digital and multimedia manga projects in the news, Thompson asked panelists for their take on digital manga, like cell phone, online or eBook formats for devices like Amazon's Kindle.

Responses were tepid on this topic. A few panelists conceded that digital manga is worth investigating, but that readers and the technology might not be ready for it to really gain mass appeal.

"Cell phone manga is a ways down the road for America – the cell phone screens here are too small compared to what they have in Japan," said Wise.

"It's not something we're pursuing," said Gombos. "Reading a book is an intimate thing, and reading digitally is awkward."

It may be unwieldy to read, but digital content might have practical benefits beyond offering whiz-bang tech appeal. "I'm running out of space to store manga," said Livingston. "There's a nostalgia for reading manga in paper form, but digital may be more practical in the end."

Wise mentioned that while Go! Comi has explored multimedia web comics content with The Masque of Red Death, readers are not completely sold on online delivery. "We have fans who say that they're just waiting for the book version to come out (instead of reading it online)."

Chadwick described digital manga as 'viable', but made no mention of CMX Manga's much bally-hooed partnership with Japanese digital manga publisher Flex Comics that they announced at last year's San Diego Comic-Con. With the recent resignation of John Nee, DC Comics' Vice President of Business Development, who was the biggest proponent of the Flex Comics deal, is this project left in limbo?

IS ORIGINAL ENGLISH MANGA GOOD ENOUGH TO BE CALLED MANGA?
As Thompson put it, "People want to create it, but do readers want to buy it and read OEL manga?"

DMP doesn't publish OEL manga mostly due to quality issues, said Livingston. "The art right now just doesn't compare to what comes out of Japan. When the art rises up to that level, we might consider it."

As previously announced, VIZ is considering OEL manga, but as Fox put it, "we're still in the research and development stage, so more to come on that."

Gombos and Chadwick mentioned that both Dark Horse and DC Comics have resisted marketing American-made, manga-influenced comics as "manga."

"(At Dark Horse), we don't call OEL manga "manga" – we call them American comics," said Gombos. We've tried to champion that manga was created for Japanese audiences. Manhwa was created for Korean audiences. If what you're creating is for American readers, it isn't really manga, it's American comics."

"We have Minx (DC Comics' imprint for comics aimed at female teens), which I haven't called OEL," said Chadwick. "It may have been influenced by manga, and other publishers would have called it OEL manga, but I think it's a bad strategy."

CAN SUPERHERO COMICS AND MANGA MIX AND MINGLE?
Pointing out the numerous American superhero / Japanese manga crossover projects in the works now, Thompson asked the panelists for their take on this trend, and whether it would help introduce manga to new readers.

"I don't see the point in doing superheroes as manga," said Wise. "Manga readers don't care about superheroes and superhero comics readers don't like manga. The more successful idea is to take Young Adult novels and adapt them as manga, but you have to have good writers, good artists and the story has to be appropriate for the format. Warriors (from TokyoPop) is the only one who did this right."

So what's next? Fox chimed in, "Three words: Barack Obama manga!", a comment that got an appreciative round of laughter.

Photo (L-R): Rachel Livingston, Kit Fox, Jason Thompson and David Wise. Image credit: © Deb Aoki