Everyone is still reacting to yesterday’s news that Tokyopop is splitting in two, one unit for books, the other for all other media. That part actually makes sense, but the word that they will be cutting the number of releases in half, and laying off 39 employees (out of 90-100, so that’s a big bite), gave many people pause. Christopher Butcher parses the whole thing extremely well at Comics212, looking at several possible scenarios for the rest of this year and critiquing some of the critics. (Chris reads the ANN forums so you don’t have to!) Matt Blind has some interesting analysis of the business side at Comicsnob. At Shuchaku-East, Chloe hopes the pruning of their list will come more in the form of not picking up new titles than dropping established ones mid-series. At Manga Xanadu, Lori Henderson thinks the split is a good move for Tokyopop, as the digital stuff has been distracting from the books. I’m inclined to agree. Tokyopop suffers from an extreme lack of focus—they toss out a lot of ideas, some good, some bad, and then don’t follow up. I also agree with Lori that more focus on the global titles is not a bad thing, if they pick strong books and give them the support they need. As Johanna Draper Carlson observes,
Says Stuart Levy, CEO, “Few releases will allow for less cannibalization at retail.” Which seems to imply that they think people aren’t buying TP book 1 because they’re buying TP book 2. I don’t think that’s right, based on my own experience: instead of buying TP book 1, I buy a Viz or a Del Rey or an Aurora (when it comes to josei) title.
They need to fix that.
Recently downsized editor Peter Ahlstrom has some educated guesses on the fate of specific titles at the Anime on DVD forums. At the ANN forums he notes that the last volume of Grenadier has already gone to press, so that title is safe. (All you people who go on and on about “OEL crap”: Grenadier is about a pistol-totin’ mama who pops bullets out of her cleavage. This is quality comics?) Also he sees the Korean titles, particularly Rebirth, as likely to be cut.
One thing to keep in mind is that some customers of manga are not fans of comics per se. That is to say, they are not buying them because they like the medium but for other reasons. It’s like if someone who likes birds buys a “birds of the Americas” stamp series. They’re buying it because they like birds not stamps. They’re not going to be interested in a stamp collection based on trains. In the same way, some people buy manga because they might like Japanese culture, moe, ninja, a specific property, or bishounen—not because they necessarily like comics/manga. Trying to convert them to the “read comics/manga because you love comics/manga” camp is a silly and futile exercise. Or to put it another way, not everyone who buys a rose for their yard is a gardener and will appreciate being offered Kerria; they may just like roses.
In the end, people like what they like and quality is subjective. I think both the OEL Apologists and the Manga-Companies-Must-Be-Pure Inquisition can forget this at times. What enough people like will get sold. If the numbers aren’t there, it doesn’t matter how much one individual may love or hate a work.
Commentor Nagisa has brought up the interesting point about what ‘manga’ fans want. I like to call this, the Weeaboo Syndrome. Weeaboos are rabid Japanophiles. In their minds, Japan is superior to America. Just ignore that they’ve never been there and only know about Japan from cartoons.
As someone who loves both manga and American comics, I simply do not understand this mentality. Sturgeon’s Law is usually correct, 90% of everything is crap, be it from Japan or America. Manga has as much flotsam and as many overused cliches as US comics do.
Meanwhile, I find it very interesting that TokyoPop is thinking of hoping on the comics to film bandwagon, especially after the success of Iron Man Marvel Studios. Gee, a comics publisher splitting off a film and media division. Sounds familiar. Of course my blog being on a site called Comics2Film, I have to confess some bias myself.
Also, have you heard of the horrible idea TokyoPop has for one of its lead films? They’re totally ripping apart very nice manga Lament of the Lamb for an overblown Americanized 3-D film.
Just checked Amazon.jp, and vol.5 of Shrine of the Morning Mist is due for release this week in Japan, so I’m curious if TP has licensed the series past vol.4….. I do hope they finish it off if that’s the last volume
Oh wait, it came out in Japan last year. That’s not a good sign……
Sigh. I suppose we can’t just appreciate that different people value different things, can we? Instead, we must bring up cliches like Sturgeon’s Law, that have no experimental basis, to prove that “our tastes are the best.” Because, of course, we only go after the 10% that “isn’t crap.” Why isn’t it crap? Because we like it. If it was crap, we wouldn’t like it.
Bottom line is people like what they like. Why does it matter if others are different? Must everyone have the same tastes? Is there only one reason for liking something? Are all other approaches heretical? Must we seperate the world into “superior” and “inferior” when there is no solid basis for doing so and you will never find any standard that all people throughout the world and time agree upon? North America has a diverse population with diverse tastes. There is enough room for all of us.
Well I have an issue when people draw the line of superior / inferior at whether the book is from Japan / not from Japan.
As for Stugeon’s law, for get it. It was still in my mind from something I heard Neil Gaiman say about something else. My point was that there is quality in both US and Japanese books. Yet there is a generation now that has this mentality that only Japan is quality. They think these OEL books, what we used to just call comics or graphic novels, are automatically bad because they’re not pure manga. As if being Japanese is somehow automatically better. Is it just me or is it frightening that a generation of fans automatically prefer a foreign product and turn their nose up to other American creators?
I think the problem with most OEL manga is that it is very amateurish and superficial and bullet sprayed with tone because noone wants to go to the trouble of shading. (see Amazing Agent Luna) Like someone is doing it in their spare time and rushing it. Ok, if you’re doing something part time, you can still make it incredibly good. You can still write quality stuff. It just takes longer. A lot of the Tokyopop books don’t even resemble Japanese art styles. They look more like American webcomics or are influenced too much by American cartoon strips or indie comic books. What attracts me to manga is the fact that it IS from a different culture and offers different storytelling techniques, artstyles, and cultural aspects than those that exist in American comics. Tokyopop thinks it can take a graphic novel and just shrink it and call it manga. Hollow Fields is the only book that has blown me away. And Grenadier is an allright book. It’s as good as the best OEL manga if not better (except for Fields). Take a look at Gon or Eden or Fullmetal Alchemist and you will see that OEL manga books like Heavenshield are pretty pathetic if compared to them. Korean works are better than OEL as well because they seem to understand the manga style better than the West, if not always in the art, at least in the stories they tell and the way in which they unfold them.
I agree that people are totally turning their noses up when you present “OEL” comics compared to manga or mahwa. Its like they’re only attracted to the foreigness of overseas comics and thats why their so popular. Just like Bleach and Naruto are sooo popular here but One Piece, a manga about pirates? people here just dont find this “cool” factor with pirates compared to ninjas/samurais.
So yea, I bet if a japaneses mangaka does a story about a american girl who lives in new york as a assasin i bet otakus here in America will eat it up which is sad because if it were a american comicker who did it then they wouldnt even touch it. >_<
I think the problem here is like what Sesho was saying. Manga fans in America only think of OEL as “amateurish” rendition of manga. They think of them like cheap webcomics that they wouldnt even look at to at least read the story. Im thinking the only way a OEL book can be top rank is if they have a strong following of fans or if their work is 100% manga influenced that you cant even tell a non japan mangaka did it. Who knows.
When these “OEL (Global aka non-Japanese) vs Japanese” thingies end? I can’t see anything productive.
Don’t forget that almost manga forums belong to anime sites,many people there are biased as same as people in other fandoms.And each people have different tastes.
Bitching at other fandom or people can’t solve anything.Most important thing is how to find own readers,which Tokyopop seems to fail in.
Sesho, to be fair, I’m sure there are a bunch of amateur or simply bad manga out there too. We just don’t see them along side best sellers like FMA or Death Note or whatever. It’s like putting student films or Blair Witch along side big budget Hollywood films. It’s like Clerks compared to Chasing Amy.
To me, something like Morrison’s Batman is more like Death Note than these OEL books. They’re large publishers in Japan. Also, what TokyoPop is trying with creator control is more like Batman than it is Death Note.
Meanwhile, black and white comics in the US were relegated mostly to indie and small press. So, I can see you drawing similarities. Makes me think of books like Demo or Local. Any of the early Brian Wood written books with a variety of artists. Hell, those are the same thing as these TokyoPop OEL books, if not better. Hell, Becky Cloonan has a TokyoPop book out. (Isn’t vol 2 due out soon finally?)
The line of OEL ‘manga’ artists vs small press and indie artists is an artificial one. They seem to be mining the same artist pool. Gimmie Teenagers from Mars over ‘Super Shonen Knock-off 47’ any day.
Actually, a manga off the topof my ehad with a different style, one that looks like something from the Sunday newspaper funnies, is Love Roma. Also, related to that, what the hell is TokyoPop doing publishing graphic novel excerpts in the Sunday fummies? Some horrible storytelling there.